Also Jim, on the new board I had already tried swapping the stepper drivers, with had no impact.
I tried the same, which makes me think it could be wiring,the extruder gears spin freely, so it’s not mechanical. The new board is screwed up I think, and we should try to get it replaced
I’ve reached out to Panucott, describing our issues.
Just doing a sanity check. Have we swapped out the stepper motor controllers and have their pots been set to the correct voltage/current values?
Bill
I’ve tried swapping them once before, but we can try again. Too high / low current shouldn’t cause the motor to “stiffen” But not step right?
Good thought Bill, the old stepper drivers should be floating around somewhere… look for little pink bags! maybe in that empty plastic bin thing near the Gbot.
But no, the new drivers have not been configured/adjusted for the correct amperage.
Depending if the current is too high or too low. Too high and the steppers will work, but get very very hot. Too low and they won’t move at all or will just jitter.
Bill
Roy from Panucott got back to me:
“Those corrupted characters are mostly caused by noise interrupting communication data. Most of the time its interference on the line going to the Viki but its also possible that there is something wrong with the controller. If you have tried moing the Viki and cabling away from noise sources like the Power supply box then its most likely the Controller. You can send me back the board and I will send you a replacement. You can also send the original board back and see if it can be repaired.”
I’m not sure that explanation holds up but do we want to send the new board back? Dave, how is the old board looking for a repair?
I was tinkering on it tonight, the only thing I can add is that once I realized the extruder must be heated before attempting to move the axis. This is a firmware interlock, compliments of Google. Once I did this, I could get JIm’s stepper to atleast lock-up every power cycle. (pin enabled?) Yet, I couldn’t get it to rotate, even with max or min settings on the amp pot. My quick Google suggested it could be a bad axis or driver… This led to testing drivers which led to more mysterious problems! Below is thuropugh documentation.
Test 1: If I swap the E1 driver, will Jim’s stepper turn?
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Removed driver, from Z1 and E1. Placed Z1 driver in E1 slot, leaving Z1 empty.
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Powered on, heated extruder, Stepper turns!
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Proceeded to cycle through 3 other drivers, making sure all drivers are good. There are, no duds, power cycled several times in process.
Test 2: If I activate all other axis, will E1 still turn? -
X and Y axis respond, although wiring/direction may be reversed.
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Z axis seems to stutter, I can hear the steppers but they’re not moving. Bed position isn’t on a dead-stop, amperage is 50/50 like others.
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E1 still responds, almost immediately the screen corrupts for the first time all night, possibly the first time on the old board.
What the hell? Did I just blow our old board? Is it possible one of the new drivers (installed in the old board) has blown both boards?
I didn’t touch the old board. It had a fake FTDI chip on it. It would be somewhat major surgery to put the correct chip on there seeing as it isn’t even the same physical package as a real chip.
-D
My theory: one of the stepper drivers has a bad chip that’s drawing too much power and/or causing some sort of feedback.
I have enough stepper drivers to replace all the gigabots current ones, we could try to see if that’ll fix the problem, then try to find if there really is a faulty one.
Jim, Panucott actually included all new stepper drivers with our purchase as a Hive13 bonus. I installed them with the new board. So we could install all the old drivers (now on the build plate) or just the bad new one (likely installed in Z1).
This is becoming an itch for me, so I may try to test this today.
So removing the bad stepper driver appears to have solved all problems, I reinstalled the new board, but the firmware is a mess. I haven't figured it out yet, does anyone have a copy of the firmware that was in the old board? There are lots of Boolean toggles I need to work out.
It's still down, currently not homing correctly due to firmware. (Continues to drive when end stops are triggered.)
Did anyone put the old firmware on fastor or the wiki? When you do get it working again it would be wise to store the firmware in one of those locations. We have other software and firmware stored on fastor to help with backups.
I am at the hive right now. I have done a quick search on fastor and didn’t get any think. Is there a dedicated folder for this?
Julien
Yeah I hunted around on faster too, nothing ovious, but didn't search member folders. Jim the issue is there are all these Boolean toggles for inversion of limit switches, homing direction, min/max. I found no documentation for them online or in the firmware. I guess they need adjusted because the wiring for Gigabots has changed over time.
I know it will be a tedious work but we are getting very close from a working machine. We also need to check if the temperature control is working on this new board. it was the reason why we changed the board initially.
Julien
So, instead of firmware toggles, should we just flip the wires so that the stock firmware works? It'll sure make it a lot less of a pain if it's relatively undocumented and we ever have to change the board in the future.
I'm willing to give it a shot to finish it with you tonight if you're down for it Ivan.
I don’t think we have the firmware on the original board anywhere at the Hive…when Bill S. initially got the gigabot working for us, I think he left the original firmware on the board.
I’d like to help tonight. Either switching wires or firmware toggles sounds reasonable, marlin is pretty well documented (although gigabot’s specific version of marlin is not)
Mike
re3D send me the firmware that I flashed onto that old board… I should still have it somewhere. I will check my archives as well.
Bill