Frustrated beyond limits!!

[widgitmaster]

I have 8-wire bipolar stepper, 144 oz/in 1.4a, Gecko 201 driver, CNC2PC parallel breakout board, 12vdc & 5vdc Power supply, 65vdc 6a power ssupply.

All hooked up but nothing goes~

I have grounded everything, used shielded cables, tested the voltages, used a 147 ohm resister, tryed the lpt cable on several computers, but nothing!

My cnc router has overs $8000 invested, countless hours in the machine shop, and 4-months of zero motion!

The Gecho is ice cold, but the stepper is worm and loose!

I have tried using TurboCNC in DOS, and Mach2 in windows.

What the heck am I doing wrong?

The first breadboard setup 3-months ago worked fine, all motors tested well
using ACS controlles & LPT interface. Their interface popped, and they discontinued it, so I returned all 4 of their controllers, and bought 4-Gecho's and a LPT breakout board, along with two power supplys.
when I moved it into the machine it all went sour!

This hobby project has turned into a stressfull niughtmare!
Somebody please help me!
Eric

[CJL5585]

We might need a drawing or schematic to help you.

Wiring the unit should be a simple matter.

Is the 5volt ground wire tied to terminals 18 thru 25 on the breakout board?

Is the Drive power (65 Volts) tied to terminals 1 and 2?

Do you have supply voltages on the 65 Volts and 5 volts?

How is TurboCNC set up? Have you set up the drives with step, direction, etc?

These are some of the items that are required in order to help you.

Jerry

[CJL5585]

Here is a dwg of a typical wiring of an Axxis interface to GECKO.

Jerry

[widgitmaster]

OOPS! The LPT interface is CNC4PC not CNC2PC.....

The voltages are all good.
Everything is grounded to the green leg of the AC input.
I have 25 years experience as a machinist, no experience with electrical.
I have configured the softwares for one axis, set everything up on a table in breadboard mode again, my VOM indicates 5.1vdc & 71vdc, the motor phase coils have 30+vdc ( motor is grounded & warm)
The Step, Direction, & Disable pins are set as 4, 5, & 6 respectivly
There is 5vdc on the Step line, 5vdc on the Dir line, and 0v on the Disable line.

NO limits, NO e-stop, NO home.

[Mariss Freimanis]

Did you really mean a "147 Ohm" resistor? It must be a 12,000 Ohm (12K) resistor.

Mariss

[widgitmaster]

The resistor has a yellow, orange, brown, gold, bands

[widgitmaster]

I feel really stupid!

The breakout board has three pins in the middle of the board, there was supposed to be a jumper, which must have fallen off!

I set the jumper for pins 2&3 as per the manual

Also, I disconnected the Disable wire.

Now, the motors are whining (buzzing), but NOT spinning?

Any ideas?

[CJL5585]

The resistor you have installed is a 470 Ohm resistor. Look at the post by Mariss Freimanis.

To the best of my memory a stepper that was rated at 4.6 Amps required a 47,000 Ohm resistor.

Your resistor is not allowing enough current to flow to allow the motors to rotate. Check your resistor chart for the proper size resistor.

Jerry

[CJL5585]

Originally Posted by widgitmaster OOPS! The LPT interface is CNC4PC not CNC2PC..... The voltages are all good. Everything is grounded to the green leg of the AC input. I have 25 years experience as a machinist, no experience with electrical. I have configured the softwares for one axis, set everything up on a table in breadboard mode again, my VOM indicates 5.1vdc & 71vdc, the motor phase coils have 30+vdc ( motor is grounded & warm) The Step, Direction, & Disable pins are set as 4, 5, & 6 respectivly There is 5vdc on the Step line, 5vdc on the Dir line, and 0v on the Disable line. NO limits, NO e-stop, NO home.

THE STEP AND DIRECTION WIRING SHOULD BE:
Axis X
Step pin 2 Dir pin 3

Axis Y
Step pin 4 Dir pin 5

Axis Z
Step pin 6 Dir pin 7

I noticed you have pin 6 as Disable. Also, if you have the 5 Volt negative tied to the equipment earth ground, Disconnect it and tie it to the breakout board ground (same as computer ground). If not you could possibly blow up your computer output parallel printer port, or create some very serious ground loops.

Jerry

[Mariss Freimanis]

Yellow, orange and brown is 430 Ohms. You need 12,000 Ohms (brown, red, orange).

Blk = 0
Brn = 1
Red = 2
Org = 3
Yel = 4
Grn = 5
Blu = 6
Vio = 7
Gry = 8
Wht = 9

The first two bands would read '43'. The third band is the number of zeros after the first two colors:

Blk = No 'zeros'
Brn = 0
Red = 00
Org = 000
Yel = 0000
Grn = 00000
Blu = 000000

This makes your resistor 430 Ohms. The fourth band (none, silver or gold) is the tolerance of the value:

none = +/20%
silver = +/-10%
gold = +/5%


Mariss

[widgitmaster]

Thank you for the resistor info, I have gotten that under control now!
I have gutted my machine and placed all the electronics on a piece of plywood to test it, using the wiring harnesses I made up, now I have rotation in one direction only!Same speed regardless of key pressed, starting & stopping smoothly.

I can't find anything in Mach2 or the wiring to cause or cure this!
I have tryed all 4-motors and drivers, yealding same results!
I hve tryed several different pin combinations, eliminating the possibility of a defective DB-25 cable or parallel port.

To the best of my knowledge I have my 8-wire motors setup for bipolar parallel to 4-wires.
I connected both A+ and both A- leads and the same with B+ and B-
Thus creatng two larger coils out of four.
Did I do this correctly?

A+ is connected to phase A
A- is connected to phase B
B+ is connected to phase C
B- is connected to phase D on the Gecko~

Thanks,
Eric

[ger21]

Try increasing the pulse width in the motor tuning pages.