Troubleshooting non responsive machine- Mach3/Syil x4

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Originally Posted by IhateDoug

Can a bolt on the frame be used as ground? If so neither have power (I tested bolt to a known power and it showed its power so I take it as the bolts grounded?)
Just my spindle doesn’t have a middle pin and I think I’ve located this capacitor you speak of but unsure where it’s - is?

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Okay, I've looked again at your pictures provided, on this one...

Attachment 26292

On the Y-Home set of terminals (3 off) there's I think "VCC", "S" and "GND" - with no wires in any. Unscrew the GND terminal post a few turns and put a bit of insulated stranded wire (end stripped) into the terminal and tighten up - this is your ground/0V/whateverIcallit reference point. Wrap the other end of that wire around the meters black probe and insulate that connection - now you're just probing with one hand.

The measurements you've provided from the estop wire make be believe that white is the switch, and the red is the 0v reference. Now that I've realised there's silkscreen printing beneath the terminals you can probably easily verify that.

The one volt measured - surprises me quite a bit, but I'm not convinced that's measured against the correct 0v reference. To drop 4V across the on board pull-up resistors would mean that the logic on board is sinking 2mA into the inputs - feels very wrong.

Okay, from what you've done already - can you reconfirm using the 0v reference from the start of this reply. I do expect that you'll get a more decisive voltage reading on the meter - I'd expect a lot higher than 1V on the white wire / pin 11 as you describe.

Rather than taking images - if you can just rattle off the measured volts - the images are a bit low contrast once they reach the UK :) - also, I guess from what I can see the meter is auto-selecting AC/DC ranges based on it's own determination?, obviously we'd expect DC voltage readings - an AC setting is likely to read 0V even if the pin has a DC voltage on it. I did quickly check - that Fluke looks like a T5-600 which auto-senses AC/DC - not an ideal meter for this but we should get something out of it - but I'm only trusting non-zero voltage readings if the DC indicator is present.

OP: Sorry, I might have ignored some interesting and relevant info that you posted. I *think* I'm right in my understanding that you've measured from the white wire (that I think you've decided (correctly) is ground/0V and pin 11 of the DB25 connector, and you're getting either 1V or 0V indicated depending on the state of the E-Stop?

If that is true, and I'm being cautious with what I think you're saying and my understanding. But if that is the case then there is something badly wrong on this breakout board. Can you measure the voltage (with reference to 0v/ground on the white wire) - the 5V supply voltage from the voltage regulator. You might find it easier picking this up on pins 2, 4 or 6 of any of the IDC connectors. There's many other places to pick it up off the board - you might be able to pick it off the "VCC" terminal on the Y Home sensor terminal block (I'm assuming that this is sourced from the on board 5 regulator).

Another question - are any (and if so, which) LEDs illuminated on the board?

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Originally Posted by Doddy

OP: Sorry, I might have ignored some interesting and relevant info that you posted. I *think* I'm right in my understanding that you've measured from the white wire (that I think you've decided (correctly) is ground/0V and pin 11 of the DB25 connector, and you're getting either 1V or 0V indicated depending on the state of the E-Stop?

If that is true, and I'm being cautious with what I think you're saying and my understanding. But if that is the case then there is something badly wrong on this breakout board. Can you measure the voltage (with reference to 0v/ground on the white wire) - the 5V supply voltage from the voltage regulator. You might find it easier picking this up on pins 2, 4 or 6 of any of the IDC connectors. There's many other places to pick it up off the board - you might be able to pick it off the "VCC" terminal on the Y Home sensor terminal block (I'm assuming that this is sourced from the on board 5 regulator).

Another question - are any (and if so, which) LEDs illuminated on the board?

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That’s correct - I’ll double check however.
There are 2 leds illuminated “led1” and ‘led2’


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Plugged into pc
-Estop off
Red 11dc
White 0
-Estop On
R 0
W 0

Unplugged from pc 0-pin 11
-off 1dc
-on 1dc

Cord unplugged from machine
-off 1dc
-on 1dc


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If I go white to pin 3 on the db25 cable I get 5v?


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All very interesting. I'm getting confidence with your meter. Pin 3 is an output from the PC, likely pulled-high on the board - so measuring it disconnected from the PC at 5V makes sense to me.

Right, let's have some fun. Only proceed if you're happy that you can safely do this with your computer printer port (or at the end of the cable that you can plug into the printer port) - rather depends on whether you can insert a pin or socket (I forget) over/into a pin without cause a short circuit. If you have a spare DB25 connector of the correct gender it's a lot easier.

FOR CLARITY - this is done only with the computer, not with the machine connected.

What I'd be interested in is whether you can connect the pin 11 on the PC side to 0v or 5v. You don't have 5V available as-such on the parallel port, but you do have 0V. A cunning alternative is to use the X-DIR OUTPUT from the PC and use this to drive the E-STOP input, simply - short pin 17 and pin 11 on the DB25 connector - without shorting any other pin!!

If you're satisfied that you can do this safely/sensibly, disable the ESTOP input on the mach3 Inputs, then you can use cursor left / cursor right to change the e-stop signal on the printer port. Use the diagnostic screen to verify the state of this (I've not used mach3 for a long while - I expect you can also see the state of the Direction signal on P17 as well).

If you can verify that, then I think the problem can be localised to the BOB.

Conscious that OP is viewing this, I need to post the "FOR CLARITY" bit separately...

The above step is on the computer ONLY, without the machine connected.

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Originally Posted by IhateDoug

There are 2 leds illuminated “led1” and ‘led2’
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Dammit, I was hoping for the onboard regulator to be fubarred

I disabled estop in Mach 3 and have jumped pin 11 and 17

Unsure what now - nothing shows on the diagnostics tab?Attachment 26293


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So, my thoughts are - with the other end of the cable plugged into the computer(?) that any output on pin 17 (the X-Direction pin) will be driving the E-Stop input into Mach3. By moving the X-Axis one way you'll set the X-Dir pin to +5V, by moving the other direction you'll set the X-Dir pin to 0V. You might have to do this from the "Run" page/tab on Mach 3... then head to the diagnostic page to witness the setting of the pin-11 input (estop). Sounds obvious, but with moving the axis in one direction, pin 11 input should be active, and in the other direction pin 11 should be in-active. This is just intended to verify the behaviour of the PC/motherboard, and later to verify the binding of the pin to the e-stop input.