7i96 card may have bad Module Descriptor 4

My plasmac machine has been operational for several months. Upon startup recently I found that my Z drive motor would not run but the DRO showed movement. I assumed that this might be caused by loose wires in the cabinet so began checking the wiring, continuity, joint tightness, etc, During this process I sparked a few wires. I attempted to bypass the 4th stepper module and use the fifth module without success. I had also changed some of the programing. without dribbling along I am at a point that the attached error message was received . Basic question can the card possibly be repaired or do I need a new card? Best case I'm all wet and it is something else.
Thanks for your help in advance. I have a great time pulling my hair out over this conversion from router to plasma and greatly appreciate all that the many of the forum members do!

The error is likely because you are using firmware with only
4 stepgens (probably has PWM on the 5th stepgen) and you asked
to enable 5 stepgens.

If the system works as far as showing motion on the screen
and the Z axis is wired properly, its likely an issue with the
drive, drive wiring or 7I96 step/dir output

If its just a bad step/dir output on the 7I96, this is reparable

I have tried to change the configuration from 5 steppers to 4 steppers and a PWM but apparently unsuccessfully. In terms of wiring, I believe that I have things wired correctly, but I have a question, the stepper connections only require two wires, one for step and one for direction, is this correct? Is there a way for me to test the integrity of the # 4 module? I appreciate the quick response.

I had the wire from the breakaway switch hanging loose while testing continuity of the motor wires. the two sets made contact making some sparks. Thanks for the quick response.

In terms of the motor driver, yes I did detect some smoke damage across a resister(?) in the motor driver. I replaced the driver but have not been able to test the motor system since I haven't cleared all of the errors.

hickory43 wrote:

I have tried to change the configuration from 5 steppers to 4 steppers and a PWM but apparently unsuccessfully. In terms of wiring, I believe that I have things wired correctly, but I have a question, the stepper connections only require two wires, one for step and one for direction, is this correct? Is there a way for me to test the integrity of the # 4 module? I appreciate the quick response.

In addition to step and direction you need ground or 5V depending on the drive

The module 4 error means you have a hal file issue where you are asking for more stepgens
than the firmware has available (you probably have a "num_stepgens=5" statement in your
hal file but have firmware loaded tha has only 4 stepgens and a pwmgen)