Stepper motors not responding

I just finished setting up a ramps 1.4 and arduino mega setup. I was testing motors using both pronterface and Cura but whenever I would send a signal to the motor it would spin a short distance, but then it would make rythmic whines and not spin whatever I pressed. I am not sure what to do to fix this?

Could be a safety feature?
The motors won't spin until the printer is homed ( G28 )
You can try Ramps_test to test the hardware and wiring, then move on to Marlin or whatever you want to use for printing.

When you run it, better decouple the motors from the printer-axis'.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2018 02:13AM by o_lampe.

2 things.

Check for binding of the movements with the steppers off.

Movement should be smooth with no hanging or snags.

Then check the voltages of your step sticks. Plenty of good videos on youtube to do this.

Also be sure to check or know the current rating of your steppers. I use small ones so my values are lower than most folks.

Some of the Ramps boards will need a re-flow of the solder joints. I had the same issue with my Ramps 1.4 until I used a Loop and inspected all the solder joints. There were a lot of cold and incomplete solder joints.
You should not have any issues driving the steppers and they should be smooth. even without being homed.

Loop = magnifier glass

... magnifying glass = loupe

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Quote
AMDcats
I just finished setting up a ramps 1.4 and arduino mega setup. I was testing motors using both pronterface and Cura but whenever I would send a signal to the motor it would spin a short distance, but then it would make rythmic whines and not spin whatever I pressed. I am not sure what to do to fix this?

Typically this is a stepper/cable incompatibility. There is no standard stepper wiring pattern. I check and usually have to re-arrange my stepper wires on the four-pin connectors every time I build a new machine.
You will need a DVM (voltmeter) to troubleshoot this - Get one, they're cheap and indispensable.
Look at your board schematic and the winding pairs. They will be labeled something like "1A, 1B, 2A, 2B". The 1's are a pair, the 2's are a pair.
Use your DVM to find the winding pairs on your stepper, there will be two pairs. Set your DVM to measure resistance, the pairs will be the wires that measure something between them.
Wire your four-pin connectors to match the pairs on your RAMPS board.
Odds are your first attempt will run a stepper backwards from what you want, just swap _one_ winding pair order and that will be fixed. Alternatively, you can edit the configuration.h file to reverse that stepper's direction.

That should do it.
DLC

An addendum to what dlc was saying:

Also, generally the pins are 1A, 1B, 2B, 2A. (This allows you to just change the orientation of the motor connector to reverse motor direction.)

Some steppers have a 6 pin terminal on the motor. you can see which pins you want on that terminal. You will want pins 1, 3, 4, and 6. 1 and 3 are a pair, and 4 and 6 are a pair. (2 and 5 are centre taps for the motor coils, and for a RAMPS type board, you want to leave these disconnected.)

You connect them in the same order as they are on the motor terminals, 1A is pin 1, 1B is pin 3, 2B is pin 4, and 2A is pin 6.

If (Like my motors) the wires just come out of the casing and have no connector, you can sometimes guess based on wire colour. FWIW, my motors are wired red, blue, green, black, but you'll want to verify your wiring pairs with your multimeter for sure.

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MBot3D Printer
MakerBot clone Kit from Amazon
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Leadscrew self-built printer (in progress)
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