Starting from scratch (again) - need help (apparently a lot)

The newer ones went to polyphase (which I upgraded to, that's why these went onto the shelf) but these seem to be just 201 clones
M

Todd Zuercher wrote: If the motor is 3amp / coil I would think you would set the drive up for 3 amps.

But 3 drives and motors even at 3 amps may be more than that power-supply can handle. (at the half step position the drive would be applying 3amps to both coils of the motor, that would be 18 amps total!)

Have you tried only connecting 1 drive?

Yeah, probably right, I was thinking when both coils were energized it would be pulling 6....
For the motors, I just started with only the X axis at first, when that didn't work I added the Z with the different drive and stepper.
M

Leon82 wrote: I think the geckos want 18 minimum volts.

And on my machine when I had three steppers hooked up even though it was a 60-volt supply it never got above like 45. {A Chinese adjustable unit}.

So it is quite possible you may not have enough voltage

I didn't actually check the voltage at the gecko (duh...) to see what it was getting, I'll double check before swapping in the xylotex units
M

Seems like the common feel is the power supply might be small for the drives and motors (entirely possible) so I think swapping in the "working" combo of the xylotec control and smaller steppers is worth taking them off the old benchtop mill. At least I know they worked together with this power supply

Thanks and I'll keep updating
M

mooser wrote:

Leon82 wrote: I think the geckos want 18 minimum volts.

And on my machine when I had three steppers hooked up even though it was a 60-volt supply it never got above like 45. {A Chinese adjustable unit}.

So it is quite possible you may not have enough voltage

I didn't actually check the voltage at the gecko (duh...) to see what it was getting, I'll double check before swapping in the xylotex units
M

Both drives are receiving 24vdc

Removed the drives/steppers and started taking the smaller motors off the mini-mill for xylotex try
M

Wait, some gecko drives work only with 5V common, are you sure you have them wired like so , and you should have really tested with at least 15000 for step time and space. Also make sure the step and dir pins are not reversed ( it happens ! ).
If you have the 5V common ones, you can change the step time as much as you like and it will not work as the step space will be the triggering part.
G212 are 5V common, if i remember correctly.

tommylight wrote: Wait, some gecko drives work only with 5V common, are you sure you have them wired like so , and you should have really tested with at least 15000 for step time and space. Also make sure the step and dir pins are not reversed ( it happens ! ).
If you have the 5V common ones, you can change the step time as much as you like and it will not work as the step space will be the triggering part.
G212 are 5V common, if i remember correctly.[/quote

Not sure what you mean wired 5v common? can you elaborate?
I had the power supply (24v 6A as it turns out) connected + and Gnd to the Gecko (screw terms at the one end)
Then 4 wires off to the motors (used both 4 and 8 wire motors with no difference) A,A-,B,B-
Then the step, dir and Gnd from TB2 on the 7i76

I did check the step/dir (several times as I was started to triple-quadruple doubt myself) and actually just looked again before I typed this answer
M

OK kind of progress
Pulled a motor from the mini-mill z-axis on the spectralight machine and hot-wired the xylotex board (embarrassingly mickey-mouse wiring job but it's a test right...)
and a few changes to the pncconf and I have motion on the X-axis jog buttons (+/-) so the 7i76 is working (yeah!!!)
I'm going to switch it over to the z-axis and make sure

Next series of questions will be on tuning the stepper a little, I'm just playing a bit and have the vel at 400 and accel at 100, step time 5000, step space 1000l dir hold and dir setup at 200
in the axis tune screen, motor seems fairly smooth but I've not sure what I should be looking for?
Anyway, I'll get to that next as I will check the other axis to make sure I have motion there as well.

(And I think I've got to goback and look at the geckos again, that bothers me more than I care to admit)
Thanks for the help so far guys
M

This is how I have mine wired
They are 201x.

White is the 5v common terminal
Then the dir and step to the minus terminals
Dir step 20000
Dir hold 1000
Step Len 500
Stepspace 4000

I wonder if that common is what's wrong, pretty sure I pulled that from the GND on the 7i76 and not the 5v

That would be nice (easy)

enough for tonight, tomorrow I'll re-look at the gecko based on that common and see
Thanks
M