Hello Everyone,
I have a Shapeoko 3. I have had it for years and have never had an issue until now. My Y1 stepper is ticking when its just supposed to be holding still. I thought it might be the stepper so I swapped the Y1 and Y2 motors. Oddly the problem stopped. The Y1 motor didnt tick on the Y2 side and the origional Y2 wasnt now ticking on the Y1 origional side. However that lasted about a day now the origional Y2 motor is ticking on the Y1 side. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. The ticking is actually throwing off the Y axis ever so slightly while the tick is happening.
Sounds like an internal wiring problem with the stepper motor.
I would agree with you except the issue stayed on the Y1 side despite swapping the Y1 and Y2 motors.
It’s really had to tell from your picture, do you have one of the two grub screws tightened down on the flat spot on the stepper motor shaft? Maybe the sound you hear is the shaft slipping in the drive gear for the belt.
1 Like
I guess I did not read close enough. I thought you said it stayed with the stepper motor.
Ticking in a stepper motor sounds to me like an intermittent connection to one of the coils. Servo motors can “hunt” if they are not tuned correctly, but these steppers are open-loop. With microstepping motors, they will rarely stop at a full step where energizing and de-engergizing one of the coils would not affect the position. On a microstep, there would be slight wavering as the coil energized and de-energized.
Going with the “check the easiest stuff first” philosophy, I’d suggest looking at the contacts in the housing on the supply cable end that the stepper plugs into. Are they seated fully and locked? Of course, the same thing back along the “supply chain” (both ends of each cable) back to the PCB. If those are all secure, then it might be the driver board.
Yes, sorry I thought I could upload a video of it doing it but it only only allowed me to upload a picture. I made sure the grubscrew hadnt moved and it is still tight. It seems to be some sort of signal bumping or interference but im now trying to sort if its an issue on the PCB/MCB or if its somewhere in the lines.
Thanks for the suggestion, I checked all the easy stuff, plugs being fully seated loose wites all that and found nothing. Che ked the grub screws on the stepper shafts and those were all good. So now im looking for any possible sources of interference, cracked wire shieldings bad board traces anything. I havent found it yet and unfortunately had to travel to Germany for 3 weeks for work so my troubleshooting is at a pause for now.