Unsure About Running Stepper Motors

[tmd019]

I am a Mechanical Engineering senior at Louisiana Tech University, and our group
chose to build a portable CNC machine for our senior design project. We have chosen to convert a mini drill press and a milling table into a 3-axis milling machine. We have finished construction of our driver board, downloaded TurboCNC 4.01, and we are trying to gain movement in the stepper motors. I am unfamiliar with TurboCNC. I have been trying to output G-code from TurboCNC to run the stepper motor, but nothing seems to work. If someone could give me some advice, it would be a great help.

Tom

PS: All voltages and currents on the driver board have been checked and are correct.

[GaryCorlew]

I use mach3 so I am not familiar with turbocnc but have you setup your ports and pins?, You also have to setup your steps per inch. When you turn on the power supply do your motors lock up?

[Madclicker]

You say all currents and votages on the drive are correct, but do you know that the drive is working correctly? You can apply step and direction signals to confirm this.

[tmd019]

Well first of all, I only have my X-axis motor connected at the moment. When I turn on the power, I can still turn the stepper motor shaft with me hand.

Is there a freeware version of Mach3 or Mach2 out there?

Tom

[tmd019]

How would I go about applying a single step to the motor without TurboCNC?

Tom

[Madclicker]

Originally Posted by tmd019 Well first of all, I only have my X-axis motor connected at the moment. When I turn on the power, I can still turn the stepper motor shaft with me hand. Is there a freeware version of Mach3 or Mach2 out there? Tom

You can get the free trial version that will do everything you need.

[Madclicker]

Originally Posted by tmd019 How would I go about applying a single step to the motor without TurboCNC? Tom

Apply ground to the dir signal and use a function generator with a 5v square pulse as the step signal.

However, if you can turn the shaft with your hand after you apply power the drive is probably not working.

[Bubba]

Are you trying to run Turbocnc in a dos window or have you actually booted to a dos prompt? Turbocnc will NOT acess the prot properly in a dos window!

As stated above, you have to configure the port pins and possibly you have to "enable the drive"

Are you running a break out board (bob) or wiring directly to the driver and what driver are you using?

[tmd019]

Originally Posted by Bubba Are you trying to run Turbocnc in a dos window or have you actually booted to a dos prompt? Turbocnc will NOT acess the prot properly in a dos window! As stated above, you have to configure the port pins and possibly you have to "enable the drive" Are you running a break out board (bob) or wiring directly to the driver and what driver are you using?

Can someone tell me how to configure my port pins?

I am also wiring directly to the driver.

I'm sorry if I am asking simple questions but I am very new to this entire process.

Tom

[Madclicker]

Originally Posted by tmd019 Can someone tell me how to configure my port pins? I am also wiring directly to the driver. I'm sorry if I am asking simple questions but I am very new to this entire process. Tom

Take it one step at a time. Since you built your drive, make sure it works.

[tmd019]

When I turn the power on, the cooling fan will start to run. Because of this, I am fairly certain that my power connections to the driver board are correct. But I am guessing that my problem might be some other place on the board.

Any suggestions?


Tom

[Madclicker]

What drive and motor are you using?