Reply with QuoteIIRC: It's the little green thing right behind terminal block's 3rd terminal. You can just see it in the picture on the yahoo groups' home page.
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/geckodrive/
I don't think I killed it but after connecting my first two to my X and Y axes a few days ago and found everything working perfectly, I decided to connect the third 203v to my Z axis. Although I checked my polarity connections at the power supply 3 or 4 times before powering up, I overlooked that I had my leads reversed at the drive itself. The loud pop and my stomach sinking to my knees reminded me to check again. No leds lit, nothing working at all on the #3 driver so I pulled the cover to check the internal fuse and simply can't find it. Can someone offer a little guidance?
I have 203v Rev6 and the only thing on the board that's in a socket is an IC. I don't see a fuse anywhere. Have the fuses been eliminated?
Last edited by hybidder; 02-07-2008 at 11:34 PM.
IIRC: It's the little green thing right behind terminal block's 3rd terminal. You can just see it in the picture on the yahoo groups' home page.
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/geckodrive/
Walking is highly over-rated
Thanks,
The picture helped, I thought that was a resistor. Pulled it. Checked it. Blown...
Thanks again for your help.
BTW- The first two 203v's have worked flawlessly for me so far.
Bummer...
I got some just in case I was to need them. I believe I got mine from Mouser.
G203 manual says:
INTERNAL FUSE: The G203V uses a socketed, user-replaceable internally mounted fuse (Littlefuse Inc. part # 0251005.MXL). Reversing the power supply polarity or a power supply voltage over 114VDC will cause the internal fuse to blow.
Good luck
P.S. If that doesn't fix it, Gecko is known for fixing your first mistake free. You can send it in for evaluation.
Walking is highly over-rated
It's very important to replace it with the same model number fuse. Do not attempt to use a piece of wire or any other fuse in its place. The specified fuse blows in 70uS and protects the drive; no other fuse is nearly fast enough. Any other wire diameter will permanently spring the gold sockets and render it unusable.
Mariss
I finally had an opportunity to replace my blown fuse this weekend and everything lit up and the drive runs just fine.
In my rush to get my 3rd axis up and running I made the stupid mistake of not double checking my power connections at the 203v. Completely my fault, no if, ands or buts about it. Mariss mailed spare fuses to me free of charge. IMHO, and from what I have read in other posts, Gecko's customer service is second to none that I have encountered while getting my machine back up and running. They set the benchmark that all others need to follow and I for one am pleased to be a customer.
Thanks,
Greg
We're still trying to break the drives on a daily basis without much success...
And we are running the drives with all they can give according to specs.
Quite some power flowing through our setup.
Nice!
Rainer
Reread the instructions.Originally Posted by cueshark
The 203V common terminal connects to ground. :rainfro:
Hey Mariss, one of my 203Vs trips on occasion. I'm not sure for what reason, but my guess is over amperage. It has happened twice in the last week. The first time happened while I was manually jogging the axes. The second time, while running a g-code programming, I clicked changed tabs in Mach 3.
What do you think happened? I'm using a Rexstep 600oz-in 7amp motor from homeshopcnc, no current set resistor. What would happen if limited it to 6A with a 270K resistor?
If you were to current set it to 6A, you will produce 6/7 of the torque you are currently producing. That should not be that big of a deal, but it depends on the application. Do you have a 7A fuse on the power leads? If you put one on there and it blows, that will let you know that too much current is being put into the drive. If it continues to quit, send it back so we can take a look at it.
-Marcus Freimanis
Thanks Marcus. Don't have a fuse at the moment. I'll slap on some 270Ks and see what happens.
So I installed the 270Ks and was messing around in Mach 3 again (changing tabs during a part cut). This time the Y-axis motor stalled and the driver didn't trip. Definitely looks like a software/computer problem. The drive is rock solid.
I find that not to be good practice. I try to avoid doing that at anytime the program is running. I am running one of my machines on a new Vista machine with dual core CPU and 2 gigs of ram. I stripped it out as much as I could, but it still burps when I change the screen. It works fine using MDi and wizards and things, but when running a gcode program, it doesn't like change.
I don't even fly the jog tab open when running code. Sometimes no hiccups, other times it does skip.
I blame Vista of course. My XP machine doesn't burp when I do this. It only has 512 MB ram.
If there is some function that you can only see in other screens and you need to see it all the time, I would use the screen designer and get it on the main screen somewhere.
Lee
Mariss, that is one sweet drive. I have two that have been put to the test driving a plasma cutter at up to 500 IPM using EMC2 and 56volt power supplies. And to answer your question, nope both of mine run fine... no matter what I do...
So, my question is why a drive "Disable" instead of a drive "Enable" pin?
Thanks for all your help, you are a rare individual who cares about what he does. I'm so glad that I picked the 203v's for my plasma CNC project...
John
Depends on the point of view.... Invert the incoming signal to that pin and you have a 'Drive Enable Pin' 8)))
Rainer
Big John T,
The pin naming convention we use is: Describe what will happen if the input is used. If you apply a signal to the terminal, it will DISABLE the drive. Left unused, ENABLE is assumed.
Mariss
Hi Mariss,
That is just the opposite of what I have been taught that to enable a device you should supply a voltage to the enable it. This way if you cut the wire the device stops working. Just your basic safety circuit.
Thanks for the reply
John
Very few people use the DISABLE input on a step motor drive. This saves the vast majority the hassle of hooking up something to the input in order to get the drive to run.
Mariss
Mariss, Hopefully I'm not the first to have killed one of your vampire drives.My other three are running beautifully though, do I win a prize if I'm the first? I think I read your instruction manual at least 12 times before pulling out the spools of cable and tools
.
i killed a 203v
yes i killes a 203v. i was converting an old bandit mill attempting to use the original steppers. when the feedrate aproached about 35-40 ipm the drivers would fault. i talked to you on the phone marris and you suspected the steppers were old and bad. you said something very bad was happening. i tried to swith motors from the x to the y to see if the same motor would trip. and i finally killed it. when you power it up you can see and hear a spark jump across what used to be some kind of electrical component. ive since put all new stepper motors on the mill and it seems to work great. i can get about 175 inched per minute before it starts loosing stepps. i guess this is normal? anyway i ordered a new driver and the lady at gecko said to ship it back and they may try to repair it. i should have initially listened to marriss but was trying to avoid spending money.
