New owner here. Thought I had everything put together but I’m having an issue that’s grinding on me. Ha.
I installed Motion 4 and everything connected fine. It tries to run a homing cycle before it will let me use the jog feature. The Z axis tests up and down, then the gantry moves to the back of the machine. It’s touching the end plate, and I can watch the homing switch being pressed. But it just sits there for a second, then the Y motors grind in place for a minute, then give up and I get an error in Motion.
I checked to see all the wires are connected to the right places and there’s no obvious damage anywhere. Connections look right.
I scrapped Motion 4 and installed 3 instead. Now I can use the jog feature to move the Z axis and Y axis without issue.
But…the X axis won’t move. It seems stuck in position and the motor is angrily trying to break free. It’s almost shaking in one spot. It will keep this fight until I jog the X in the opposite direction. It’s not a one direction problem either - if I start by going left it will fight and grind until I click once to the right, and vice versa.
I tried loosening the X carriage wheels to be sure they weren’t too tight (to the point of having some slop). Didn’t help. I tried loosening the X belt to be sure that wasn’t too tight. Same problem. Tightened the belt. No better.
What else do I try? It’s trying to move but seems stuck. I can see the pulley turning back and forth against the belt as I try to jog the machine.
First, don’t use CM3 with Grbl 1.1 — it can cause weird problems — if you wish to use the machine w/o homing reflash to Grbl 0.9: GRBL 1.1 and Carbide Motion 4
Ok, I went back to CM4. What do you mean by “resending the defaults”? I’m very new to this.
The wiring harness for the X was the tiniest bit askew on the control board so I disconnected and reconnected. The harness by the motor was fine, but I disconnected/reconnected that one too.
What else could be getting hung up? It’s not catching on the drag chain. The V wheels are snug but turning. I even tried loosening the rollers below the motor pulley.
I had the idea to switch out the Z and X leads and send commands through MDI. And the X travels just fine. So it’s the wiring.
The cable itself doesn’t show any issues, so I started looking at the harnesses. The X harness at the motor has the wires ordered Green, Black, White, Red. Every other harness at the motors is wired B, G, W, R. So I think I found my issue.
The instructions for re-sending the defaults are at the link:
The noise pretty definitely indicates a wiring problem (it’s almost never the motors, if it is, it’s usually their wires).
Check thing by swapping connections around:
Power down
Connect X-axis motor (unknown if good or bad) to Z-axis wiring extension (known good) to Z-axis stepper driver (known good)
Connect Z-axis motor (known good) to X-axis wiring extension (unknown if good or bad) to X-axis stepper driver (unknown if good or bad)
Connect and test the machine by jogging — if the problem switches to the other motor we know the motors are good, and the problem is in either the wiring extension or stepper driver.
If the X-axis motor tests good
Power down
Connect X-axis motor (tested good) to Z-axis wiring extension (known good) to X-axis stepper driver (unknown if good or bad)
Connect Z-axis motor (known good) to X-axis wiring extension (unknown if good or bad) to Z-axis stepper driver (known good)
Let us know which part(s) are bad at support@carbide3d.com and we’ll do our best to help you sort this out.
