Need Help!- G540 charge pump fault, no motion. Settings?

[JosephD]

Hello all,
I have been reading CNC forums and Gecko manuals for the better part of a week now and still can't solve my problem. I have Mach3 interfaced with a Gecko G540 via the printer port. In the setup before hooking the parallel port to the computer I can get the Gecko to give holding torque with the charge pump off. Hooking up the parallel port cable to the computer I don't get any X,Y,Z motion. Yeah, yeah, happens to everyone right? Did I contact the original vendor for trouble shooting? Yes, sent and XML file that still had just basic settings and still didn't work ("need to be customized for the machine") was the response. I tested to make sure I have a DB25 straight thru cable, it appears I do and ordered another one from CNC4PC to be extra sure. As you can see, at 3:30am EST I am at wits end. Could someone look at these settings, maybe something obvious will pop out?

Ports & Pins --> printer port set to 0x378 (confirmed on computer)
Kernel Speed --> set to 25 KHz
axis enable step pin dir pin step port dir port
---------------------------------------------------------------------
x yes 2 3 1 1
y yes 4 5 1 1
z yes 6 7 1 1

Estop --> port 1 pin 15

Inputs --> estop port 1 pin 15

Encoder MPG --> nothing set

It would seem to me some signal would have to come from mach3 on pin 1 to initiate the motion? Just not sure where that would be set?

Driving me nuts, if anyone has any ideas let me know. It's a clean install of Windows 2000 SP4 on a dedicated computer 1.8 GHz with 1GB of RAM and an external 64MB video card. I checked the printer port, it's set to EPP. It's attempting to turn 280 oz/in steppers on X,Y,Z.

[Crevice Reamer]

Hi Joseph. Welcome to the Zone!

So do the motors lock up? Does it work with the Charge pump switch off? Have you tried increasing the pulse width?

Have you tested the parallel port? (see if a printer will work)

CR.

[rowbare]

Pin 1 on the DB25 connector is an output and shouldn't affect your drive motors. The charge pump is on pin 16. Have you tried turning it off on the G540? Is the fault light on?

I suggest you save your XML file and start fresh with the one Gecko supplies. The ports and pins are correct there. What you will have to do is set your motor tuning appropriately. Check and double check that you are wired correctly. You didn't mention an e-Stop switch. Do you have one? It needs to be normally closed. If you don't have one hooked up, you can put a jumper from pin 10 to ground for testing purposes.

Once you have done that, you should be able to enable Mach and jog with the arrow keys.

Good luck!
bob

[JosephD]

The motors do lock up. With the charge pump off the parallel port doesn't even have to be connected to get holding torque. I still get a fault when I try to turn the charge pump on. I will test with a printer (maybe a voltmeter) later to be sure the LPT is working correctly. I do have an estop switch, I even thought maybe the switch was bad so I directly jumped the pin 10 /12 per the Gecko manual. Not sure where to go from here, some other posts suggest checking the voltages and resistance coming out of the outputs on the Gecko? I guess I'll try the easy things first.

[Crevice Reamer]

But do the axes move when charge pump switch is turned off? If so, then you have a problem with the computer sending out the charge pump signal. Make sure the parallel port is enabled. Can you try it on a different computer?

CR.

[JosephD]

The motors would not spin with the charge pump off either. I tracked it down to a parallel port problem on my computer possibly. When I hooked up another computer with Mach3 and loaded it I noticed I got the 25KHz (about) frequency and four green lights on the input (diagnostics page). I was able to get full control. I know, just keep that computer hooked up right? Well all the expensive CAD/CAM software is on the original computer. The original computer read "SIMULATE" where the frequency should have been. Do I have Mach in simulation mode so no signals are being sent? If not, then the work around would be to find a PCI parallel port card that is Mach3 compatible (works with the charge pump on). Any suggestions if I have to go down that road?

[JosephD]

It ended up being a computer problem/xml file configuration problem. Thanks to all for their help!!! Parallel port wasn't working correctly, update of the motherboard chipset did the trick. Now fully functional. Thanks all!

[MA$TER_E]

I just bought my G540 and this is what happened...

PCI Parallel Card: Charge pump off it works great. Charge pump on it will not come out of fault.

On Board Parallel: Charge pump off it works great. Charge pump on it works great.

To figure that out I called Gecko and talked to support. They told me that EPP is the reason the charge pump switch is on the G540 now. EPP is not made equal. Some cards say they run EPP but not like the EPP of the next card so its really hit or miss and Gecko doesn't know why thus the switch to enable or disable it.

Check this out and make sure you set your card for EPP in the bios. If you did and you're running a PCI card try the onboard parallel or another card.

http://www.geckodrive.com/upload/G540InitialSetup.pdf

Hope that helps you out some,

Eric

[MA$TER_E]

Originally Posted by JosephD It ended up being a computer problem/xml file configuration problem. Thanks to all for their help!!! Parallel port wasn't working correctly, update of the motherboard chipset did the trick. Now fully functional. Thanks all!

I'll figure out that I'm not at the end of the thread eventually... I've posted a couple times now only to realize I wasn't at the end of the thread later...

Glad all worked out for you