Cant get steppers to turn

[bigvinney]

I have mach3 (demo) running three gecko 202 drivers powering 2 640oz and 1 1200oz steppers. Mach3 is loaded onto a new dell running a celeron D processor. I have a belkin data cable running from the comp to the control box breakout board (from cnc4pc).

In my control box I have a 60v power supply for the drivers and a seperate 5v power supply for the common on the geckos and the breakout board.

On the breakout board I have stepX on pin2, dirX on pin 3, stepY on pin 4, dirY on pin 5, stepZ on pin 6, and dirZ on pin 7. All of those wires lead to their corresponding positions on the geckos.

In the mach software I have the pins and ports correct. I have the x and y steppers on active low and the z on active high just to see if I can get it to run any motor. Mach seems to work great on my computer and I did the driver test and it had no spikes in the line at all.

I have tried playing with every setting I possible can and I can not get these motors to spin? Is there a way to tell if the geckos are working properly? I have double checked the wiring about 100x and I cant see what the problem is but I cant get the motors working? Is there and tricks I can try to even make sure the motors work?

Thanks any help would be greatly appreciated, Vince

[bigvinney]

On my 5v power supply I have a +5v and ground going to the breakout board to power it up. I then have 3 +5v wires going to the commons on my geckos. The step and direction pins have +5v comming out of them with the computer off (due to the board power line I guess) so would it be possible that the common on the geckos should go to ground and not +5v? (the board ground is connected to the computer ground via parallel port cable.)

Also if this is the case, is there some sort of setting in mach I would need to change? I never did play with the jumpers on the geckos, would you think the setting was off?

[dkowalcz]

See if you can ever see the direction lines go to 0V when you tell it to go back and forth.

From your description, it could be that the 5V power supply ground is not connected to the computer power supply ground (pins 18-25 on the parallel port). I would think that a decent breakout board should take care of this though... Ring it out and see.

[bigvinney]

I checked the voltages on the direction pins on the breakout board and at the plug entering the breakout board. The plug itself would go from 0-3.4 which confirmed to me that mach3 is setup correctly and communicating with the parallel port. The voltages on the breakout board direction pins varies from 4.7-4.8. If that is supposed to go from 0-5v than that must be my problem than.

[ger21]

I think the 5V to the Gecko common needs to come from the PC, not a seperate supply

[bigvinney]

Ive heard different opinions on this but since it is an optoisolated circuit and the ground of the 5v PS is connected to the ground of the PC PS and the motors are set to active low it should work.

Even if that is the case the parallel port plug goes from 0v-3.4v when I change directions and the pins on the breakout board go from 4.7v-4.8v and those should go from 0v-5v, so there seems to be a problem there. Ill buy another breakoutboard because it is only $25, so it cant hurt. If that doesnt work I will try to tap a 5v line from the computer and see if that works.

Any opinions are appreciated

Thanks Vince

[jimini]

I have a seperate 5v supply biult into my power supply case (seperate grounds from the main ps) and I have no trouble at all, running either TCNC or Mach3....Jim

[Halfnutz]

I have the same situation, although my set up works fine with TurboCNC. I'm using IMS drivers and they require an opto 5V supply, definately not the 5V off the parallel port, but what about the ground? Whatever I have is working fine with TurboCNC, what would be different with Mach3? I geusse I need to start poking around with a meter and make sure Mach is driving the parallel port.

Update:Mach3 is up and running fine, I had neglected to set the port number for my motor outputs. Go figure, huh?

[bigvinney]

Jimini- do you have a powered breakout board in your system? Whats the voltage change on the direction pin when you jog around? Also how is yours wired?

I have my main 65v PS which powers the geckos. I then have a 5v PS which powers the breakout board and the geckos. I have the ground wire going to the breakout board (pin 18-25 are connected together) and the +5v wires going to the common on geckos and the breakout board. (the grounds are seperate from the 65v PS as well)

[jimini]

Mine is wired the same as yours.
I have a homemade bob. Do you have the gnd from the 5v supply going to the geckos?
I'll check the voltage swings tomorrow.Lots of luck....

EDIT...I just noticed you said 5v AND ground, I missed it.

[bigvinney]

I dont have the 5v PS ground connected directly to the geckos, it is connected to the ground on the breakout board which is pins 18-25. The only dedicated ground wire attached to the geckos is from the 65v PS.