Ok some of you may have seen my quest for help on the fb group. Long story short, Edward 3d printed a mount for carbide3d prox switches for my hdz. When it came in I completed the assembly and tried for several days now to diagnose why my z axis prox switch wont light up.
So far I have …
checked continuity of the cable itself. all pins check out. They also check fine when the switch is plugged in and i check to the backside of the prox pins. So I know the cable is at least good.
after verifying there was no break in the wires I proceeded to reset the controler. no bueno.
I decided to swap x and y prox switches at the add on board to see if just the Z slot was bad. X and Y still light up fine no matter what slot I position them in.
So… Is there a way to check the prox switch itself with multi-meter to see if it is bad? I have tried calling carbide3d for 3 days and have left messages. also have emailed and have gotten no response.
In the short term I have ordered a 5v prox switch from amazon which should arrive tomorrow to see if it is in fact the switch or a separate issue.
has anyone else experienced this? I tried to search but came up empty for this particular problem.
I have never seen those new prox switches first hand, but if they have three wires, one of them is the power supply, and the other two are the ones between which there should be an electrical continuity when triggered: so you should be able to use your multimeter in continuity check mode (a.k.a. “beeeep” mode), see if it beeps when you place a metal object in front of it (assuming the switch is powered, of course). But they also have an LED right ? if the LED does not light up, chances are the switch is either dead OR not wired correctly
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this does help me to determine whether or not its alive or dead. The c3d prox switch is wired like a normal one would be and looks like its great quality. love the face they are not round like so many others.
I just didnt know how to actually test it. thank you!
And again thanks to C3D for always being so helpful.
As a general question about proximity switches for the Shapeoko, are these magnetic or Hall Effect switches. Are they some other type of switch? I would guess they are Hall Effect switches if they require power but just guessing.
Problem solved! I plugged the sensor directly to the board and it worked. The wiring harness was wired wrong. it was wired backwards. In my case the plug going to board needed to be (from left to right) red black green. it was black green red.
after i repinned the plug it works