motor humming does not jog

[dhagen]

I am in the process of revamping a 24 x 24 nextwave cnc and replacing the NW controller box and PC with a Masso and a Gecko 540 driver. I am at the point where I have it all basically hooked and and the Masso booting and software installed and working. The Gecko appears to be work, no faults and with a green status light. I have run continuity tests on my wiring and it is all correct. I am using the same 24V power supply that the nextwave used in the NW controller.

So when I turn the unit on I hear the stepper motor hum and there is a holding current, can t turn the motor shaft. But when I try using the Masso software to move the axises nothing! I don t have any spec s on the motor wiring. There are 4 wires, red,green,blue and black. I have determined that red and blue are paired and the green and black are paired. I have swapped the pairs around on the D9 connector to the g540 and reversed them, for example, red pin 1, Blue pin 2, then tried blue p1, red p2. I think I have tried all combinations

I have just started my troubleshooting, looking for any suggestions.. I am not sure if there are settings in the masso I should check! I am just learning this stuff so I may have missed something obvious.... Basically I have the software booting, fixed the door alarm, and that is all at this moment. I have not done anything with the motor settings..

 

[masso-support]

Hi dhagen,

The G540 is an excellent choice for a stepper driver and should work well once you have everything set up properly. I use the same on my machine as do many others here. You may ultimately find 24 volts is too low for running your motors at their best but it is not the cause of your issue at this time and it will work as well if not better than the previous drive.

First off here are some suggestions that my help you get moving.

1. Connect only one stepper and work on that and once you have it working move onto the next one. Working on multiple things is counter productive and frustrating.
   
2. I'm not sure what diagram you are looking at to wire your DB9 plug but one pair (Red / Blue) should be on pins 6 & 7 while the other pair (Green / Black) should be on pins 8&9 there should be nothing on pins 2,3 & 4 and a resistor should be put between pins 1&5 to limit the current to your motors. The lack of a resistor will not stop the motor turning. You mention you are using pins 1 & 2 for one of your windings so this might be your problem, unless there is a new G540 version in which case can you please post the manual. the actual polarity of the windings does not matter as it only affects the direction of rotation and this can be sorted in Masso setup.
   
3. The charge pump switch needs to be turned off
   
4. You must have the Estop installed or bypassed on the G540.
   

I'm picking you have items 3 & 4 already sorted or else the G540 would have the fault light lit up.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Peter

 

[dhagen]

Thanks Peter for the response... It was lazy writing, I did have the motors wired to the D9 connector as you described. I have the resistor installed and check the ohms and it is correct as I as told 2.8amp for these motors. It sounds like if I was told the wrong amp value for the motors that would not prevent the motors from turning.

I have been working only on the x-axis... I have the masso/g540 wired per the Masso diagram in its documentation. I have checked and double checked all my wiring. Everything is correct.

When I jog the x-axis I can measure the voltage changing at the D25 pin 2 connector connected to the g540. I am starting to think it is the g540. I am not seeing any lockouts or warnings on the masso screen. The x-axis numbers on the masso screens are changing.

I am going to call gecko drives and see what they think....

Again thanks for the input....

Dave...

 

[dhagen]

I found the problem, I did have have a ground running from the g540 to the S- and D- connections on the masso.

On the diagram in the masso documentation it show x for these connection which I interpreted as unconnected actually I need to connect these to ground on the g540. I think that diagram should be changed to stated these should be connected to driver ground. Without doing so causes the input voltage to the g540 to float. Plus I need to ground both the S- D- to ground or the motor only turns one way.

 

[breezy]

Did you connect pin25 to ground on the A axis connector? That is supposed to complete the circuit for all axis.

From topic Hellow new member in Introductions.

The "x" sign means do not connect. As the Gecko does not take differential signals the pins marked with "x" on the MASSO are not to be connected anywhere. For the Gecko to work with MASSO its very important to connect Pin 25 from Gecko to Ground pin on the MASSO.

Regards,

Arie.

 

[dhagen]

I connected g540 to the masso exactly as shown in the diagram, which means pin 25 on the g540 was connected to the pin 3 on the a-axis. If when you say ground pin on the masso that is pin 3 on the a-axis that is exactly what I did. I followed the wiring diagram exactly. I did a continuity check on all wire multiple times.

