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Stepper Issue?

Discussion in 'CNC Mills/Routers' started by jfounds24, Mar 22, 2020.

  1. jfounds24

    jfounds24 New
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    Just built my Lead 1010 with High-Z a few weeks ago and have only had time to do the Hello World test cut so far. Really like the build quality and am very excited to use this machine more.

    Unfortunately I'm having an issue I can't quite figure out. It has happened twice now. 1st time I figured it was just something dumb I did, did a re-set and it worked. Today I went through the following process and things started getting weird:
    • Homed the machine (everything worked perfectly)
    • Jogged to a spot away from home in order to do my Z-probe (both axes jogged fine)
    • Did my Z-probe
    • Jogged in X to a spot to set my zero. Worked fine.
    • Tried to jog in Y (.1" increments) and it sounded terrible. From what I can tell the motors are mysteriously running in opposite directions.
    • Full stop, turned everything off
    • Using calipers to measure relative to the front plate I squared the gantry back up
    • Fired everything back up and jogged Y, same problem where the motors are running in opposite directions
    • Then I jogged Z up, and it had the same awful grinding noise, but only for 1 jog. Jogging fine now.
    The odd thing about this is that it seems intermittent. The first time it happened was when I hit "Run Job" on my Hello World test cut. I re-started, re-zeroed, and the whole cut ran fine. Today everything was jogging great and then out of nowhere the motors started acting up.

    Thanks in advance for the help.
     
  2. Alex Chambers

    Alex Chambers Master
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    Most likely a dodgy wiring connection - vibration can both make and break contact. Check any screws (if any) holding wires into connectors are secure. Carefully check wires in and close to crimp connectors - sometimes a wire can break inside the insulation. With everything powered off use a multimeter to check for continuity on all the suspect stepper motor cables - wiggle the wires as you do this to find an intermittent fault.
    Not as likely - EMI (interference) - no reason why it should suddenly start happening unless you changed something recently, but in general you should keep mains cables (and especially VFD cables if you have any) away from any low voltage cables. If you think it might be EMI ferrite cores on any signal wires (limit switches, usb cables for example) will help.
    If those tips don't help please ask again.
    Alex.
     
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  3. Peter Van Der Walt

    Peter Van Der Walt OpenBuilds Team
    Staff Member Moderator Builder Resident Builder

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    Seconding the loose wire theory - that sounds exactly like a motor running on only 3 of the 4 wires making contact.
     
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  4. jfounds24

    jfounds24 New
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    I believe you were correct. I disconnected all of the motors at both ends and removed the connectors from the wires. Cleaned up some of the wires that weren't trimmed enough, and re-installed the 4-pin connectors. Checked continuity and all was good. Plugged everything back in and jogged around for 5-10 minutes with no issues. Ran a very short program a couple times with no issues. I'll try to run some longer code later this week and see how it fares, but I think my issue is solved.

    None of the wiring connections at the connector seemed suspect as I was taking them apart, but I did notice that one of the Y motor connectors was not fully "snapped" into the BlackBox. That must have been the culprit. The motor associated with that wire was also noticeably louder and felt like it was vibrating worse than the other Y motor. I assume that is a related issue because both the noise and the vibration are gone as well.

    Thank You for the help!
     
    Peter Van Der Walt likes this.
  5. Alex Chambers

    Alex Chambers Master
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    Pleased to hear that:thumbsup:
    Alex.
     
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