NEED HELP PLEASE>>>>>

[pete from TN]

Hey guys, I am not having much luck with my Lathemaster control unit lately. I got the X and Y working as many of you saw in that video but tried to get the Z working and now I am all messed up with the wiring. I know it is simple to many of you on here but for me this has been a real hair puller. I respectfully beg any of you who have a Cnc4pc C11G breakout board based control unit and Geckos to take a close up picture of your controller so I can try to copy it with the wiring. I know this is a long shot but I Am seriously at the end of my rope here. I went from having all three axes working at Bill Souths house to now having nothing working. Have spent the last three nights trying every conceivable wiring combination and cannot get a fault light to go out on any of the Geckos. The geckos worked before and Bill was kind enough to lend me one of his until I can get one repaired. I have tried to call Arturo Duncan of cnc4pc numerous times and no response. I am about to just call it quits here so any and all help would be seriously appreciated. IF not I will just take it all off and sell it and go back to manual I guess....peace

[Numb Nut]

Have you checked out the gecko drive manual to see what can cause the fault light to illuminate? Are the encoder and motor wires connected the right way around?

http://www.geckodrive.com/upload/G320-REV-7-Manual.pdf

[acondit]

Pete,

Here is what the manual says about the fault condition:

FAULT INDICATOR:
The FAULT indicator is on while the drive is in power-on reset, the DISABLE input is held “low” or if the protection circuit is
tripped due to a fault condition. All power MOSFETs are turned off and all internal counters are reset. The FAULT
condition lasts for 3 seconds, and then self-resets to try again. If the protection circuit tripped it and the cause is not
cleared, then it will immediately re-enter the FAULT state again and repeat the cycle.
There are two conditions that will trip the protection circuit. One condition is if a short-circuit occurs and current exceeds
20 amps.
The other condition is if the POSITION ERROR exceeds +/- 128 counts causing a break of the servo-lock. This condition
can have several causes:
1) The loop settings are severely under-damped and the motor breaks out into oscillation.
2) Excessive motor load due to acceleration or workload.
3) The speed command in excess of what the motor can deliver.
4) The current LIMIT is set too low.
5) The power supply current is insufficient for the demand.
6) The motor is wired backwards, is broken or disconnected.
7) Encoder failure.

Alan

[bill south]

Pete;
Did you go back to the basic configruation that we had set up in my shop? Have you returned to the setup in Mach that gave you the 2 axis drive. Disconnect all wiring but the basic encoder, gecko and power supply. Mach has to be setup properly with the correct pins assisgned. The emergensey reset must be either wired or selected with the state changed to allow the machine to reset. Go back to the basics, and check each setup screen. Once you have the system running again, then add the limits and the Spindle control. Make sure the 5V from the compter usb is there and that the cable your using is plugged in good, in fact, check all cables to make sure they are plugged in and making good connection. You said you ohmed everything out. Did you do a point to point from the origin to the point of use. Check all the way to the encoder connector from the gecko, not just to the pin out on the BOB. Pete, we had it working and it will again. I'd almost bet its going to be in the Mach setup and not the hard wiring, that is, if all the connections are good. A silly question, is Mach displaying any error messages? Have you changed computers to make sure your parallel port is working OK?? Check out all your cables to make sure some have not been damaged. The wiring is simple as we figured out. However, there are a lot of things in the Mach setup that will not let you reset. Don't get discouraged. There are a lot of folks that want to see you succeed as your will with one ass kicking machine.
Call me.
Bill

[bill south]

Yeah me again!
Attached is a schematic of your particular wiring less the BOB. Look at it close and note the way the 5V from the compter is wired in to the geckos common (listed as +5). The only other connection on this circuit is the en input on the BOB.
Also note the way the switch is installed (engage/disengage). Make sure yours is wired the same way. The other wiring is self explainatory and straight forward.
Also please note that if you reversed the polarity on your motors when installing the connectors, it will cause an automatic fault. The encoders must be tuned to the motor rotation!
Slowely, taking little steps!!!!!
Good Luck.
Bill

[pete from TN]

Man guys I was about to call it quits with this thing the other day but I gotta tell you thanks to Bill and art it is now working great!!!! I actually have all three axes and spindle control now....Man this thing is just too cool

I was just out there doing some of my first test cuts and after I did some slight rewiring of the X axis encoder wiring and some gecko adjustments all is working well. I cannot wait to be doing some engraving and machining some cool parts. Just gotta get the limits working now and I am thinking I am gonna try my hand at recreating the encoders I got from Ray for the Z axis since I do not have another one. Should be a good first project I hope.... ANyways, thanks to all of you that have been so very patient and helpful with my first build. This stuff is just wicked cool....peace

[BobWarfield]

Servo systems are a lot more finicky than steppers to get going, but they're sure nice once you get there.

Glad to hear that z-axis Gecko wasn't fried.

FYI, here is a troubleshooting guide I put together after I got tired starting from scratch every time I hit a problem on my mill:

http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCCNCDebug.htm

Cheers,

BW