Z axis not going up.....

[JakeCShake]

Just a friendly "second voice" request for help. Z motor goes with general movements (only down) but never heads up. I assume the "up" wire is loose. Can anyone tell me which wire needs examinination..?!?! Plus I have a blinking orange LED blinking below heated bed contacts and heated bed. Just bought this rescue R stock. Built one of the originals with Barnett in Dec.2012. Love this journey.......but not great with electronics. Good with software and mechanicals...thanks, Jake

[Eaglezsoar]

Just a friendly "second voice" request for help. Z motor goes with general movements (only down) but never heads up. I assume the "up" wire is loose. Can anyone tell me which wire needs examinination..?!?! Plus I have a blinking orange LED blinking below heated bed contacts and heated bed. Just bought this rescue R stock. Built one of the originals with Barnett in Dec.2012. Love this journey.......but not great with electronics. Good with software and mechanicals...thanks, Jake

Changing the direction of an axis can be done in the firmware or by swapping the first two wires on the stepper motor plug.
To do it in firmware you would edit your configuration.h and look for the line that says #define INVERT_Z_DIR true and change it to false and upload the firmware to the Rambo again.
Personally I would change the wires on the stepper plug. If you look at the plug you will see a small square area where the pins go into the plug. If you depress the square area with a
tiny jewelers screw driver while pulling gently on the wire it should release the pin. You need to swap the first two wires to reverse the stepper direction. As far as the blinking LED I
assume you are talking about the one on the Rambo or the Onyx heat bed. They are supposed to blink after the heat bed reaches set temperature and turns on and off while maintaining
temperature. I hope that I covered what you needed, if not just leave us another post. Happy Printing!

[JakeCShake]

FYI...
Other wires(non spliced):
B, g,blue,r ///: B, g, blue, r // B, g, white, red...These wires were sliced. Go af634 them....sorry for your time......

[int2str]

Can you clarify please:

When go "up", does the Z motor:

1. Go down

2. Not move at all


If 1, then the direction wire to the stepper motor is broken or the wrong pin is specified in the firmware.

If 2, maybe the top end-stop wire is shorted?

The stepper motor wires don't contain a "direction" wire. So that's not likely an issue.
You can also test by plugging in the stepper motors in different ports for testing (plug Y motor in Z port etc.)

[JakeCShake]

Ok..so I built a perfect functioning fourth model of the indigo campaign and now I have a rescue R stock. This is what happens when I toggle the axis: (keep in mind I just got the firmware,but have not uploaded it yet):
Hit button for -10 x axis....X goes up,Y goes down
Hit button for -10 Y axis....Z goes down...along with X for a bit then ends
Hit button for -10 Z axis.......nothing

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Hit button for 10 X axis........X down, Y up....
Hit button for 10 Y axis.......X down, Y down.....
Hit button for 10 Z axis.......Z down, X, Y up...

Sounds like a firmware problem or placement problem. Will try firmware tonight....and diagnostics/tracing wires tonight.... Worked OK before the car ride...?!?!!?!?

[bubbasnow]

what does g28 do?

[Lochemage]

what does g28 do?

Home all axes. http://reprap.org/wiki/G-code#G28:_Move_to_Origin" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[geneb]

Lochemage, I'm pretty sure he knows what G28 does. I think bubbasnow wanted to know what EFFECT G28 had on Jake's printer.

g.

[Eaglezsoar]

Now is a good time to upload a PDF containing all of the GCodes as defined by RepRap.org. (since it was brought up)

GCodes-reprap-org.pdf

(310.82 KiB) Downloaded 219 times

[Lochemage]

Lochemage, I'm pretty sure he knows what G28 does. I think bubbasnow wanted to know what EFFECT G28 had on Jake's printer.

g.

oh hahahaha, my bad

[JakeCShake]

what does g28 do?

Moves the other two axis up......Z remains in the same position?!?!?
I haven't uploaded the past owners firmware yet but will try to find time to do tonight. Somehow I think this will clear things up. Especially since my EEPROM setting don't exist when the I scroll down the printer "tab" at the top of the menu bar. Stay tuned.......
Having assembled the first printer with Barnett and having everything working great from the get go....this is a little frustrating. There is definitely something said for building these kits from scratch. Perhaps I'll disassemble all wiring and start from scratch.......could use some wiring extensions anyways. Thanks again guys!!! FYI...not that it matters but the heated bed is not heating either. Doubt it's related....

[bubbasnow]

what does g28 do?

Home all axes. http://reprap.org/wiki/G-code#G28:_Move_to_Origin" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

DOH!

[geneb]

If you issue a G28 and all three axes don't move to the top of the machine, either the wiring for the "Dead" axis is borked or the firmware configuration is.

g.

[bubbasnow]

so, how a stepper motor drivers works, it controls the flow of current through the windings of stepper motor. using a stepper driver (as im sure the RAMBo uses) the arduino provides 2 signals to the driver
1. is step(speed) by pwm
2. is direction(high/low) high being up and low being down or inverted.

a way to eliminate your wires out of the equation is by switching z stepper with the y or x and running the same tests. if z drive acts properly and the problem is now with the drive connected to the z connector on the board. You have a board/firmware issue. if the problem stays with the z motor (now on a different connector) then the problem lays with the z motor/z connectors.