Everything was working fine on Saturday night , Went to power up on Sunday , and nobody home , Just one blue blinking led on all 3 drives.
I can go in to GDtool on each drive , and all drives are working perfectly , i used the TWEAK TOOL first and no errors came up , Ive done a continuity test on all the pins on the PP cable connecting the SmoothStepper to the VSDEPI board and found no faults , Ive changed E stop switches ,What i did find odd was the Estop button is wired as per VSDEPI manual for a switch NC (which has 0 Volts ) and when you push the E stop opening the circuit it measures 5volts at each terminal of the Estop? ..checked it multiple times ,ChargePump jumper is installed and it measures 5volts at TP_GND and TP_VCC . ,Swapped Usb cables as well .
Unsure what my next move should be , any suggestions would be much appreciated .
Ive been running this set up for over a year now , Same Dell m90 laptop ,the only thing i had done between turning it off on sunday was install some new Led strip lighting , and thats on a different power supply
Smooth Stepper USB controller
VSD-E Servo drivex3
BL60-235 Servox3
VSDEPI Parallel Port Interface
600 Watt power supply
check to make sure your 12v to the drive logic power is getting to all three drives, if it isn't the lights go out. it may be that that is your problem. it has occurred on my machine. if you turn off the high voltage to the amps are you getting the normal flashing configuration on all amps? it would seem to me you should be getting some sort of led signal from the amps as long as there is logic power to the amp. I haven't run with the vsdepi card for several years, so I'm sure I'm not the best one to answer, but the blank behavior under power says no logic power to me. Good luck
You might be on to something , i checked the voltages on sunday night and the Logic was 11volts , and i thought i should of been 12V , but didn't think to much because the servos work fine in GD tool , just go home and remeasured the voltage and its 10.9volts
Will look further in the weekend ,
thanks for taking the time to repond.
I misunderstood your statement in the post about the led code. I thought you had said that there was only one drive with a single flashing blue led. the single flashing blue led indicates the drives are disabled by user. Consequently, I suggest you look for things that would shut down your system, fouled estop, stuck limit something that would interrupt the servo ready or amp enable I am assuming you are running under mach3? sorry for my mistake.
Unfortunately Ive tried all of the that , I originally had x2 E stop buttons , both wired Normally closed as per wiring diagram in first post , Ive tried x1 E stop wired normally closed and normally open , no E Stop at all. I don't have any limit switches wired , On power up all x3 drives start there Hard stop homing sequence ,..and that's not even happening , I am running Mach 3 and a Smooth stepper , But you could always perform the homing sequence before you start the Mach3 software and with the smooth stepper card unplugged ,. and nothing happens .
I can move all the servos in the GDTool software and perform homing ,Testing only drive at a time of course.
I did notice when you share the pcb board it rattles ?.. Assuming its the relay ,as i do run my coolant pump through this relay , Is this normal for a relay ? .
I see on the Wiki site there's a help file on Disable function and going about inverting it, will try later this evening .
Very strange how it works one day and not the next , everything is fused and powered off usb , and switched off at the wall so unlikely to be a power spike .
Thanks again for your help , Hopefully Xerxes has some answers and an alternative break-board suggestion if no longer available
Hi Dr.Nos. try getting in contact with Jason at Zeal CNC. He may have some ideas. If not I have a Vsdepi board I'm trying to offload. As new. I bought a CS-Labs controller as I have 5 VSD drives and don't need the granite board anymore. Only used for about 15 hours testing (machine still not finished. Cheaper then a new one from Granite. Let me know.
Hi Alan , Hahaha , Jason at Zeal (Pocketmachines.co.nz) Supplied all my drives and servos etc ,So he often gets my problems jammed into his Email Inbox , (And takes the time to help (Thanks Jace!!))
He too is scratching his head ,..
**UPDATE** Im 99% certain there's a fault with the VSDEPI card , with no E stop switch wired and the Chargepump jumper installed there's continuity between the Estop wire connector terminal . Which would have a Normally open switched . ...But when you remove the Charge pump Jumper, the continuity stops . ?
