HELP! Purse i3 Assembly check issues with Z Stepper and Y axis VIDEO in comments.

[Gabe Gat]

Long story short when I first ran my assembly check my Y axis was running smoothly, now it's not working cleanly. I'm also unable to get the Z Steppers to spin at all. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

Video link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH5w94s5df4 

Side note. There's still a couple of free Growlers of beer for someone if they're interested in meeting up and taking a look at my issues! 

[Edward Simpson]

Hello again Gabe,

Just watched your video, to clarify: when someone says 'try flipping the wire 180' they mean reversing the orientation of the plug in the socket on the main board, that occasionally fixes the problem. That said, looking at the behaviour of your steppers, I'm a bit suspicious that some of the lines in the z-motor leads may be in the wrong order, that or you've got a fried stepper driver chip somewhere in there. I'm not that familiar with Melzi control board variants, but generally if one of the stepper controls is damaged, you might need to look into a new control board, hopefully not though.

Good luck,

Edward Simpson

[Gabe Gat]

Thanks Edward. I've tried different wires as well as running the wires to the x and y plugs no luck there. I'll keep trying.

[Edward Simpson]

To clarify, plugging the z-stepper motors into the x power cable & stepper driver produced the same result(A)? or did you just use the x or y power cable with the z-stepper motors and drivers(B)? or did you try connecting the x-motor & cable to one of the z-axis plugs(C)? I'm trying to clarify if the problem is the driver chips, power cable or the stepper motor itself. If yes to A) then you've got a faulty stepper motor; If yes to B) then something is wrong with the z-wires; if yes to C) then your stepper driver is damaged and you'll need a new control board unfortunately. If it's just one of the steppers, there are 3 suppliers in greater vancouver that carry stepper motors (Marginally Clever, Lee's Electronics, and RPelectronics) Marginally Clever & Lee's also carry variants of the Ramps 1.4/Arduino Mega platform, one of the more common reprap control board sets.

Hope that helps a bit,

Edward

[Gabe Gat]

Edward, Very interesting result here. So to recap where I am to date I haven't been able to get the Z steppers spinning, and the Y step hasn't really be rotating but making a gross sound and more or less just jerking back and forth. All that said the X was moving smoothly and doing everything it should.

So I too the wire from the Y and plugged it into the good running X port. Voila! Smooth running Y axis. Next I took one of the Z leads and ran it to the smooth running X port. Again and for the first time ever the Z plugged into the X port spun just like it should!! 

... So what exactly is that telling me about this whole situation? From my point of view it means the stepper motor are working and presumably the wires themselves are working... does it mean the board is toast? 

Thoughts?

[Edward Simpson]

Hi Gabe,

Those results mean that your steppers and wires are all working just fine, but your Y and Z stepper drivers (the chips under the silver heatsinks) are fried, so yes, the board is toast. Personally, I'd just buy a Ramps set and download & configure a copy of Marlin (Ramps firmware) and use that instead. You can get the core Ramps boards($35) and a display($18) module from ElectronicGeek.ca fairly inexpensively, I just finished building a custom printer using one of their sets and it works beautifully. 

Hope that helps,

Edward

[Rob Hall]

Gabe i will be at the fv maker space friday
If you want order a couple  of  chips from  digikey  or mouser
I can fix that melzi  board and help you get up and running

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