First time EMC2 user need help

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22 Aug 2012 12:59 #23545 by gmaranda
Good day all,

New user but I have been lurking around here for a while. In February along with a friend I decided to build a three axis cnc. We are finally done (it was part time) and we have everything connected tripled checked etc.

We use the ubuntu/emc2 cd program on a stand alone computer and seems to be working fine except for the fact that we cannot get the stepper motors going at all.

We are using three nema17 and the TB6560 driver board. It was a package I bought off ebay, it had everything needed except for the power supply which I bought after.

Here is what is happening:

When I plug in the card (power) two leds come on. I have 5 leds on the card so I will name them ABCDE. So as stated when I plug in I get two lights A and E. After when I start the computer you hear a click and three lights (BCD) come on along and E shuts off. So I have ABCD which are now on. After a few second of computer booting the whole things then goes to ACE and the others are now off.

Obviously this may not be telling you much but things seem to be booting. Now here is the "weird" thing when I shut down the computer the driver board will revert to A and E with all others off along with some humming from the stepper motors.

If I start the computer again the humming goes away and the sequence starts over. If I unplug and plug the motors in and out of the card you can feel/hear the motor kick in but for a split second.

This is to say that the motors are seen by the card and the card seems to be talking to the computer. However, when emc2 is running I cannot get the motor moving manually or automatically. Needless to say that we were eager to at least see one axis moving but we had to call it a night and find help.

Gut feeling seems to point toward some set up issue..........

Any ideas what to do next?

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22 Aug 2012 13:18 #23546 by andypugh
gmaranda wrote:

When I plug in the card (power) two leds come on. I have 5 leds on the card so I will name them ABCDE. So as stated when I plug in I get two lights A and E. After when I start the computer you hear a click and three lights (BCD) come on along and E shuts off. So I have ABCD which are now on. After a few second of computer booting the whole things then goes to ACE and the others are now off.

The Parallel port pins do random things during boot.
Do you have a link to the manual for the board?

If I unplug and plug the motors in and out of the card you can feel/hear the motor kick in but for a split second.

Hopefully it isn't too late, but never, ever, unplug a motor from a powered-up TB6560 board. It is a very good way to blow up the TB6560 chips.
[/quote]Any ideas what to do next?[/quote]
Try changing the polarity of the motor "enable" lines in Stepconf, and also try inverting the STEP signals.

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22 Aug 2012 13:49 #23547 by cncbasher
the TB6560 controllers need the enable line configuring for the motors to operate , post your halfile and and output dmesg errors if any
there are other forum posts regarding these boards and configuration .

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22 Aug 2012 14:23 #23550 by gmaranda
andypugh wrote:

gmaranda wrote:

When I plug in the card (power) two leds come on. I have 5 leds on the card so I will name them ABCDE. So as stated when I plug in I get two lights A and E. After when I start the computer you hear a click and three lights (BCD) come on along and E shuts off. So I have ABCD which are now on. After a few second of computer booting the whole things then goes to ACE and the others are now off.

The Parallel port pins do random things during boot.
Do you have a link to the manual for the board?

If I unplug and plug the motors in and out of the card you can feel/hear the motor kick in but for a split second.

Hopefully it isn't too late, but never, ever, unplug a motor from a powered-up TB6560 board. It is a very good way to blow up the TB6560 chips.

Any ideas what to do next?[/quote]
Try changing the polarity of the motor "enable" lines in Stepconf, and also try inverting the STEP signals.[/quote]

tks for the advice I will try this. I knew it was not good to plug or unplug the motors under power but stupidity got the best of me and I gave it a try anyway...............:unsure:

take care

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28 Aug 2012 00:35 #23698 by gmaranda
cncbasher wrote:

the TB6560 controllers need the enable line configuring for the motors to operate , post your halfile and and output dmesg errors if any
there are other forum posts regarding these boards and configuration .


Good day again,

First I need to point out that this is my first time ever with using Linux so it takes a while for me to get around let alone get the CNC part going. Here is what I have so far after reading the book I discovered that my board pin out was under the heading "xylotec" and as such I made sure the pin outs were the same and put the unused ones "unused".

Everything seem to point toward a software set up since there are signals being exchanged between the pc and the board during boot up etc. Also at shut down there is humming coming from the stepper motors.

