g201's motors buzz, but do not move

[mxpro32]

Hi, I hooked up one of my g201's and I am having a problem. When the
jog buttons are pushed, the motors make a buzzing sound but do not
move. I am switching from thstep25 drivers and I am using the same
breakout board and mach-3 settings as before, but the steps/inch have
been changed to match the 1/10 microstepping. I have tried reversing
the motor winding wires as mentioned in the manual and the motors
still sound the same. I have tried my 80v power supply and my 35v
power supply with the same result. I have tried different motors. I
have tested the common 5v, which I tapped from my breakout board, and
it measures 4.73v. I am using 2.8A nema-23 motors and I have a 33K
ohm resistor across the current set terminals. the red power light
always comes on. I am out of ideas, and this is the only machine I
have and I use it for production, so ideas you have will be greatly
appreciated. thanks

[mxpro32]

Any ideas? This post is not showing up under the new posts section.

[PoolQ]

Somewhat of a noob as CNC goes, but fair at electronics -so here are my 2 cents at some things to look into.

Did your old driver have opto inputs. the 201 uses a common of +5VDC and the dir and step must pull the inputs to GND to activate them.

Are you using the enable/disable pin? Left open enables.

How many wires on your steppers?

with the motor disconnected and power off, when you short the wires you expect to be pairs together the motor should be MUCH harder to turn by hand than when they are not shorted.

With an 8 wire stepper there are 2 coils for each phase. They can be connected in series or parellel. They must be connected so that the actual windings are in the same direction, + to + and -to- for parellel and + - to +- for series if not I would think you might end up with what you are seeing. also if you formed one pair with one winding from phase A and one from Phase B you could also end up with the same results you are seeing.

My guess is that it is the stepper wireing that iscausing the problem. It sounds like the Gecko is trying to drive the motors, is reacting to the step pulse and is enabled. I don't think it is either power supply.

Your resistor may have to be adjusted (for maximum power) depending on if you are using series or parallel windings for the motor hookup. But this should not cause your current problem.

I hope this is of "some" help

[Oldmanandhistoy]

This reminds me of a very similar situation I had when I first set up a stepper system. Wired everything up, set my software, and tried to jog and all I got was a buzzing sound from the motors. It turned out that I had the jog set up for such a slow jog I could not see the stepper moving. Might be worth taking another look at your new setting for 1/10th micro steps.

Good luck,
John

[mxpro32]

Thanks for the replies guys. I am using 4-wire bipolar 2.8 amp motors. The current set resistor being used is a 33k ohm verified with a multimeter. The phase pairs were also verified with a multimeter. The steps per inch are correct for the 1/10 microstepping and I have tried different jog speeds, which changes the frequency of the motor buzzing, but still no movement. I wired the 5v opto-supply wire to the 5v auxiliary-out on my pmdx breakout board. The 5v coming from the pmdx measures 4.7v on the multimeter. Anything else it could be? the chances of getting two bad drivers is slim, and I tried different power supplies, so that can't be it. It's got to be something I am missing, but I have hooked up numerous stepper drivers without issue, so I feel confident I hooked them up correctly. Any ideas are appreciated.

[PoolQ]

disconnect the step wire and use a short wire to tap it (the driver terminal) to ground several times and see if it steps. no steps driver to motor. yes steps driver to breakout board

[Oldmanandhistoy]

The only other thing I can think of is your pulse width setting; you could try increasing that.

John

[ger21]

Have you tried using 5V from the PC?

[mxpro32]

I am going to try that today. It's the only thing I can think of. maybe the 4.7v just isn't enough voltage.

[mxpro32]

thank you mariss! I just got off the phone with mariss and we got my setup going. Turns out it was just a stupid mistake on my part (figured as much). I installed 33 ohm resistors thinking they were 33k ohm resistors. I even checked them with an ohmeter and in my haste, thought they were 33k. With the proper resistor in place these things really fly. I am getting 200 ipm rapids where I was getting 70 with my previous setup, and thats at 35 volts. I can go up to 60 volts with my motors. Very cool. Thanks everyone for your help.