Z Axis Doe Not Operate Manually During Setup

X-Carve Troubleshooting
1

I recently got my xcarve upgrade completed. I got the xcontroller connected with easel to run the manual setup. I can get both the x and y axis motors to actuate manually, but the z axis motor does not respond at all in either direction.

The steps I have taken to troubleshoot are as follows:

  1. I checked all the wire connections for the z axis cable and found them all to be tight. I have not pulled out the cable to see if there is a short in cable along its length somewhere, but all the connections are tight.
  2. I have plugged the z axis cable into the x axis socket on the xcontroller and the z axis motor still does not respond.
  3. I have plugged the x axis cable into the z axis socket on the xcontroller and the x axis motor does respond.

Thus, I assume that something is wrong with the wiring for the z axis stepper motor, the cable has a short or the stepper motor is defective. I think my troubleshooting has proven that the controller chips in the xcontroller for the x, y, and z axis are fine. Separately, the last time I used the z axis stepper motor it operated, but this was over 2 years ago when my CNC was a Shapeoko 2.

Does anyone have any steps to recommend that I can take to correct this problem? Has anyone had problems with manually actuating the z axis motor during setup?

Thanks…

Mark

2

(Someone correct me if im wrong) If you have a multimeter you can test ohms on each pair of wires to see if your motor is burned out, similar to the way we check soleoids if we suspect they are damaged. You can look up the wiring diagram online for each stepper.

4

Or a bad motor. But way to check is to test for a short no?

6

Check the colors of your wiring if you mixed up the coils it will not turn either. On my SO2 red-blue is one coil, black-green the other.

1 Like
7

…and if still in doubt connect one pair and try to spin the motor with your fingers, if the holding torque increase then you have one coil nailed down, the other two is the 2nd coil :slight_smile: