Gen 6 board, no extruder movement

I recently got my generation 6 board and began testing it with some stepper motors and the Printerface program. The X, Y, and Z axis turn as they are supposed to, however the extruder motor doesn't turn regardless of the setting on the pot and setting the extruder's required temperature off. The motors are not connected to anything at the moment, so the extruder should be able to turn. The board has the default firmware it came with and I receive no errors when connecting. For testing purposes, I am running the board off of a 12V 7W power adapter, which is sufficient to at least turn the other motors and run the electronics. I am not sure if this could be a firmware issue or user error or just a faulty board, so if anyone has any idea what might be wrong, I would appreciate the help.

[bump]

Anyone?

What says the Gen6 developer? Which firmware is on? What happens, if you connect the E motor to the X connector?

That said, 7 watts is sufficient for just a single motor. Grab a power supply out of an old PC with at least 8 amps on the 12 V line.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

I haven't tried contacting the developer, since I wasn't sure if this was a common problem that could be easily fixed or what. I got the board from Make Mendel, but I don't know how to check which firmware it has and they didn't specify which it has on the site. I have tried all four motors on the extruder's connector with the same result, a quiet shifting in pitch of the motor with no movement. Adjusting the pot does nothing but change the noise it's making slightly. I think it's possible the board was damaged while shipping since it was sent in a plastic box inside a plastic bag and on arrival the box was broken and cracked in multiple places and had opened inside the bag. There was no noticeable damage to the board at the time, but now I'm not so sure.

Send an M115 and it should tell you what the firmware is.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

I tried sending the board the M115 command through Printerface, but it only seems to understand G commands.

>>>M115
SENDING:M115
Huh? M115
Resend:0

>>>G28
SENDING:G28

Edit: By the way, So far, printerface is the only program it will connect to.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2012 10:59PM by Fractal.

So you have a firmware which doesn't support M115. Teacup, Sprinter, Marlin and Repetier, the four most used firmwares, do support M115. There are other M commands, of course.

Why don't you poke this vendor? He has your money, so he should help you get it running.

You should probably also get prepared to replace the firmware. This plug-and-play thing doesn't really work in the RepRap electronics sector. Not yet.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

E-mailed the vendor and awaiting response. Thanks for the help so far.

By the way, I also tested with other M commands, which it didn't understand either.

According to MakeMendel, the firmware for the board is FiveD. They sent me a copy of what is loaded on the board, but when I try to verify it in arduino, it gets an error.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2012 12:01AM by Fractal.

FiveD was about the first reasonably working firmware. It doesn't support changing steps per mm on the fly, so you have to replace this firmware for machine calibration anyways (and selling the board with a preloaded firmware is pointless). More modern firmwares are Marlin, Sprinter, Teacup: [reprap.org]

P.S.: maybe FiveD is recent, too, but if this is true, it's pretty well hidden by their makers.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Okay, I followed the steps to upload Teacup on the board, but of course, I get an error. I downloaded the proper version of Arduino (0023), got the latest Teacup firmware, renamed the files as stated by the instructions so that the config was for gen6, and get the following error when I try to verify:

In file included from /analog.h:15,
                 from analog.c:1:
/config.h:33:3: error: #error GEN6 has a 644P! set your cpu type in Makefile!
In file included from /temp.h:4,
                 from analog.c:7:
/config.h:33:3: error: #error GEN6 has a 644P! set your cpu type in Makefile!
In file included from /temp.h:18,
                 from analog.c:7:
/config.h:33:3: error: #error GEN6 has a 644P! set your cpu type in Makefile!
In file included from analog.c:23:
/config.h:33:3: error: #error GEN6 has a 644P! set your cpu type in Makefile!
In file included from analog.c:23:
config.h:282: error: 'PINA5' undeclared here (not in a function)

I guess the question now is, what part of the Makefile do I need to edit to make this work? It obviously wants to know what kind of cpu the board has, but I don't know what or where to tell it. And does it matter which board I set it for in Arduino? The wiki says the Gen 6 boards are based off the ATMEGA644, but that isn't one of the options.

Install the Sanguino extensions if you haven't already, and select sanguino as your board type.

Okay, Teacup successfully sent to the device. Now it doesn't do anything. I checked with M115 and Teacup was uploaded correctly, but now the motors don't move when I try to use printerface.

What happes if you send commands manually? Like G1 X20 F200 or G1 Y5 F700?

G1 = normal linear movement
X, Y, Z, E = destination position in mm
F = feedrate in mm/min

Teacup is rarely used on a Gen6, so the config.h template (config.gen6.h) might be not entirely correct, requring a review of X_STEP_PIN, Y_STEP_PIN, STEPPER_ENALBE_PIN etc. in config.h. Likely the author of that template had it working one day, but this was at least a year ago. There might be firmwares better suited for a Gen6, but I simply don't know one which works out of the box on this electronics.

To get a stepper working you need at least the DIR and the ENABLE pins right. Some electronics have individual enable pins, then use X_ENABLE_PIN, etc. Others have common enable pins, then use STEPPER_ENABLE_PIN.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

I tried entering the manual commands, but still nothing happened.

Rather than try to sort out the mess of configuring Teacup, I uploaded Marlin onto the board since it was made to work with gen 6. Apparently, the board doesn't like me. Again, the firmware appears to have been uploaded without error, but nothing happens. This is the code from the console when it starts up with Marlin:

Printer is now online.
echo:Marlin: 1.0.0 RC1
echo:Configuration.h: 2012-02-25 | Author: erik
echo:Free Memory:1606 PlannerBufferBytes:1168
echo:Using Default settings:
echo: Steps per unit:
echo:  M92 X40.05 Y40.05 Z3360.00 E75.00
echo:Maximum feedrates (mm/s):
echo:  M203 X500.00 Y500.00 Z5.00 E45.00
echo:Maximum Acceleration (mm/s2):
echo:  M201 X9000 Y9000 Z100 E10000
echo:Acceleration: S=acceleration, T=retract acceleration
echo:  M204 S3000.00 T3000.00
echo:Advanced variables: S=Min feedrate (mm/s), T=Min travel feedrate (mm/s), B=minimum segment time (ms), X=maximum xY jerk (mm/s),  Z=maximum Z jerk (mm/s)
echo:  M205 S0.00 T0.00 B20000 X20.00 Z0.40
echo: PID settings:
echo:   M301 P63.00 I2.25 D440.00
Error:
: Extruder switched off. MINTEMP triggered !
Error: Printer halted. kill() called !!

I noticed that it calls kill, apparently as a result of MINTEMP being triggered. Should I just change MINTEMP to something else in the config?

Not unless your room is colder than MINTEMP. You need to sort out why your temperature reading is inaccurate.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Well, the reason for the temperature reading being inaccurate is simply because there is none. I haven't ordered an extruder yet, so I have nothing to connect for it to get a temperature reading from. All I wanted was to test the board to make sure that it would run correctly with the software I was using and that there were no problems with the firmware.

Edit: Would anyone care to recommend a place to get the extruder? I have a motor for it, but need the hotend, printed parts, and hardware for it. I looked at alot of sites, but none had specifically what I was looking for.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2012 09:30PM by Fractal.

Assuming that the temperature reading is the only issue, if I were to temporarily disable it somehow, I should be able to test the motors with the firmware, correct? All I'm trying to do right now is make sure the firmware will work, then I can focus on other parts of the project.