Your VSDEPI card sounds like my best option at the moment , As it seems not all breakboards are compatiable with the Vsde drives.
Progress Report ....
I am yet to solve the the problem of all 3 of my Vsde servo drives in " Disabled state " . I have Narrowed it down to a fault in the E stop function on the VSDEPI board , With a switch wired as Normally open to conected to the wiring terminal on the board , the circuit tests up closed , (Estop button test up fine to conected ) , This only happens when everything is connected servo drives usb etc ,. not when everything is unplugged .
I set up a second Pc with win xp , and Mach3 using the Parallel printer port conecting to the VSDEPI board ,( Usually i use a Laptop M90 and Smooth stepper USB ) And that has the same issues as before ,Apart from when Mach3 is operating it detects the Estop switch and performs as it should , But drives still display the "Disabled state" .. Using the Laptop through the Smoothstepper the Estop doesnt function when running Mach 3 and clicking reset button on screen does nothing..
Untill a Preloved Vsdepi board arrives ( thanks for a CNCZone member in Australia ) , i am running short of ideas .....
I unplugged every cable from the VSDEPI board CMD cables as well , and drives still display "Disabled" , which had me scratching my head even more , then i recall reading a post and Xerxes mentions the drives will automatically go in to disabled state if CMD cables are unplugged for safety reasons.
Going back in to the drives using GDtool showed no flags , and if i change Opto 4 to disabled . drives move fine using MoveINC command .
either a fault output (0V) from any driver
or your N/C E stop switch being opened will be seen as E stop by the software
as printer port input pin 10 will be pulled low (0V) instead of the required High
three signals have to be correct to enable the drivers
1, your E stop switch closed to pull up terminal ESTOP-2 upto +5V
2, charge pump signal detected
or shorting link fitted to JP1 ,( if charge pump signal from printer port pin 1 is missing)
3 , software controlled printer port output pin 14 needs to be high (about +4v)
a logic 0 (0V to +1V ) will disable the drives
whats the voltage between TP GND and TP ENA ?
as the outputs of TTL ICs like the 7408 have a limited output current
I'd expect the volage at TP ENA to be +2.5 to +3V
detailed photos of both sides of the PCB will make it possible to idenitify which component wires to probe
if you need to make additional tests
John
PS
just added a slightly re arranged circuit diagram with expected voltages at test points
PPS
it looks like the board was designed for use with a N/O E-stop switch
the 100 ohm resistor wired acros the E stop terminals will look like a N/O stop switch has has been activated
unless terminal Estop 2 has been connected to + 5V via your N/C E stop switch
Hi John / Xerxes
Nothing on the Wiki help made any difference , apart from inverting the disable function as a last resort , but that wasn't really fixing the problem , Sorry John as of last weekend ive spent so many hours trying to resolve this issue , And a working S/hand Vsdepi board is in the mail as we speak .
The only thing that has worked and at first i thought i had finally fixed it was (after studying the schematic /with my basic electronic knowledge ) .I thought its possible the 74LS08 chip is faulty , So i replaced that ,and the E stop button ( now wired N/O) would disable and enable drives as before BUT !! when using the Mach3 software it still shows the switch as closed , so ti get it work i would have to reverse the stop in ports and pins , putting multimeter across e stop terminal shows closed circuit Only when mach software is running .
Hopefully everything returns to normal when replacement card arrives , so will update this post next weekend .
Using another Pc with p/port shows same faults . Very frustrating
Thanks for those taking the time Especially AlanXR8
Nothing worse than reading through posts and not having answers to what fixed the problem..
Conclusion...
After a replacement board arrived and installed i still had the same Estop problem once Mach3 was started ..!!.. So i swapped ports on the Smoothstepper from port 1 to port 2 and re config ports in ports and pins in Mach3 and Bingo everything back to how it was .
My Conclusion , Ive had x2 problems both related to the E stop switch , on the VSDEPI board and the smooth stepper ,
After reading the Smoothstepper schematic and looking real close i found this (see pic)
Has my VSDEPI Breakout board died??
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