Spool motor problem

[Staston Lombardi]

hi again , 

I have a problem to run the spool motor .

so I verified the motor and it ok 

The pcb doesn't deliver for motor (  0 v  ) 

I've verified the leds wiring and it's ok 

for led 1 ( red brown   1 V ) 

led 2 ( yellow orange 1 v ) 

led 3 (green blue  1 v ) 

led 4 (grey purple 0v ) when I put  my finger between led 1 ans led 4   it gives 1 v 

Any Advice  please .

[Herb Winters]

yes I had problems with my spool motor when I first assembled it as well.

if you if you look at the spool sensor while it is mounted on the extrutionBot the top pair of sensors are used for turning on the motor and the bottom pair are for turning it off and if the Clear LED (Emitter) is not making IR light on the Bottom the unit will be turn on but not stay on so I thing we should start with the bottom IR Pair.

so it sounds to me like you have a problem with the Bottom Clear LED(Bottom Emiter) or Bottom Black LED (Bottom Detector) or worse case the board is not working however if the fan is working we can start with the other issues..

so the first step is to check the Bottom Emitter the problem here is we cannot see if the led is on because the light it emits is not visible to us. however it is visible a little to most Cell phone cameras (almost any digital video/picture camera)
Buy setting up you cell phone in camera mode and looking straight into the end of the led with the camera it does not make a difference if the camera is too close to focus you should still be able to see a Blue glow comming from the Clear LED (emitter) if you dont try looking at the Top emitter as I am pretty sure it should be working.
if you see a blue glow on the bottom emitter the emitter is working fine go to the next step if you dont the problem is most likely the wiring I had one fail because the contact connecting to the led was not making an electrical connection even thought I had the led lead in the black socket all the way. I removed the lead bent it a little and put it back in an I was good to go. another thing to check is that the lead on the Flat side of the LED is connected to the correct color ribbon wire.

next step:
if the LED emitter is working then we need to check the Detector unfortunately I dont have any easy way to check this part if you stick your finger between the Bottom emitter and the detector and the motor does not come on then you must check the same things on the detector that you would have on the Emitter are both leads from the detector making good connections in the black sockets and is the Flat side of the Black Detector LED connected to the correct color ribbon wire.


let me know what you find.

[Staston Lombardi]

thx for reply , 

bottom emitor is ok , buttom detector i guess it's fine too as in my question ( led 4 (grey purple 0v ) when I put  my finger between led 1 ans led 4   it gives 1 v 

 ) so it stops when recieves led ( 0v ) 

is it normal thet the upper emitor doesn't have light ( with the camera ) ? 

[Herb Winters]

oops, didn't catch the voltage info you had there.

sounds like your bottom pair is working is working okay but it is not turning on the Spool motor.

this is different than mine. 

you said that you could not see any blue light using the camera from the top clear LED.

that is a problem not sure what is happening but both clear leds should have that blue glow when looked at through a camera.

you could remove the leads and see if you get a voltage on the board pins with out the LED connected I would expect > 1V

[Staston Lombardi]

 the top clear LED have > 1 v  even when it's connected but no light , I've even Tested it with two other leds 

[Steven Yaeger]

On Thursday, November 21, 2013 8:11:09 PM UTC-8, Staston Lombardi wrote:

 the top clear LED have > 1 v  even when it's connected but no light , I've even Tested it with two other leds 

Did either of the 2 other LEDs work?  Since you have power on the leads, that just leaves the connection to the LED or the LED itself. 

LEDs are diodes, so polarity is important. And plugging them in backwards doesn't hurt them.  You might want to try reversing the leads...  Maybe you accidentally plugged it in backwards? (if it isn't it backwards and the other 2 LEDs worked, that pretty much means it is a bad LED)

[Staston Lombardi]

thx for replies , 

LEt me share what i've tested till now , 

the led is surely Ok as i've tested with both new ones and it's the same , I've tried also to inverse them  and still have light on bottom one , no lights on upper one ( despite it has 1 v ) 

I succeeded to make motor turn when i removed the bottom emitor  this is the only case it runs 

so we confirm that card is ok , motor is ok , wiring are ok ( revised more thn 10 times ) 

thx 

[Steven Yaeger]

From what you've said, can I assume this...