As far as using Hal.......I am not sure where to go from here. I kind of know what it does but to get it to work it is another story.

What is "charge pump" and what does it do? It is on the drop down menu of my pin out but which one do I pick to enable this option?

any more ideas?

tks

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28 Aug 2012 07:26 #23702 by ArcEye
Hi

Since you say you have TB6560 stepper controllers, I have to assume that your xylotec board is a breakout board which attaches to the parport cable.

Did you use stepconf to create the initial config? Charge Pump used to be pin 1 on its menus by default.

A charge pump is basically like a safety cut out relay for the physical controller system.
So long as a specific frequency range pulse is being fed to it, all connections are open. As soon as this stops it cuts the connections.
This is particularly important for halting steppers, spindle etc as soon as ESTOP is hit or if the computer crashes.

Not all breakout boards have one, but if yours does, nothing will happen unless you connect it up.

regards

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28 Aug 2012 07:59 - 28 Aug 2012 08:27 #23703 by cncbasher
do you have a manual for the TB6560 ? can you link or post etc as their is a few variations of the pinout , mostly to do with the enable pin .. i believe this is now pin one on the newer boards
( you can tell by the colour of the pcb as to which verson you have , i believe the latest is blue )

in your home dir you will find a folder called linuxcnc and within this a config folder with a *.hal & *.ini file can you zip the files and post here

if you have skype i dont mind talking you through setting up and guiding etc , but be aware i'm in the UK

Dave

you may find this link helpful
www.georgegardner.info/software/tb6560-e...nd-linuxcnc-emc.html

but beware the pinouts do change with versions , although you should be able to cross reference if your board is different
Last edit: 28 Aug 2012 08:27 by cncbasher.

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28 Aug 2012 09:45 #23704 by andypugh
gmaranda wrote:

First I need to point out that this is my first time ever with using Linux so it takes a while for me to get around let alone get the CNC part going. Here is what I have so far after reading the book I discovered that my board pin out was under the heading "xylotec" and as such I made sure the pin outs were the same and put the unused ones "unused".


Which book? Xylotex make a boxed stepper drive
www.xylotex.com/Econo3AxSpecial.htm
And it is unlikely that your TB6560 board has exactly the same pinout as that. In fact, if you have one of the many 3/4 axis boards from eBay it is not 100% likely that the pinout of the board matches the manual provided with the board.

Everything seem to point toward a software set up since there are signals being exchanged between the pc and the board during boot up etc. Also at shut down there is humming coming from the stepper motors.

That seems to indicate that the sense of the "enable" pins needs to be inverted in the Stepconf setup.
You might also need to invert the "step" pins. And if the motors run in the wrong direction, you can also invert the "dir" pin. You can invert any pin using the tick/check box next to the pin in the Stepconf parallel port setup tab.

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28 Aug 2012 15:17 #23719 by gmaranda
cncbasher wrote:

do you have a manual for the TB6560 ? can you link or post etc as their is a few variations of the pinout , mostly to do with the enable pin .. i believe this is now pin one on the newer boards
( you can tell by the colour of the pcb as to which verson you have , i believe the latest is blue )

in your home dir you will find a folder called linuxcnc and within this a config folder with a *.hal & *.ini file can you zip the files and post here

if you have skype i dont mind talking you through setting up and guiding etc , but be aware i'm in the UK

Dave

you may find this link helpful
www.georgegardner.info/software/tb6560-e...nd-linuxcnc-emc.html

but beware the pinouts do change with versions , although you should be able to cross reference if your board is different


First,

thank you all for your support. I have quickly extracted two pages out of the manual for you to look at the pin outs of the board. I am not close to the machine right now so I cannot provide the .hal & .ini. When you open up emc2 on the stepconfig pin one states "estop" is this the one that could be causing the problem? On my board it says "en" for enable is this the same?

take care

File Attachment:

File Name: 3_axis_TB6560_.pdf
File Size:374 KB
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28 Aug 2012 15:36 #23720 by gmaranda
Good day

I may have mislead people when I mentioned "xylotec". I don't believe it is a xylotec board but in the pin out section there are two options bottom right one is sherline and the other one was xylotec. By choosing xylotec my axis and directions were the same as what my board pin out is. Before the pin outs were the same as if you had pushed sherline thus my comment

tks

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