Hooking up my stepper to the 203v gets the red and green...

[bitviper]

The gecko manual says my motor wiring is wrong but I've checked it several times.

I'm using this stepper motor: KL23H276-28-4B and the spec sheet can be found here.

I'm powering it with a 32V DC power supply that can output 15 amps if I need it to. The motor is rated for 2.8amps per phase so I'm using a 31k resistor to give me my 2.8amp limit.

I connect the black and green wires to gecko A and ~A and then connect the red and blue wires to B and ~B. When I supply the juice, there is a load click from the stepper and the red and green lights are immediately on.

I measured the resistance across the black and green wires and they read 1.2ohms. Same thing goes for the red and blue wires (1.4ohms).

Anything else I may be missing?

[LeeWay]

Do you have 5 vdc going to the common terminal or is it connected to a ground pin from your parallel port?
The 203's need ground where the 201's and 202's need 5 vdc.

Also, just an FYI, don't switch the DC side of your power supply. I don't know that only 32 vdc would actually hurt the 203, but it is bad practice and someting I did that seemed logical to me. In fact, it caused me to have to hospitalize 5 203's. No problems at all since I eliminated the switch on the dc side.


Here is a troubleshooting guide from the yahoo group that may help if you haven't seen it yet.

[bitviper]

I'm not at the shop but I'll confirm tomorrow night that I have the common connected instead of +5.

I'm actually hooking this up to a microcontroller but I'm not sending signals yet - I'm just trying to turn the gecko on without a fault. Once I'm past that I'll send signals.

Thanks for the chart pdf - I hadn't seen that yet. Unfortunately, it reiterates what I read in the main gecko manual which is if both red and green are on (and the disable input is not connected) then one of the following might be the problem:

1. Motor short-circuit
2. Motor mis-wired
3. Damaged Drive

I think the wiring is ok - I've described it in my first post. I'm not sure how to tell if the drive is damages as I measured the right resistance across the wires.

I'll go check my logic wires (step, common, dir) one more time and report back.

[bitviper]

Update:

I sent the driver back to gecko after trying to diagnose it over the phone with one of their techs "Marcus".

A couple of days after they received it I called Gecko to see how it was going and was told by the woman who answers the phone that they'd take a week to diagnose it which seemed like a long time. She wouldn't budge.

After steaming awhile, I called back and asked to speak to Marcus. He said that he'd test it right on the spot. Five minutes later he tells me that it wasn't working and he found the problem - the culprit was a solder bridge across a Mosfet chip. He removed the bridge, tested it and found it to be working. He then put it in the mail back to me. (Thanks Marcus for your prompt service! As for the lady who was in no hurry to help me, not so much thanks...)

I hooked it back up to my motor and microcontroller and it worked the first time!

[CoAMarcus]

bitviper,

I apologize about the ordeal. We were swamped with backorders that we had to fill last week after finally receiving G201 panels, and because of that we had people answering the phone who normally don't. We have a 24 hour repair policy that we try our hardest to stick to, and you being told it would take a week is unacceptable. Everyone here has been informed of the policy, regardless if they pick up the phone or not, to make sure something like this does not happen again.

Marcus Freimanis

[bitviper]

Thanks Marcus. I had two reasons to post my last message:

1. Give another troubleshooting tip to those who have the red and green light - If I had checked for a solder bridge or something obvious like that, I could have saved myself 6 hours of banging my head against the wall, shipping costs for the return and the lost week while it was in transit and waiting at gecko headquarters for attention. I just figured that it had to have been tested before it shipped so I didn't think to examine the board closely.

2. Give other engineers guidance that if they do find themselves up against a bureaucratic roadblock that there are engineers in gecko that are friendly and super helpful if you can get to them.

Anyhow, the learning never stops for any of us.

-Matt

[CoAMarcus]

Matt,

Yes, unfortunately the office people are the gatekeepers. They generally pass the calls right on through if it has to do with a repair or a technical question, which is why we had to go over procedure with them regarding repair times and when to send calls back here.

The repair did raise several questions for us, the main one being how something like this could have even shipped to begin with. We are using much more careful quarantine procedures to be sure things like this get minimized, because I think what happened is a drive that did not pass initial test was placed on a workbench where only the person who tested it knew there was a problem. Someone must have seen it and put a can on it and brought it into the office for shipment, and the tech who originally tested it completely forgot about it. We now have a "Quarantine Box" where all first test failures are put so they are no where near good drives.

I apologize for this happening, but we have taken the steps to make sure it never does happen again. Thank you for being so patient, you are clearly a better man than I am! :-)

Marcus Freimanis

[Mariss Freimanis]

Everyone involved have been issued blindfolds and a cigarette each. The executions begin at sunrise tomorrow. I'll bet they didn't read the fine print in the Geckodrive Inc. terms of employment contract.:-)

Mariss

[bitviper]

Guess I better give my own employee manual another scan to make sure I didn't miss anything...