1.  The IR LED is ok. 

2.  There is power on the 2 wires, at the end where the IR LED plugs in.

3,  No matter which way you plug the IR LED into the 2 wires, it never lights up.

4.  You have 2 other LEDs (IR or otherwise) that do light up when you plug them into the wires.

If I'm understanding this correctly, then I have to ask, how do you know the IR LED is OK?  Have you tried hooking it up to a battery and watched it light up?

http://www.instructables.com/id/LEDs-for-Beginners/step5/

If the IR LED lights up, but it doesn't light up when you plug it into the 2 wires (with power)... Then either the power from the wires, isn't making it to the IR LED (not making contact) or the power to the IR LED is turning off when you plug it in.

[Staston Lombardi]

Thx for reply , 

as i said  when i inverse  the upper emitter and the bottom one  , it still he same only the bottom one lights ( how to know if it lights ?, I verified with the phone camera like mr Herb proposed to me )

the thing that i'm triing to understand , is why the upper led ( tested about 4 ones ) didn't light even if it has > 1 v un his borns 

The second thing is when i eliminate the bottom led emittor/ the working one  ( just remove it from connector ) the spool motor begin to run . 

Thx

[Herb Winters]

Staton, re-reading your post I think there may be other problems with the board back when I said the motor was working all I ment was if it was runnung the fan and powering the leds it must be powered and up and running.

I am thinking if you swapped the top and bottom LED and the problem stayed on the top then the board is bad if a resistor has a wrong value or some of the hacks are not on the board it will not supply the correct current even if the voltage is present

[Staston Lombardi]

thx for reply , 

Any idea of how to really  test the broard ?   

[Herb Winters]

hare are a couple Options on how to proceed forward.

1.) send mark and email say that you have been working of debugging you spool control problem and it looks like the board is not working and see if he will send you a replacement. he may want you to test a couple things or he may just send you out a board.

2.) if you cover the cost of shipping the board I can test it fully and or repair the board for you (free) then you pay the shipping back how ever you want to send it.

3.)  we can go through it here the board is fairly simple so my guess is it is a bad solder connection missing hack or wrong value resistor all pretty easy to figure out.

let me know what you would like to do.

[Staston Lombardi]

thx for your help ,

2) I'm really far away from usa so i don't think it's easy  to resend again hewever  it will be our last solution thx for your proposal , 

1) i've sent mark an email today about this issue with a link to this discussion , hope to get reply from him soon ,

3 ) i will try to test the board here , may be send it to a local professional ( hope to get help ) as I can see this is not a very difficult to build board ( i'm not so sure ) so may be it will be easier to build another one if i have some plans or specifications .

Anyway thx for your support and help 

Sincerely ,

[Herb Winters]

Hi I understand let me know if I can do anything to help I have a board here on my desk if your tech guy has questions.

[Staston Lombardi]

I don't know how to explain that :) 

I've unmounted all wires remounted all again , and now it's working , i've verified all , changed nothing  but now it's working 

Thx for your help .

 

[Sergei Kupriakhin]

Hi all, I need help.

I too have a problem to run the spool motor .

if the motor connected to fan it worked 

The pcb doesn't deliver for motor (  0 v  ) 

led 1 ( red brown   1.03 V ) 

led 2 ( yellow orange 1.03 V ) 

led 3 (green blue  1.44 V ) 

led 4 (grey purple 1.43 V ) when I put my finger between led 1 ans led 4 it gives 1.91 V.

I carefully transported the Extrusionbot to another place and after this spool motor not working. Before transporting everything worked. 

[Sergei Kupriakhin]

I make own system with arduino.