Powered up, No magic Smoke Lost, But no Response Either

[Mr.Chips]

Well I finally powered it up and it doesn’t respond.

I have the steppers sitting on the table, the Z axis stepper runs as soon as the DC PS is turned on. It runs about 100 RPM for a few seconds then reverses directions and does the same thing. It just keeps switching directions as long as the power is on.
It won’t respond to any manual jogs, just keeps doing its thing, until the power is off.
The other two steppers sit idle all the time.
I did go through the Mach 3 setup to the best of my ability, which as this point is kinda low.

Using Mach 3, Xylotex XS-3525/8S-1 controller boards and Embeddedtronics Optoisolated parallel breakout board.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Hager

[Mr.Chips]

More information. For sure it won't run without thios voltage as it is part of the Optical isolation.

I am using 5V from the computer that is running Mach 3 to go to the breakout board.

There is zero voltage from the USB from the PC. (pins 1 and 4 of the USB conn)

Does the USB lines always have power on them or does the PC have to recognize something then turn the power on to that USB line????

Is there something I need to do to activate this USB line to get 5V there?

Thanks
Hager

[ger21]

Try getting the 5 volts from a hard drive connector. AFAIK, the USB should always provide 5V. When everything is working correctly, the motors should all lock and not move at all when power is applied.

[Mr.Chips]

Originally Posted by ger21 Try getting the 5 volts from a hard drive connector. AFAIK, the USB should always provide 5V. When everything is working correctly, the motors should all lock and not move at all when power is applied.

Thanks Jerry,
I'll give that a try.

Hager

[Mr.Chips]

I found that the one USB ports for what ever reason wasn't working.
Changed ports and now have 5V. Actually 4.75V.
Then found one of my extension stepper drive cables was bad.

Corrected all the above and now all steppers lock up as they should when power is applied.

I am still unable to jog any of the motors using the Mach 3 jog utility. May be a Mach 3 configuration issue, there are so many things to set up and I imagine any one will make you have a problem.

Will have to watch the videos again.

Well at least it seems I'm going in the right directions.

Hager

[jrvibefreak]

What Operating system do you use ?
well If you use Win Xp try this driver
I dont know if this helps but I always install this software that I
use with DIY mini relays board controlled by printer port and that software enables direct printer port command (I think lol) download here :http://kitsrus.com/zip/k74_win.zip
If you installed open the program and follow the instructions
how to intall the direct access printer port driver the File type is usually named as (.ocx)
well I try to help you lol
Philipp

[ger21]

Have you tried a different parallel port cable? Most of the ones found locally are not straight through, and won't work. One way to check is to try to jog, and check the voltage on the direction pin at the breakout board. In one direction it should be 0V, and when you change direction it should be +5V. If you're not seeing this, try a different cable.

[Mr.Chips]

Originally Posted by ger21 Have you tried a different parallel port cable? Most of the ones found locally are not straight through, and won't work. One way to check is to try to jog, and check the voltage on the direction pin at the breakout board. In one direction it should be 0V, and when you change direction it should be +5V. If you're not seeing this, try a different cable.

I tested all the lines individually and they are all direct through, none missing.
Thanks

[kreutz]

Originally Posted by Mr.Chips I tested all the lines individually and they are all direct through, none missing. Thanks

Hello;

If you have a multimeter measure the logic high voltage going out in any of your Direction Pins (pins 2, 4 or 6 ), the other probe of the volt-meter should be contacting any of the pins from pin 18 to pin 25 of the parallel port. (try jogging in both directions if you measure 0 volts or a voltage less than 0.8 Volts)

Tell me the value you measured.

Go to Mach 3 configuration and configure step and direction signals "Active low" for all axes.

If the Value you measured in the first step is less than 3.5 volts then use 3 diodes in series (1N4004 forward biased ) and put them between your PC +5 volts from the PC power supply and the PC +5 Volts input (JP1). After disconnecting the cable that was there, solder he cable originally connected to that connector to the Anode side of the first diode in the chain then attach the cathode of the last diode to the connector JP1.

I assume the schematics I am looking at, is the right one ( http://www.embeddedtronics.com/publi..._schematic.pdf )

Try again after making sure the jog keys are programmed in Mach3 and you can see the display increasing or decreasing when jogging. Make sure pins 1 and 2 of JP4 are attached to the ground at the Xilotex board and you have +5V (measured against that ground) at Jp2 pin 1.