I have a new one. Just used the machine yesterday. Today I went to redo a sign and everything is fine in X & Z, but every time I try to move the Z-plus carriage with software the I get a screaming noise like Z is blocked. I can move z manually (fingers on link at top). When I trigger Z via software the stepper starts to move but behaves like its blocked and it screams until I cut the power.
I don’t see any physical blockage. Blown driver? Bad stepper motor? Something not visible that can block Z movement?
Can you check that all of the wire crimps are seated properly in the connector? possibly it’s just not driving the phases well because of a wiring issue.
This is still uses the old Sparkfun controller so all the joints are soldered and taped/shrink wrapped. The terminal connections on the controller board end look fine.
Worked fine yesterday and I homed the machine and left if idle overnight. This AM not working.
So the solder joint is interesting, if not an issue on a driver it would not be unheard of for a solder joint to fail overnight. Less likely for something like a bearing especially if you haven’t heard squealing before.
Try powering down, leaving it for a bit, then swapping the controllers to drive a known good motor from that stepper driver? If that doesn’t work, probably the stepper driver has failed.
Ok I swapped the X and Z and the problem moved to the X so its clearly the old Stepoko controller which I am pretty sure is discontinued (Sparkfun barely supported it even back when it was new).
Will generously supplied me with a controller and harness which I now need to actually use. Looking over the situation I need help with the following:
The Carbide controller appears to use some proprietary power connector and I am unclear where I would get a power supply. The Sparkfun just uses a high wattage 24V supply with standard connector.
The wiring harness expects 4 pin female molex connectors. I tried to look them up on Digikey but couldn’t find them (I have crimpers). How do I acquire these (yes I could cut them off and solder but that’s not cool).
The sparkfun controller mounts on the left Y bar. I think the Carbide controller mounts on X using pre-tapped holes. Any idea how I mount this thing? Is the controller in different places based on the model?
My machine is a bastard with Sparkfun controller and several Carbide upgrades for limit switches, XXL bed extension and HDZ.
Just to correct the record, in reading the XXL wiring instructions I think the harness and controller came with the XXL upgrade and was never installed because at the time I didn’t want to deal with swapping out the Sparkfun.