G201+charge pump=help :(

[neurofen]

hi, i Need a little help.

I've got 3x G201 drivers and a breakoutboard with a charge pump circuit.

My understanding(and on this bit i might me wrong) is that the charge pump not only disables signals to and from the parallel port, BUT stops power from being supplied to the drivers from the psu somehow(through a switch in the geckos or something??).

So i've wired up the geckos to the psu and breakout board as seen in the attached picture(only one gecko shown). I am waiting for a parallel cable to come through the post.
The breakout board has some LED's, one of which indicates if the charge pump is active or not, at the moment when power is turned on the LED stays off as it should (since there's no signal comming form the pc's software) BUT the gecko power lights are on and the motors get their charge(i cannot turn the rotors).

If the chargepump is supposed to kill power to the geckos/motors then theyre not, and im asumming (this is the bit i need help on) that it has something to do with the 'disable' port on the gecko and the anable(ENA) port on the breakoutboard. is this right or am i am totaly wrong.

ta

[neurofen]

ok so i got a parallel cable through the post and wired up to pc and mach3. set up ports in mach3 for the motors according to the info that came with the breakout board, parallel card address is correct and charge pump signal is found on the breakout board now that its enabled in mach..

but can i get the freakign motors running?

[DIYaholic]

neurofen,
Sorry, I'm still worthless! I don't know anything about drivers/motors and what not. I'm still in the research and design phase.
I really thought the experts would have chimed in by now. I'm sure someone will, just have to be patient. Good luck on sorting this out.

Randy,

[neurofen]

its difficult stuff to start with isnt it. loads to learn.


some of the manuals are worse than some of the early pc motherboard manuals i used to read, that always had the REALLY important 'voltage' settings totally wrong.. or just didnt tell you some of the need to know things.

[neurofen]

for instance gecko say wire the common output to a +5VDC rail.. the breakoutboard has a row of ouput blocks labelled inorder

x step x dir, gnd, then
y dir y step, gnd
z dir z step, gnd
ete etc..

so i though that pretty obvious you wire the common from each gecko to the grd on the breakoutboard for its associated axis an dmotor,

but theres also just one +5VDC output ont the breakout board...
hmm. maybe i should wire all 3 of the geckos common plugs to the 1 +5VDC socket on the breakout

f knows

yet

[neurofen]

lol ok so that explaind why my motors were working i had to wire them to the +5vdc connector


why then are there 3 gnd terminals next to the dir and step outputs on the breakout board

[OCNC]

for instance gecko say wire the common output to a +5VDC rail.. the breakoutboard has a row of ouput blocks labelled inorder

x step x dir, gnd, then
y dir y step, gnd
z dir z step, gnd
ete etc..

so i though that pretty obvious you wire the common from each gecko to the grd on the breakoutboard for its associated axis an dmotor,

but theres also just one +5VDC output ont the breakout board...
hmm. maybe i should wire all 3 of the geckos common plugs to the 1 +5VDC socket on the breakout

f knows

yet

I'm going to suggest that you slow down in your approach to this or I see blue smoke in your future and then you'll be really unhappy.

Do you have a link to the directions for the breakout board? That would be very helpful.

Do you have an Estop configured in Mach 3. In other words have you connected a physical switch to the breakout board using the input pins such that you can confirm that the action of the switch will trigger the Estop in Mach forcing you to hit the Reset button (on the screen) to continue?

Chris

[neurofen]

ocnc probably wise words... the board is a system 1v2... from diycnc

specs are here:-
http://www.diycnc.co.uk/System1V2.pdf

any help on this matter woulkd be appreciated,... i did however get the motors working in the end. the optical circuits werent getting power(which they needed from the +5vdc socket on the breakout board)..


what i cant work out though is if i need to wire up all 3 ground plugs on the breakoutboard (there are 4 but ive not got my 4th driver yet) they're by the the step/dir sockets..

[ger21]

what i cant work out though is if i need to wire up all 3 ground plugs on the breakoutboard (there are 4 but ive not got my 4th driver yet) they're by the the step/dir sockets..

A breakout board is used to facilitate the wiring of other devices to the parallel port. You only connect what those other devices require, regardless of what connections the breakout board has available to you. Just because they're there, doesn't mean you have to use them.

[neurofen]

you're right... and i've a feeling the gnd's are there on the breakoutboard for conveinient wiring of kill switches. the disable sockets on the geckos need shorting to ground to disable them, would be a good way of doing it..

i'd prefer to wire the limit switches to the geckos rather than through relays to the main power unit, at least that way shut down is almost instant, killing the main power feed will still mean that chrage in the caps will leak through to the motors and drivers, which will continue for a short period of time.

it was pretty cool getting the motors running, the motor tuning in mach is great, love the sound the steppers make when theyre accelerating

[DIYaholic]

neurofen,

Glad you got it sorted out. I knew greater minds (than mine) would prevail!

Randy,

[OCNC]

You're still running ahead of your best interest here. Connect the Enable pin on the breakout board to the Enable terminal on the Gecko. This will put the charge pump into play on a per drive basis. From the BOB data sheet it appears that the breakout board will also shutdown the signals to the drives even if the charge pump isn't directly connected to them. You should use the Input pins on the BOB to handle your limit switches, home switches and E-stop. They need +5V input (best set active low). The charge pump only goes low when Mach for whatever reason fails to produce its 12kHz signal. It's intended as protection from unforeseen computer glitches (ie. crashes, wonky initialization) but not machine errors like running off the rails because of a loss of steps at some point or CAM errors that might drive a bit into the deck, etc.

Chris

you're right... and i've a feeling the gnd's are there on the breakoutboard for conveinient wiring of kill switches. the disable sockets on the geckos need shorting to ground to disable them, would be a good way of doing it..

i'd prefer to wire the limit switches to the geckos rather than through relays to the main power unit, at least that way shut down is almost instant, killing the main power feed will still mean that chrage in the caps will leak through to the motors and drivers, which will continue for a short period of time.

it was pretty cool getting the motors running, the motor tuning in mach is great, love the sound the steppers make when theyre accelerating