Hi everyone, was hoping to get some help. I performed some maintenance, cleaning rails, changed out belts on my shapeoko pro XL…just keeping things freshly maintained. I removed the stepper motor to replace the X (long belt across width of machine), reassembled…and now the stepper motor just judders / vibrates…checked all connections, unplugged, replugged, no burned wires…the stepper motor just will not turn now…when trying to initialize. Went through the setup steps, configure data etc…nothing working. Is there a way to check my stepper motor model STEP200S-P. Do I need a replacement? Any help would be great, thanks all.
Tim,
If you have not done it yet take the belt off to see if it turns when commanded.
I recently had an issue with the harness. Are your pins pushed all the way in to the connectors?
Good Luck
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Hi Zman, thanks for replying quickly. I did take the belt off and determined the sound of juddering and vibrating is from the motor not turning. The pulley for the belt was not turning and it is tight. Will check the connector pins now.
The pins male and female look good, not corrupted or pushed in
It’s rare for a stepper to fail. These issues are the worst, but it could be a bad crimp or even a broken wire. Can you try gently moving/wiggling the wires at the connection, do you notice any change?
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Yes, just tried that again…no luck. Could the wires be disconnected on the terminals?
As a check, you can check each connection by checking the coil resistance.
An easy way to do this is to turn the stepper by hand with the power off while shorting the coil pair.
So,
Turn off power.
Disconnect motor at the connector closest to motor.
Turn the motor by hand to get a baseline feel for it.
Use a short piece of wire or even a paperclip to short one pair (i’m not sure of the correct pairing, but there’s only three to try).
Turn the motor by hand. One pairing will cause a noticeable amount of resistance in turning the motor. Try the other pair…if two pairs give you resistance, that first section of wiring is good. Add the connector to the next section and check again at the other end of that section.
Does that make sense? Again, NO power, stepper disconnected at mainboard.
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Hi Neil and all, thanks for the support / help…I re-checked and re-positioned all of the connections for the X stepper motor, the one at the motor, the one at the right side leading into the motherboard and the connection on motherboard, apparently this helped and got the machine and stepper motor to work…again, thanks, much appreciated, Tim (go Leafs go)
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Looking at your pictures bothers me. It may be the angle, light, something, but they look burnt. The ends should be smooth and rounded from the manufacture. It may have been that the connectors were not fully engaged.
I see the problem has been solved so far. I would contact support with those pictures to see what they say.
Before I write anything else: never unplug a stepper when the power is turned on (even if the stepper isn’t active).
Did you by any chance do this? If so, it’s possible that your stepper driver got fried. To check this, try to swap (with the power off) the stepper motor for the x and the z and see if the z now stutters. If it does, that’s either the stepper driver or the x wiring. If it doesn’t stutter, then it’s the motor.
To check that the connections to the stepper motor are actually connected, the easiest way is to use a multimeter. If you have a multimeter set it to conductivity test (or just measure the resistance, any measurable resistance means it is connected).
There should be 2 pairs of wires that are connected and only 2. You can see if you can find the to pairs that are connected.
Then, as @neilferreri said, work down the cable to check each connection.
If the wire checks out then it sounds like it’s probably the stepper driver which would probably need a new board.
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