Troubleshooting Help

[jdell42]

Guys I have an intermittent problem with my router that hopefully others may have had and diagnosed. Looking for any assistance / tips to assist with the debug.

SETUP
Its an 06 Joe with Gecko Vampires and a Mini I/O from CandCNC using Keling 570oz-in steppers. Running Mach. The Gecko's have heat sinks and fans on them. The router has been running flawlessly (other than operator error) for 2 years.

I bought this setup to transport to a bigger and better router as time/energy permits.

PROBLEM / SYMPTONS
Recently it was running and I heard a loud bang (scare the crap out of you loud) whereby both the x and y directions stopped moving. After a 1-2 seconds both axis started up and kept going although loosing a significant amount of steps. This problem has repeated itself a few more times usually materializing after several minutes of cutting.

WHAT I HAVE TRIED
Assuming an intermittent power problem caused by loose connections I "giggled" all of the power/step/direction connections on the Gecko's while running a program in the air (not the safest thing.. I know). No issue found

Assuming some type of stepper problem I ran a program at 200% feed rate override (300 in/min). No issue found

Checked all connections to power supply ect.. nothing abnormal.

WHAT I AM LEANING TORWARDS
-Intermittent Power Problem?
-Overheating of a GECKO?
-Software interference on PC?
-Failing breakout board?

Any other suggestions / hints?

Thanks

[posix]

my first thought was power supply issue?

[jdell42]

In case anyone has a similar problem I have tracked this down to a loose heatsink on my X Gecko which was putting the Gecko into some type of thermal shutdown.

The clip on the heatsink never fit well from the start and it must have loosened over the last year. I cut 1 row of fins off the heatsink making it a little smaller and now it fits very well and the router is running reliably again.

[analogman]

Do you use thermal grease between your heatsink and Gecko?

[pminmo]

I wouldn't think it's a gecko thermal issue, as that would in all probability manifest as one axis, not 2 at the same instant. The big bang would almost make me think you had a filter capacitor fail if your using a linear power supply. But I would expect that to be physically viewable. But i'd tend to look real closely at my power supply first.