Ready to throw this thing out

Ok, well I don't know anything about Arduino programming, but i guess i will have to learn.

I went and picked one up today just to rule it out. I used just a psu, one stepper, new arduino board (flashed) the XL LCD that i bought as a spare, the ramps and stepper drivers.

Same problem

Z axis moves both directions
Y only one direction (reverse pins motor runs in other direction but still only one way)
X same as Y
E no movement at all.

Move Z stepper driver to Y position, only one direction, X same as Y and E nothing.

Swap out ramps board, same thing, swap out each stepper driver with spare ones same thing.

You said I would need spare parts after one of my issues so I spent $200 on spare parts (Arduino, ramps, stepper motors, bearings.....)

I have go through all my spare parts and more and it still doesn't work...

The only part I haven't swapped more than twice is the ramps board, I even swapped the PSU.

I have no idea what to try next...

 

The only thing connected is the PSU, arduino, XL display, ramps, one stepper driver and one stepper motor.

That's it.

If i hook up E0 nothing works.
Turn off power, move stepper driver to X and stepper motor to X - One direction movement
Turn off power, move stepper driver to Y and stepper motor to Y - One direction movement
Turn off power, move stepper driver to Z and stepper motor to Z - moves in both direction

This is all new wires, we are only talking about 8 wires at this point. 2 for 5A 12V, 2 for 11A 12V, 4 for stepper motor. That's all that is connected at any one time.

This is why i'm confused.

The PSU that came with it is 30A @12V, my spare is only 16.7A@12V but that should be enough to test, wanted to rule out the PSU.

Same thing on all 3 Arduino boards and both of my RAMPS boards and all 9 stepper drivers.

I have tried getting stepper to work/move with LCD display, XL LCD display and USB.

If i try to move anything with the PC USB cables nothing moves.

I down graded the firmware to the oldest version I had to try to move with the PC via USB and get no movement.

 

rbrock, Do y0u have a multimeter (volts and ohms)?

 

The PSU should have about 12V feeding the RAMPS. Is so then that is not the problem (right now).

Do you understand the path the signals take from the firmware to those steppers?

Follow the electrons:
Simply it is: Arduino->connector->RAMPS->connector->DriverBoard->connector->connector->wires->stepper

Or in a lot more detail:
1) A C instruction (really assembly/machine code) tells a port bit on the Atmel microcontroller to switch state.
2) A port bit changes state (5V to 0V or 0V to 5V) on one of the Arduino connectors.
3) That signal goes to the corresponding RAMPS connector.
4) That signal goes through some PCB traces directly to a Stepper Driver connector.
5) That signal goes into a stepper driver board.
6) Stepper driver board appropriately changes the drive waveform that goes to the 4 stepper wires.
7) Those 4 waveforms go back onto the RAMPS board through the stepper driver connector.
8) Those 4 waveforms go to the Z, Y or E connectors on the RAMPS.
9) Those 4 waveforms go to one of the wire bundles that attach to one of the steppers.

The connections are all here:
http://reprap.org/mediawiki/images/c/ca/Arduinomega1-4connectors.png
http://reprap.org/mediawiki/images/f/f6/RAMPS1.4schematic.png
http://reprap.org/mediawiki/images/6/6d/Rampswire14.svg

 

I'm sure that Ziggy's got it! Makes complete sense.

 

there are no end stops connected, as stated above there is only 8 wires connected to it. I will try closing the end stops. But regardless, I have always been able to move the steppers past end stops regardless is the end stop is triggered (never liked that feature).

The extruder has also worked regardless of temp as well from the LCD.

I can add a pots to the temp input, what is the ohms value/range?

 

Ok, that makes sense, I can stop testing all the arduino boards with and led... they all seem to be working.

I added a jumper to end stop x & y and now they move in both directions. I put a 220 resister on T0 and get a temp of 241 and the extruder now moves as well.

I seem to have one blown stepper driver, replaced it and now I have a working board.

I will test my other board while i'm at it to see if everything is working.

Will then just tune the pots on the drivers and hopefully move forward.

 

Also the good news is that you can build a nice robot with all that spare hardware!

 

Yeah... I was hoping that I wouldn't have to learn all the intimate details about this printer...

It's back together and actually printing at the moment... I tested all the other parts that I have and only one stepper driver was dead. I made 2 temperature plugs with resisters in them for T0 and T1 so it thinks something is plugged in an at temp, that will make troubleshooting in the future easier.

One thing I didn't do was make all the cables long enough so the controller can be on the outside of the case, it's a PITA having to flip it over all the time to check a wire.

At least the brackets that I needed for Friday will be done in a few hours...

Thanks again for all the help, again.

 

Well the first small print went okay, they had 4 failed prints, the Y axis kept jumping / not holding during a print.
I tried adjusting the pot on the stepper driver, it would help for a bit and then wouldn't hold after a while, tried multiple adjustments and after 4 failed prints swapped it out the stepper driver and finally had a good print, so looks like it was bad too (really feel like it was the pot adjustment as it didn't have a stop and would spin all the way around... so it may not have been making a good continuous connection on the board)

I was able to get the rest of the brackets that I needed finished this morning.

Hopefully the next few prints will go well.

 

Just to be sure, you've made sure your Y belt is tight, but not too tight?

 

I didn't tighten it up from the last time, it still feels good.

Still don't trust the machine. I want to put the in-line fuses on the 12V side of all wires as the fact that a shorted wire can actually short and burn is extremely bad.

I also agree that a hair dryer is a fire hazard, soldering iron, car - BUT only when used incorrectly. I can leave my soldering iron in it stand on my soldering table for a week on and it will be fine, my hair dryer has a thermal overload in it and a GFI circuit. If I leave my car running on a hard surface it will also be fine.

I was using this device in a controlled environment and it failed and caused an electrical fire, if it hadn't burned through the wires for the heater the fire would have propagated. All 12V runs in a car have a fuse on them... why doesn't this?

 

There is a fuse in front of the power supply to protect the circuit from over amping. Though the power supply will gladly supply up to the max amperage before tripping out.

The ramps board has fuses, called polyfuse. They're essentially self resetting circuit breakers.

The only spot that isn't fuse protected is if theres a fan plugged directly into the 12v power input terminals. As I understand it, this is no longer standard operating procedures but I might be wrong.

The robo is NOT a UL certified product and comes with explicit warnings to never leave the machine unattended. If you choose to leave the machine unattended Fuses will not protect from shorts that could cause fire. An unattended fire extinguisher is a good idea for ANY 3d printer, even one with UL certifications.

Not sure what point you're trying to make here.

 

So where should the fan be plugged in?

Guess my point is that with the stock wiring it can short and burn.