X axis not stepping

[m.marino]

Mike, can you give us some more details on what Drivers your using, what power supply, are you using mach 2 or 3? Can you post up some pics of your machine ?

The others will be alog shortly im sure to help you out, the above things are questions i think they will want to know.

When you say "but clicks in places" whats giving the clicking sound ? Confirm your drivers for me and we can take it from there, i know that the MCP drivers need a good supply of power when one driver is giving a fault light (red led) and adding an addtinal power supply fix's the problem 98% of the time.

Hopfully some of the more qualified chaps will be along soon.

Okay, Here is what I have on the name?type of the motors:

23HS8603 which from Stepperworld are said to be 190 oz-in 6.75V 1.5A Unipolar six wire Motors. The information from Motion King (the firm which produces them matches with the exception of them being 140 Ncm motors. The webpage with technical info is: http://www.motionking.com/Products/H..._1.8degree.htm .

The Drivers/Breakout board is a Stepperworld FET3 Dynamo using the power supply that comes with it (a computer PSU 650W) and set up with twelve volt and running inline 1.5 Ohm 50W resistors with one per centre tap (two total/motor). It has an indepedent 5V wired to the board from PSU for logic. Schematic can be seen at the file that i loaded of it awhile ago to the site (look for uploads by me as it is the only one there). Information on it can be had at: http://stepperworld.com/FET3dynamo.htm .

The Router is a World of CNC (Marchant Dice) MDL-2-TR-UN. Which can be seen here:http://www.worldofcnc.com/products.asp?recnumber=194 . One item that I would mention is that a tighting order was not sent with the unit (an order with which it is prefered to tighten the bolts down for truing the unit after shipping). This cost me a good bit of time in getting the unit fully true.

I am using Mach3 and have had good response via both laptop and Desk top units (until Windows ate its lunch on the Desk top and been using the laptop currently) Setting are:

PIN2 = X Direction
PIN3 = X Step
PIN4 = Y Direction
PIN5 = Y Step
PIN6 = Z Direction
PIN7 = Z Step
PIN14 = Enable 1
PIN16 = Enable 2
PIN17 = Enable 3

E Stop is emulated at present

Motors are running at between 135 to 148 steps per unit speed is running from 225 on Z, 300 on X, to 550 on Y as stable. This is in half step mode. High Torque is very choppy at these setting and Wave will not move at these setting except Y which goes very choppy. Acceleration is 4 to 5mm/sec/sec last two setting on Mach3 tuning page are 0,0. Tunig was done using and rechecking Mach3 tuner for the steps per unit. Units are mm.

When starting up must start Mach3 before starting break out board or won't see all the motors. Yet if I turn of driver?BOB and do any hardware changes (change from step to one of the other two settings) it will drop one or more motors. Current pulses are set at 25K.

Currently even on a cold start up it is not always picking up all three motors. The clicking sound when it was running all three motors but not stepping X at all was coming from the X motor and I could assist it by hand to turn in the direction of motion it needed to go. This has me believing that the motors maybe be used or not of high quality or just plain not functioning properly.

Items Looking at:

1. Has the motors crapped out (even though I bough them less than six months ago)? I have put less than 10 hours of run time on them.
2. Do I need to increase the Pulse rate to give a better signal to the system and therefore allow better control of the motors?
3. Do I need to go to a dedicated PSU that has 12V or 24V power output available? (the system is rated for 12V I know. I don't know if it will handle higher without finding a way to cool the FET's)
4. Changing the BOB which entails a whole mess in and of itself (and is not really wanted ATM, but will be done in the hopefully near future, contract first, upgrades second)

Hopefully all this detail will help those of you who can help me get this thing corrected and on line.

Michael

[John S]

Sorry to tell you this but dump the Stepperworld board, they are rubbish.

Do a web search for problems with them.

John s.

[m.marino]

One item forgot to mention was that this is the FET3 board with MOSFET's upgrade on it. This is not the SP3 board which is not usable for anything over 80 oz-in motors. Hope this helps clarify a bit more.

Michael