Thanks for the input jazz, we are moving now on the x axis, I disconnected anything that's not needed then tested and no movement so opened debug window and the system state changed when jog pressed so I swapped drive for the a axis ( I only connected the x for trial purposes, damage limitation and all that) still no movement then took the motor off to check the holding torque and that was impressively good so all the signs that "system status" was good my next thing was to uninstall and reinstall Mach but as a last attempt I moved the step and dir wires to channel 2 terminals (z) and the x works fine and does exactly what you tell it to, so I moved wires to y Channel terminals and no response so I put them back to z channel and we run fine!!!
But now I don't want to connect the ALM and ENA signals back to the drive in case I buggered the 0 and 1 channel this way, as its a 4 axis machine I still have enough channels to run it properly I have altered the channel numbers to suit the correct axes and I am going to wire the step and dir signals tomorrow night and get everything else moving before starting on the home switches,
I don't know how the 2 channels are damaged have you any ideas what it takes to stop them working?
thanks,
chris w