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SoliForum - 3D Printing Community → Help/Repair/Maintenance → Y Stepper Crawling
Hooked up the new E3D and completed my first print.
After shutting everything off, I went to print something else a bit later and the Y stepper is crawling (Y belt turns, but very slowly).
So I connected the Y motor to the Z stepper on the board, and the Y motor is working fine. (similarly the Z axis was crawling in this configuration)
It seems it's the stepper driver.
I re-uploaded the firmware and checked the voltage, but no go.
Anything I should try/adjust?
Thinking it was the stepper driver, I went ahead and ordered a SureStepr SD8825 today, thinking I'd swap the existing extruder A4988 with the bad Y stepper and use the new driver for the extruder.
Then tonight I tested the theory and swapped the bad Y stepper and extruder only to learn that it's not the driver :-/
While I had my eyes close to the board I noticed one of the ATMega1284 pins (I installed that last week) was bent and seemingly not making contact (how in the heck did I manage to print anything with it like that?)
I straightened the pin and have the microprocessor seated properly now, but that did not fix the problem.
Which makes me think it's either the 100k resistor (AXIAL-0.3) or the thermistor high pass RC filter (CPOL-RADIAL-100UF-35V) beneath the driver that's the problem.
I'm a noob at all this.
Anyone have a guess as to which I should try replacing first?
Which pin was bent on the 1284? would like to know, should be able to guess if this would cause the stepper issues.... or just a coincidence.
PIN 10 (VCC)
Hmmmm. Yeah I see what you mean by surprised you could print at all 
I was thinking you would have bent #28 and a faulty connection *might* behave this way but from what you say it is even in it's actions... so....probably not..... btw, how did you bend an inner pin ??? I always seem to bend the pins on corners 
Oh, one other thing... you have checked the trim pot voltage on the stepper driver right?
Other things it may be is metal debris on the back side of the main board... it wouldn't be the first time an errant piece of tiny wire trim was causing problems on the back of a SD printer board....
Voltage was the first thing I checked, it's fine.
I didn't remove the reset jumper when I first installed the chip and I'm guessing it got caught up on that.
Back of the board was clear.
Tomorrow I'll hit Radioshack for these:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index … Id=2062350
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index … Id=2102510
And see if I can get things working again before the new stepper arrives.
you could probably check them in circuit with moderate results.... if you check the resistor and it's open or a lot higher ohms than it's supposed to be of course it's bad same with the cap if it shows a short it's probably bad... I kinda doubt it's this though... I have an extra sang board laying around here somewhere... if I get a chance I'll look at it and try to do a reverse simulation of what might cause this... too late now, got to hit the hay... wakeup time comes early tomorrow 
Other things it may be is metal debris on the back side of the main board... it wouldn't be the first time an errant piece of tiny wire trim was causing problems on the back of a SD printer board....
That happened to me once, piece of tiny wire on my stepper driver... I guess everyone's workshop is the same.
you could probably check them in circuit with moderate results.... if you check the resistor and it's open or a lot higher ohms than it's supposed to be of course it's bad same with the cap if it shows a short it's probably bad... I kinda doubt it's this though...
I checked both the resistor and cap relative to each of the steppers and am getting consistent measurements across them. They also look fine physically. So they seem OK, and now I'm at a loss for what to check/try next :-/
Your connections to the motor maybe intermittent and/or it is only driving one coil. It wouldn't hurt to take a small flat blade screw driver and try to "recrimp" the wires in the connector for that motor.
Your connections to the motor maybe intermittent and/or it is only driving one coil. It wouldn't hurt to take a small flat blade screw driver and try to "recrimp" the wires in the connector for that motor.
It's not the motor as I swapped the Z and Y leads and the Y motor worked fine.
It's also not the driver as I swapped those.
It's something on the board.
To rule out the ATMega, I swapped the pin assignments for X and Y in PINS.H and confirmed the changes took (Y moved for X and visa versus).
So I've now ruled out:
- The stepper motor, wire, and connector
- The driver
- The microprocessor
Here's what I think is left:
- The resistor
- The capacitor
- The PCB (perhaps dry solder)
Anything I'm missing in this list?
have you tried a little pushing/prying on the board/plugs/whatnot when you are commanding it to move...
I've replaced the resistor and capacitor with no change in behavior.
I also did as you suggested ronsii and pushed/pried on the board & plugs while the monitor was turning.
I also checked the voltage during this operation and it fluctuates +/- .005v, which I don't imagine makes a difference here, but this is something different than the other stepper drivers which only vary .001v generally.
So at this point I'm contemplating upgrading to a Ramps 1.4 / Mega 2560 combo.
Hmmm....
very strange... I thought for sure you would find something while wiggling plugs around.... been too busy aat work to have much time to actually do anything with my spare board... maybe this weekend
I wonder what would happen if you swap your good drivers into the y driver slot? Reminds me of the time I replaced my timing chain on my Pontiac gto, and then could not get it started. The fuel pump went out at the same time I was fixing the timing chain. What are the odds.
Did you end up checking for dry solder conditions on the back of the board? This happened to me on another piece of equipment...sometimes very difficult to see.
Did you end up checking for dry solder conditions on the back of the board? This happened to me on another piece of equipment...sometimes very difficult to see.
Yeah, I have seen this many a time on older televisions, usually in the hi frequency circuit.
I wonder what would happen if you swap your good drivers into the y driver slot?
I swapped drivers (the driver is fine).
I swapped stepper wires (the wires/motors are fine).
I swapped PINS on the ATMega (PINS are fine)
I swapped the resistor, and capacitor (those are fine).
Did you end up checking for dry solder conditions on the back of the board? This happened to me on another piece of equipment...sometimes very difficult to see.
The only questionable solders I saw were my own on the replaced resistor and capacitor and I redid those better...no difference.
Thanks all for the suggestions.
I ordered a Ramps 1.4 / Mega 2560 combo today, though it would have been nice to isolate the problem with the Sanguino, I feel I made a good effort to fix what I had before spending the money on an upgraded board.
Just closing the loop on this thread.
I've had the RAMPS/MEGA combo up and running for a couple weeks now.
Clearly the problem was the Sanguino as things just worked once I had the everything put back together with the new board.
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