X-carve motors not responding properly

X-Carve Troubleshooting
21

Check that the pins on the gshield going to the arduino #'s D1-D7 are soldered to the board from the factory. i had one that they were misses and it was causing similar gremlins for me. From your picture I cant see it clearly enough to tell if they were missed.

I also was shipped the wrong header pins, causing them to bottom out against the housing when the gshield was inserted into the arduino. If you got the same ones and slodered them in with the short leg pointing out to the plug, this would cause a loose situation and any jostling of the wiring could break a connection and make it a frustrating day for you.

Can you get a closer photo of the plug and pins area of the gshield?

22

All pins are present. Hers a couple more pics from the gshield. As you can see the pins I had to solder on have the long side pointed out. All the pins came in a single 40 count strip so no way I could have soldered the wrong pins in.

23

Would reflashing the board do any good? I tried finding a guide earlier but no luck.

24

Have you checked to be sure you have .9i of Grbl flashed to the Arduino?

25

This is my first arduino. No idea how to check

26

That’s both good to hear, and a bummer since it doesnt solve your issues.
I only offered the suggestions based on my own experiences. :blush:

27

Well the good news is you survived the dreaded Sunday and the help@Inventables staff will be back to work in a few hours :slight_smile:

28

Can anyone throw me a link on how to check grbl version? The one I found started off with changing baud rate and didn’t explain how using the arduino ide.

29

Have you downloaded the universal gcode sender? If not do so. That program makes it easy to see what version of Grbl you are running.

30

Finally figured out how to run the serial monitor from arduino ide. Grbl 0.9i is installed but it won’t let me enter any commands in monitor. This is driving me crazy right now.

31

Installed ugs and same issues. Grbl 0.9i and z axis still trying to move on its own. But I can enter commands here and they work

32

I would disconnect the Z axis and test the x and y to be sure they work, then once you are confident the Grbl controller is controlling those 2 axis correctly move the Z wiring to the X connectors on the Grbl and then jog the the x a few mm and see if your z axis responds smoothly.

If the Z still behaves badly then there is either a problem with the Z wiring (most likely) or the Z motor (less likely), so then run a set of temporary new wires directly from the Z motor to the Z connectors on the Grbl and see if it works if so then you know the original wiring has a problem somewhere.

33

Y axis has never worked. Just does a crunchy kind of sound as it tries to move. Disconnected z and y to test x.

Using ugs for command x doesn’t move consistently. Moving left it’ll move a few times then start moving right. Then starts doing the grinding/crunchy sound.

Disconnect x wiring and plugged z wire into x motor. X doesn’t respond correctly either. It Jerked left and right a few times then stopped moving altogether.

Wiring seems to not be the issue. Gshield/arduino is next isn’t it?

34

It does seem like the problem is in the Arduino/Gshield.

Are you 100% positive the gshield is plugged into the Arduino correctly and securely. I would take them apart and inspect the pins and carefully reconnect checking to be sure each pin mates to its corresponding socket.

After you check the gshield connection, Just to be sure you have eliminated all other possibilities I would get a few feet of the 4 conductor wire and make a brand new connection between one of the motors and the Grbl connector. Just straight from the motor to the grbl connector (as simple as you can make it) and see if that works.

Also use the $$ command in UGS to examine your grbl parameters

They should look mostly like this (I do not have any limit switches)

$$
$0=10 (step pulse, usec)
$1=255 (step idle delay, msec)
$2=0 (step port invert mask:00000000)
$3=1 (dir port invert mask:00000001)
$4=0 (step enable invert, bool)
$5=0 (limit pins invert, bool)
$6=0 (probe pin invert, bool)
$10=3 (status report mask:00000011)
$11=0.050 (junction deviation, mm)
$12=0.002 (arc tolerance, mm)
$13=0 (report inches, bool)
$20=0 (soft limits, bool)
$21=0 (hard limits, bool)
$22=0 (homing cycle, bool)
$23=0 (homing dir invert mask:00000000)
$24=25.000 (homing feed, mm/min)
$25=250.000 (homing seek, mm/min)
$26=250 (homing debounce, msec)
$27=1.000 (homing pull-off, mm)
$100=40.000 (x, step/mm)
$101=40.000 (y, step/mm)
$102=188.976 (z, step/mm)
$110=5000.000 (x max rate, mm/min)
$111=5000.000 (y max rate, mm/min)
$112=500.000 (z max rate, mm/min)
$120=250.000 (x accel, mm/sec^2)
$121=250.000 (y accel, mm/sec^2)
$122=50.000 (z accel, mm/sec^2)
$130=290.000 (x max travel, mm)
$131=290.000 (y max travel, mm)
$132=100.000 (z max travel, mm)
ok

35

Gshield pins have been checked 3 different times. All pins look good and all are in the socket fully seated.

Unfortunately I don’t have any spare 4 wire to connect the motor directly to the shield. I miscut my original wire and now it sits about a foot from my machine. I tried the z wire in the x motor and x wire in the z motor and get issues either way.

Unless my whole strand of 4 wire is faulty, it points to the shield/arduino.

I have an email into help@inventables pointing them to this post. I asked them to read all this then call me. Hopefully I’ll get this straightened out soon.

36

When you wired your first Y motor to the second, did you flip a pair of wires as per the instructions? It’s an easy step to miss, and would result in your Y motors trying to fight against each other.

37

Home Depot sells the 4 conductor shielded alarm wire if you want to pick some up.

38

Yes I flipped the y wiring. They don’t fight each other like they are going opposite ways. They just twitch like they are trying to move but can’t.

39

I had a similar issue turned up the potentiometer and it worked.

40

Tech support had be up the potentiometer as well. It did work but the drift was so bad I almost crashed y axis. I am getting new parts tomorrow. Hopefully that will fix it.