I’ve finished building my K8200 and while trying to control it manually from Repetier it turned out that the Z motor doesn’t turn. The following tests brought me to the conclusion that there is probably something wrong with one of the 4 small PCBs for each motor:
X, Y and extruder motors work fine.
The small red LED on the main board at the Z motor does light up whenever I send a command to turn the Z motor from Repetier.
Swapping the plugs of the Z and Y motors: Z motor now works, Y motor doesn’t work.
Swapping the small PCBs of the Z and Y motors: Z motor now works, Y motor doesn’t work.
well, that already sounds very much like a broken driver; you’d have to request a replacement from Velleman, or find a store where you can buy a compatible one (they are Pololu-compatible stepper motor drivers with 2 A and x16 microstepping).
Just out of curiosity, were you able to set the reference voltage (0.425 V) on that driver board?
do you have some kind of indicator that lights up anytime someone writes the magic sequence “0.425”?
Ok ok, that was not the real question. I couldn’t find any information about which shunt resistance the original drivers have - do you know which coil currents actually correspond to 0.425 V or 0.55 V?
No indicator but I do spend a lot of time in this board and others and try to help where I can.
I have found that 0.425 is a starting.
But after building 2 of these and working on another I have found that 0.55 is the best setting.
It’s better to try everything instead of requesting new parts which takes time.
If you are like me you want to get to printing as soon as possible.
LOL
Also others (on this board) have found the same thing.
I’m not for sure but I would think this setting effects all of the coils.
To know for sure you could put it all back as it should be and only swap two driver boards. If the problem follows the driver then it is most likely broken, if not it could be a bad connector or a bad solder joint on the main board.
Edit: sorry, you did that already, the driver is most likely broken indeed
yep. The comment wasn’t ment as an offense, I just wondered.
[quote=“Wrong Way”]I have found that 0.425 is a starting.
But after building 2 of these and working on another I have found that 0.55 is the best setting.
It’s better to try everything instead of requesting new parts which takes time.
If you are like me you want to get to printing as soon as possible.[/quote]
Sure, that’s the goal, but in this case I’m doubtful about getting that driver to work. Thought about suggesting a voltage measurement across the (powered) motor coils, but that wouldn’t really offer any new information - if the motor works well on another driver, the cables are ok, and if the bad driver would only power one coil some kind of noise and/or vibration would be noticable from the motor, so that’s of the list, too.
Come to think of it, bad solder joints (as Cartman also wrote) on the driver board, e.g. at the pins connecting the motor, could also produce an error like this, and would be home-fixable.
@ spotmarker / Martin: are there any soldered connections on the driver board that look suspicious?
I have similar problem here. When I plug the power source the the activity leds (lit when only usb cable is connected) turns off, and one green led blinks two times and turns off. Then the E-motor red led lights. I took the motor cable off and tried again similar results. I measured the power from the all drivers and I was enable to change them to .425V.
At this moment I didn’t know if this was intended or not so I started repetitier. It didn’t read the temperature. So I came across this thread, tried to unplug all the wires and that didnt help.
I the removed the extruder driver where the red led was on before and with all wires disconnected I plugged the power on.
can you confirm that Repetier Host connected to the board as it should? I.e. did you get a message in the log area saying “FIRMWARE_NAME:Marlin V1;” etc.?
No, there isnt information about firmware when plugged only via USB. Only ‘7 commands waiting’ which increased when I did try to move ZXY accels via the GUI as in manual.
Check the voltage coming out of the power supply at the blue screw terminal should be 15 volts DC.
If this checks good press the reset button on the control board.
If it connects go in to the printer settings make sure “Rest on Connect” is set to “Disabled”
15v comes from the supply, hitting couple times reset gives an firmware. Temperature is corretct \o/
Red light still on.
Edit addition: Reset on connect -> disabled ==> and accel zxy works a bit… maybe time to look at the manual as the table won’t move over certain position but in the software is shows that it has moved a 10 or 1 mm depending which arrow clicked…
But red light still next to the the extruder motor driver.
