Motor Tuning

[john1285]

I have recently installed 3 keling 270 oz steppers (4 wires) using a Gecko 540 when I try to turn the motors they vibrate and sound like their turning but their not rotating. I was told that I need to tune the motors in Mach3. I have read the manual and I understand how you can tweak the motors to get more speed and such, but I think this is all based on the fact that the motors turn to begin with. Mine don't move at all. I have changed all the settings in motor tuning and nothing changes, still no turn at all. Could someone explain how to get the motors to turn so that I can eventually figure out how far they move the axis when I get that far. If I can't figure this out, I'll never be able to make chips.

Thanks

JOHN

[LeeWay]

Tune your acceleration wayyydown. Start with a velocity of 10 and acc. of like 2. From there you should be able to creep it on up and find top speed and then back off at least 20%.

[john1285]

Thanks for the reply, I tried setting as you suggested and still no go, although it did vibrate much slower. I must have something else wrong but I sure don't know what it could be, I am a complete beginner. I don't have any faults (red Light) showing on the Geck0 540. Motors are not yet hooked up to the mill yet as this is a new conversion of my HF Mini Mill. Any other suggestions of what to try?

Jack

[LeeWay]

You can try swapping the step or dir pins to active high or low depending on where they are now. Just try one pin at a time and start with one motor at a time and swap the direction setting. This is under motor pins in ports and pins.

[krak]

Check your wiring. you'll need a+ and a- on step and b+and b- on dir. also check your resistor. it needs to be the same as the motor coil. if that does not work, in mach adjust the us from 0 to 1 to allow enough time for the signal to pass through the drive into the motor before trying to advance to the next step.

[MrWild]

Unless you bought premade DB9 cables I'd take the covers off your plugs and check for shorts and bad soldered wires. There should almost be a note in the manual as I've red of a few with this problem including myself. Due to loose wire I had a Z axis that would sometimes buzz, sometimes go up, sometimes go down, and the same button was pressed every time. That problem caused me no end in grief until I found it. I also had a problem with a broken wire under heat shrink that touched intermittently on another axis. I doubt yur

[MrWild]

Unless you bought premade DB9 cables I'd take the covers off your plugs and check for shorts and bad soldered wires. There should almost be a note in the manual as I've red of a few with this problem including myself. Due to loose wire I had a Z axis that would sometimes buzz, sometimes go up, sometimes go down, and the same button was pressed every time. That problem caused me no end in grief until I found it. I also had a problem with a broken wire under heat shrink that touched intermittently on another axis. I doubt your problem is acceleration, speed or tuning. You will still need to tune, but that isn't your buzzing problem. The good thing about a G540 is you can wire it bad and not kill it.