That did not work! The motors did not move connected as diagramed.



I was on the phone with gecko support for about 40 minutes checking voltages etc.. Once I connected the s- and d- on all three axises to ground on the g540 everything started working. I now have all 3 axis working and moving, but slowly. What we measured the voltages on the s- and d- they were if I remember correctly in the 3 to 4 volt range. It was the gecko support guy that suggested I ground those pins... It was the only thing that worked.

Also, which may not make sense I had to ground both the s- and d- pins else whether on the jog screen I click on jog right or jog left it only move right. When I grounded both s- and d- pins it worked correctly and would move in the selected direction.

So I don t understand what is going on if you say it was to work as diagramed, since it did not for me.

It is jogging, but pretty slowly, haven t figured out how to speed it up yet. Maybe how I have this hooked up is causing other issues... I am currently working on getting the hard limit switches working. I just have to finish up the z-axis, the other two are working.

 

[breezy]

We have the G540 on the 3DTek Heavy Mill but connected it to the MASSO with a 3DTek.xyz Masso to Gecko Parallel circuit board.

So without tracing the circuits I don't know if the S & D -ves are connected to the G540 ground.

Quote from dhagen on June 27, 2019, 8:57 am

Also, which may not make sense I had to ground both the s- and d- pins else whether on the jog screen I click on jog right or jog left it only move right. When I grounded both s- and d- pins it worked correctly and would move in the selected direction.

The D pins are the direction pins, so if the circuit was floating then selecting left jog was not telling the G540 to change direction. Hence it jogged in one direction only.

Quote from dhagen on June 27, 2019, 8:57 am

It is jogging, but pretty slowly, haven t figured out how to speed it up yet. Maybe how I have this hooked up is causing other issues...

Jogging & running speeds are set in the F1 screen axis settings. See 20.7.Axis Calibration page. Adjust the Maximum Feed Rate & Acceleration after you have correctly setup Motor: Distance per revolution and Drive: Pulses per revolution. P/R for the G540 is 10 times the pulses on the stepper motor data sheet.

Regards,

Arie.

 

[dhagen]

I found the issues with the grounding.

I discovered the D25 connector I am using has pin 25 hardwired to frame ground. So evidently having this on frame ground and connected to the masso causes grounding issue.

I moved the ground wire from pin 25 to pin 24 which is G540 ground. I also removed all the grounds from S- & D- pins on the Masso and everything is working, So I would suggest that you change your diagram from pin 25 to pin 24. This would insure other people don t do what I did and insure a good ground between the Masso and G540.

 

[masso-support]

Hi dhagen,

Internally within the G540 pins 18 to 25 are all connected together so it doesn't matter which one of them you use, the result is the same.

Never connect any of the Step or direction pins on Masso to ground as it is liable to damage the outputs. Gecko got that very wrong.

Within the G540 pin 25 does not connect to the ground rail of the G540 and is isolated by design. By connecting pin 25 in your cable to the ground frame of your G540 you are creating a ground loop and a world of issues. The wiring diagram for the G540 is correct and I use it myself. Pin 25 is fine to use as are any of the pins 18 -25 since they are all connected together.

Would I be correct in thinking that you used an old printer cable to connect Masso to the G540 and it has a wire running from pin 25 to the metal frame of the D25? If this is the case please remove the wire between the D25 case and pin 25 as it will be nothing but trouble for you.

Cheers

Peter

 

[dhagen]

Ok, I feel pretty stupid... I just figured out what happened... I am using a D25 breakout connector. The screw terminals are in numerical sequence starting with 1and ending with what I thought at pin 25. There are actually 26 screw terminals the last being ground. When I wired this up I just assumed the last screw terminal was pin 25 and it was not. I feel pretty stupid causing all this trouble because I miss-read the screw terminal layout. I apologize for wasting all your time..... It was a D25 connector, I thought 25 screw terminals, I am truly embarrassed...

 

[masso-support]

Thanks for the update dhagen.

He who never made a mistake, never made anything.

We all live and learn and the only reason most of us know what we know is because we all made these sorts of mistakes. It's by sharing our failures with others that everyone benefits and next time someone has a similar problem it is one more thing that can be checked.

Hope the rest of the build goes smoothly

Cheers

Peter