Motor Troubles

[tmd019]

I am a senior at Louisiana Tech University. For a senior design project we are constructing a portable 3 axis milling machine by converting a mini drill press and a milling table. We have constructed the driver board and all voltages and currents are correct. The fan is running when the power is applied. I have been told by a number of people that when the power is applied my stepper motors should lock up. This is not happening. Does anyone have any ideas about how to gain movement in these motors??????

Tom

[7ofclubs]

I am by far no expert on any of them but I have built my own CNC machine and I use HobbyCNC to run my motors. When I turn the switch on my HobbyCNC controller on the fan starts AND my motors lock up. My guess is that you have the motors installed incorrectly.
I know that if you take wires from the same circuit within the motor and touch them together the motor gets harder to move, if the wires from differents circuits are touched together the motor is easy to move. You should be able to use this to check to see if you have wired them to the controller correctly.

Hope that helps

-=sHrEk=-

[massajamesb]

If your motors don't lock,
do you hear any hiss, ticking or clicking from the board or motor? The Hobbycnc boards have an audible chopping frequency. Even the new boards have a tiny amount of it, you have to listen carefully.

Have you checked your Vref? You must set the current on each motor, otherwise, if you have your potentiometer turned all the way down or too low, you will not have enough current to lock the stepper.

Is your LM317 getting REAL hot? I forget the placement number on the board for the LM 317, but it is by the fan connector. A hot 317 will indicate you have a (more than likely) bad solder joint in the power supply section of the board, at least in my experience.

Try these things, and let us know.



EDIT: Also, which step rate do you have selected on the board? If you don't have all the "J" jumpers installed correctly, then you can't check the Vref or set the microstep rate (1/2,1/41/8 step), etc.