Need input

[Ripper1975]

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?...=STRK:MEWNX:IT

Bought that kit, my bud wants to make a small plasma cnc table. So i decided to buy the gear to figure out the motor part at least.

After some help from doorknob on here. I wired the kit. I think its all right. i plug it in 12v fan turns. My board is a 3.5A so i run the power at 25%, since motors are 1A. I have some weird feedback to my monitor. I have 24v going in the board. 3 out of my 4 motors are getting hot, without doing anything. I watched carefully when i plug it all in, i didn't smell anything burning out on the board.

Any input/help would be appreciated.

[Ripper1975]

All the wiring seem ok, i've checked the power on the motor outputs i ahve 24 on all of em except on the Y, i get nothing.

[Ripper1975]

I just want to see the damn things turn hehe

[doorknob]

There's a good possibility that one of your axes is defective.

Have you ruled out the possibility of a defective motor connector? If you turn off the power and then swap your Y motor connector with your Z motor connector, and then power up again, does the problem follow the motor or does it remain on the Y axis?

If it remains on the Y axis, then you might try getting a replacement from the Chinese vendor. Or, you might try some diagnostic probing to see whether it may be a fixable problem (such as a cold solder joint or a damaged trace on the PC board).

However since you have 3 of the motors energized, you could perform some additional troubleshooting to see whether you are able to command the other axes from your software.

[Ripper1975]

I did a motor swap and same thing.
I dont have access to an osciloscope

[doorknob]

One other easy test comes to mind - can you measure the voltage on several of the pins of the DB-25 connector? Some parallel ports only put out 3.3 volts instead of 5 volts for their signals, and if yours has too low a voltage, it may not be sufficient to drive the board.

Oh, and some people have found that their parallel port card is configured incorrectly - if you are using Mach3, does Mach3 find the parallel port card? Is it specified as an "EPP" port or an "ECP" port (I forget which one Mach3 likes, but I seem to recall that it is the EPP).

[ger21]

Oh, and some people have found that their parallel port card is configured incorrectly - if you are using Mach3, does Mach3 find the parallel port card? Is it specified as an "EPP" port or an "ECP" port (I forget which one Mach3 likes, but I seem to recall that it is the EPP).

Mach3 doesn't care what the port is set to.

It's the Gecko G540 that requires EPP mode to work correctly with Mach3.

[Ripper1975]

Verified the Y is dead, and i have 3.8v on the db-25

[doorknob]

Just in time - LPT port buffer boards are discussed here:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/contro...rt_3_3_5v.html

[Ripper1975]

ordered the cnc4pc board. And contacted Longs motors to get a new board on waranty. Thanks for the input fellas.

[Ripper1975]

Well the Z axis is showing life. I trying to get this thing configured, here are the settings given by the chinese seller. And a picture of the board itself.



www.predun.com/rip/img1.jpg

www.predun.com/rip/img2.jpg

www.predun.com/rip/img3.jpg

www.predun.com/rip/img4.jpg

www.predun.com/rip/img5.jpg

[doorknob]

Some people advise starting with a kernal speed of 25,000 to get things working, and afterwards testing higher speeds.

The A axis step port and dir port are shown as 0, but should be 1.

The step, dir and enable pin settings look OK.

I would expect that the 3.3V to 5V buffer card will help, as will adding a load to the stepper motors, as well as setting the current DIP switch to 50% if it's not there already (or maybe to 100%).