Some questions for you sir! What Machine do you have, did you use multi strand wire and where did you source the wire from? As I’m reading these issues I’m actually surprised that customers are still running into these problems. I have had my S3 for almost 5 years now and had the same issues at first. Grounding, Isolation and ferrite chokes with a board replacement fixed the disconnect issues. I have been thinking of what you have done with rewiring the stepper motors and it gave me an idea.
I’m thinking of going one step further and relocating the control board off the machine entirely. You eliminate vibration all together and dust and shaving accumulation on the board itself. On the machine I have the control board uses 4 tiny screws that hold the board to the aluminum mounting plate. After a disastrous problem I had a few weeks back that destroyed the work and the wasteboard and broke all 4 V wheels in the Z plate I went to the Z plus and did a complete maintenance to the machine. While dissembling things I found one of those tiny screws missing! Might have caused the problem might not have IDK.
It got me thinking maybe it would be a good idea to relocate the control board off the machine. I’m not sure of this wisdom and I’m sure C3D has already thought of this but if everything is grounded properly the only thing on the machine would be the stepper motors. In my mind this eliminates all vibration and dust and shavings from the control board while in operation. As to static electricity as long as things are grounded properly that should not be a problem either. I live in Southern California inland area and the humidity is routinely pretty low, around %10-30 on average depending on wind direction.
You could use a smaller gauge on the steppers to make it not so tight a fit in the wire chain, but I suspect the heavier gauge is why my steppers stay cool. (let me go check,)
stepper temp Has been powered on for about 5 days…
As to the fit, you would need to open the entire wire chain and lay the cables in neatly, any crossover or twist and they probably won’t allow you to close the chain.
I removed most of the wire coming out of the steppers (they came with about 18 inches of wire leads) I left about a 3 inch lead in case I need to cut and resolder for any reason (future mods in mind there). I removed the ends from the stock cables and soldered to the new wires to plug onto the board. That in itself was the biggest part of the chore and I got it wrong…
what I did…I removed the female plugs from the plastic housing, cut the wire leaving a bit over 1/4 inch and soldered to that and reinserted the plug back into the housing.
what I got wrong… I should of bent the wires to a 90 degree angle before soldering. I had to bend them after soldering to get the cover back on and I don’t like doing that.
I do not know what the before readings were, but the current (pun) readings,
Thanks for the info on the wire source! I don’t want to hijack the OP thread but I guess if the suggestions work or help in any way maybe it’s relevant! What are you thoughts on moving the control board from the machine? The board I have just has an aluminum fence around it and it’s not enclosed like the one you have. I just think getting the control board off of the gantry and out of the enclosure it would make for better reliability in the long run.
That might help, and when I do get around to building an enclosure I will be mounting my not yet purchased 4-axis controller to another area. Anything that may help, I am all for it.
If nothing else, try and run your stepper wiring away from the home switch wiring. I didn’t this time, but I will. I still have plenty of wire…
Ok, so I have successfully moved the control board off of the gantry and rewired all steppers and limit switches! I just went down to the Home Deathspot and sourced the wire from them. Both wire used are shielded so I don’t think having to run them separately is really necessary. I also attached the drain wire to all steppers and grounded everything to earth.
I did experience disconnections and glitching while milling the wastboard. This was done on a day that was very dry, around 12% humidity at the time of milling so a grip of static electricity was being generated with the MDF. The fix for this was to add a drain wire to the hose in the enclosure and ground to the rest of the drain system. Overall I’m happy with the result of the mods (Z plus and proximity switching) and the new enclosure is much sexyer than the last one.
My only bungle is I did not make the enclosure deep enough to accommodate the Kent dust shoe when the Y axis is in the forward cutting position. I’m currently working on a different dust shoe design to to accommodate that problem.
Nice work.
What gauge wire did you use for the steppers?
Mine is 16awg.
I do not have a dust shoe yet, but I am going to try and mount mine to the lower rear of the x-axis plate…
also, another question, do you think the air inrush to that cabinet might cause static build-up? being plexiglass and all…
I can’t tell from the photos, but did you ground the plexiglass? I drilled a hole in each of my plexiglass panels, got a nut, bolt and washers and then ran a ground wire to each bolt with a crimped electrical connector. The wire was then run to my ground terminal block.
Bill
Did this start when the weather got cold? Does your shop have low humidity? If so, it’s just static build up, put a rubber mat by your machine, add some humidity, ground the dust collection. If your getting a static shock touching things in the shop it’s the environment.
I recently have been having disconnects, even though I would get them like once a month. I decided to replace motor brushes, cost me $8 and fixed my issue. If it has been a long time since you changed them, give that a try.
Thanks! I used 18 gauge for the steppers and 22 for the proximity switches. It seems to work just fine, I did run a few programs to make sure there weren’t going to be any issues.
As to static build up it on the enclosure it’s possible it can build up but again I believe the humidity and the material being cut makes a huge difference in static being generated. I didn’t see any indications of that when I did the wastboard leveling, it was mainly from the hose going to the dust shoe as that is where the material is running through.
No I did not physically ground the enclosure anywhere but it does touch the Y gantries on both sides so it does have a potential place to drain as the machine is grounded to earth.
