Y axis works, X axis isn't working

[mshaub]

Hi all! I'm fairly seasoned with Processing and Arduino but brand new to RAMPS and 3D printing hardware. I got a RAMPS v1.6 board, graphic LCD with SD reader, and Arduino Mega. Good news, I got the firmware uploaded to the Arduino, power to the RAMPS board, set Microstepping to 8 with DIPs, put 2 motor drivers in, and the Processing sketch controls one of the 2 stepper motors well.

If I switch wires between motors I can see both motors are functional, whichever is plugged into the Y axis works. If I swap stepper motor drivers between X and Y, the Y axis output still works. Any ideas what is going on with my other axis? Maybe it's the RAMPS board? Any advice from those of you with more experience is most welcome. I'd really appreciate it. I did look at some RAMPS forums and the advice there didn't help yet.

Since I don't know much about Gcode, I can't tell how hard it would be to adapt the code to use the Y and Z axis instead of X and Y, but obviously, that's not an ideal solution. Will update if that does work though. Thanks all.

[jsecondo]

Sounds the ramps board has something wrong with x axis circuit. Check soldering. Check dip switches.

El dom., 15 de abr. de 2018 18:19, mshaub notifications@github.com escribió:

Hi all! I'm fairly seasoned with Processing and Arduino but brand new to RAMPS and 3D printing hardware. I got a RAMPS v1.6 board, graphic LCD with SD reader, and Arduino Mega. Good news, I got the firmware uploaded to the Arduino, power to the RAMPS board, set Microstepping to 8 with DIPs, put 2 motor drivers in, and the Processing sketch controls one of the 2 stepper motors well.

If I switch wires between motors I can see both motors are functional, whichever is plugged into the Y axis works. If I swap stepper motor drivers between X and Y, the Y axis output still works. Any ideas what is going on with my other axis? Maybe it's the RAMPS board? Any advice from those of you with more experience is most welcome. I'd really appreciate it. I did look at some RAMPS forums and the advice there didn't help yet.

Since I don't know much about Gcode, I can't tell how hard it would be to adapt the code to use the Y and Z axis instead of X and Y, but obviously, that's not an ideal solution. Will update if that does work though. Thanks all.

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[jsecondo]

》》Since I don't know much about Gcode, I can't tell how hard it would be to adapt the code to use the Y and Z axis instead of X and Y, but obviously, that's not an ideal solution. Will update if that does work though. Thanks all.

You can use the z as x but youll have to change a lot of code!!! Everywhere that names x youll name it z. Another solution is to remap the pins of the x driver with the pins of the z driver. Guess pins.h is where youll find it

Good luck

El dom., 15 de abr. de 2018 23:07, Juan Pedro Secondo jsecondo@gmail.com escribió:

Sounds the ramps board has something wrong with x axis circuit. Check soldering. Check dip switches.

El dom., 15 de abr. de 2018 18:19, mshaub notifications@github.com escribió:

Hi all! I'm fairly seasoned with Processing and Arduino but brand new to RAMPS and 3D printing hardware. I got a RAMPS v1.6 board, graphic LCD with SD reader, and Arduino Mega. Good news, I got the firmware uploaded to the Arduino, power to the RAMPS board, set Microstepping to 8 with DIPs, put 2 motor drivers in, and the Processing sketch controls one of the 2 stepper motors well.

If I switch wires between motors I can see both motors are functional, whichever is plugged into the Y axis works. If I swap stepper motor drivers between X and Y, the Y axis output still works. Any ideas what is going on with my other axis? Maybe it's the RAMPS board? Any advice from those of you with more experience is most welcome. I'd really appreciate it. I did look at some RAMPS forums and the advice there didn't help yet.

Since I don't know much about Gcode, I can't tell how hard it would be to adapt the code to use the Y and Z axis instead of X and Y, but obviously, that's not an ideal solution. Will update if that does work though. Thanks all.

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[mshaub]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've got a RAMPS 1.4 board on order just in case the issue is the version of the board or soldering I can't see (what I inspected looked fine). Will try remapping the pins, that's an elegant way to try that option!

[RickMcConney]

Sorry I just saw your post. The X axis uses the E1 pins. I did this to be compatible with the original pen plotter. Not sure why he used the E1 pins. So you can either plug the X axis into the E1 port on the ramps board or change the pins back to their normal positions in the pins.h file in the marlin directory line 596 - 616 just delete the pin numbers to leave the original commented numbers.

Sorry for the confusion. I will make a note on the home page to warn others of this non standard configuration.

[jsecondo]

Fully explained!!!

Please make a great NOTE on the README file. This might lead to very wrong conlusions on either hardware and software.

Regards,

2018-04-16 10:59 GMT-03:00 RickMcConney notifications@github.com:

Sorry I just saw your post. The X axis uses the E1 pins. I did this to be compatible with the original pen plotter. Not sure why he used the E1 pins. So you can either plug the X axis into the E1 port on the ramps board or change the pins back to their normal positions in the pins.h file in the marlin directory line 596 - 616 just delete the pin numbers to leave the original commented numbers.

Sorry for the confusion. I will make a not on the home page to warn others of this non standard configuration.

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-- Juan Pedro Secondo A/S Genexus Cel: 099120060

[mshaub]

Wow! I don't know if I ever would have figured that out. Thank you so much for the tip.

[mshaub]

It worked!! Thank you so much, I've got both the X and Y working now and trying to tune the jitter out of the motors and get the microstepping, mm per revolution, and other settings dialed in. Is it normal for the motors to heat up quite a bit, or do I have the motor drivers incorrectly set or other misconfiguration? RepRap boards made it seem like this is normal, but I don't want to burn out the motors. Should I add fans to them, power off as soon as possible, or other intervention?

[jsecondo]

Cooling the motors and the drivers is a good idea. This motors will be working for many hours on each drawing.

2018-04-17 11:24 GMT-03:00 mshaub notifications@github.com:

It worked!! Thank you so much, I've got both the X and Y working now and trying to tune the jitter out of the motors and get the microstepping, mm per revolution, and other settings dialed in. Is it normal for the motors to heat up quite a bit, or do I have the motor drivers incorrectly set or other misconfiguration? RepRap boards made it seem like this is normal, but I don't want to burn out the motors. Should I add fans to them, power off as soon as possible, or other intervention?

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-- Juan Pedro Secondo A/S Genexus Cel: 099120060

[RickMcConney]

The motors will get warm after running for a while but they should not get very hot on a pen plotter. You may have your current set to high if they heat up quickly. Just turn the pot down a bit to lower the current. If you turn it down too much the motor will start to stutter and no longer turn smoothly.

Remember you adjust the mm/rev with the variables

machine.motors.mmPerRev=80.0 machine.motors.stepsPerRev=6400.0 in the default.properties.txt file NOT the normal variable in the marlin config.h file they should be left at 1 step/mm

6400 = 400 steps per rev (0.9 degree motors) X 16 microsteps if you have 200 step motors and 16 microsteps you would use 3200

The mmPerRev is usually 2mm GT belt X number of teeth in the motor gear or just measure the circumference of the motor gear.