Duet - Okay, NOW its broken.

So I decided to get some new hotends instead of setting up to re-use proprietary cheap ones and sat on it a week.

~anyway~

Got the hotend wired up working/extruding... adjusted my steps etc. (just 1 to start)
First attempted program with the Duet it was running quick, no skipped steps, no grinding, and nothing was coming out...
Soo... I added T0 to activate the tool :B
It seemed to start out fine but it was MUCH slower moving and was losing steps @ layer changes. it lost steps to my +y hard limit (steel was in the way) and I stopped it using the 'reset' button on the board. So... from what I beleive I know about it, I turned the power up from where I had it(low enough it didnt whistle/sing but high enough it wasnt losing steps before the hotend) up to ~700mA was as high as any motor was set and it was 'singing' but.

NO noticable change. I did that a few times... Then, it stopped booting.

PanelDue starts up but doesn't have any of the "extrude 5mm" or "unload filament" buttons. but status is 'connecting'
no comms now from anything, no usb, no network.
I tried re-flashing the firmware and bossac says its successful but there's no change. still won't start/no comms

also unplugged the PanelDue in case something there went wrong. no change.
using ATX power supply with 12V@30A.
nothing is warm/hot endstop switch LEDs work, usb port lights up, windows detects either Bossac device or Arduino depening on the firmware/wipe status, ethernet lights up won't ping.

I think it would make more sense if windows wasn't detecting it and bossac wouldn't flash... but I dont know...

Any Ideas?

Sorry to hear of your troubles. It sounds as though the processor and USB comms are working, so it could be that the SD card is not being read any more. Try connecting to a PC via USB, with or without 12V power, and run Arduino serial monitor. Make sure you have the line terminator in the serial monitor set to either LF or CR+LF. See if you get a response to M105. If you do, then try M503 to see if it can read the SD card.

Also, if the firmware you are flashing is not the same file that was working previously, check its size. A common mistake is to right-click on the name of the firmware file in github and click Save As. This saves a copy of the HTML page. You need to follow the link and click the Raw button to download the actual firmware file.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2015 12:36PM by dc42.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

I thought if the SD card wasn't being read it would load the firmware defaults instead- would still run but not to my settings.

Yeah... I haven't been getting any I/O from any serial monitor/pronterface for awhile now. I had been communicating with it using TCP/IP.

hm... And... DC42 saves the day ... AGAIN!

somehow just my config.g got hosed. the file was on the SD card @ -zero- kb. wiped the card restored with the copy of the directories on my PC and its back to running... horribly...
error during an upload/write through the web interface? hmm...

Thanks!

I'm glad you got it working again. I've not heard of a file upload failing without warning for a long time. What firmware version are you using? Send M115 to find out.

Can you clarify what is not working properly now? If activating and heating the head makes it very slow, but it is fast if you do movements with the head deactivated, then I'm wondering whether you have a 12V power supply issue, i.e. not enough current to supply everything at once. What power supply are you using? Have you checked that the output voltage is holding up?

Another thing to check is that the power input screw terminals are tight. With some types of wire, they tend to go loose after a while and need regular tightening for the first few days of use.

Quote
Epop
I thought if the SD card wasn't being read it would load the firmware defaults instead- would still run but not to my settings.

Yes it does; but the default firmware settings may not use the same IP address you have configured (so you can't connect over the network unless you use the default IP address), and it doesn't put the firmware in Marlin emulation mode (so Pronterface won't recognise it).

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

FIRMWARE_NAME:RepRapFirmware FIRMWARE_VERSION:1.04f-dc42 ELECTRONICSuet (+ Extension) DATE:2015-04-19
also has intermittent problems loading the webpage ... takes a long time. but it my have something to do with network traffic through that switch... Its only a few MB/sec though...

I upped the power to all the steppers a little bit and it picked up the pace. I'm thinking I was just borderline for the accel/speed I had set. just high enough not to skip or skipping a littlebit but I didn't notice.
Antec 450w ATX PSU.
while heating to 240(c) and moving all three axis my voltage at the input screws didnt drop below ~11.98V and is at ~12.09 idle.
but that said, I've done something else wrong. I thought it would be a striaght switch with the nema17 motors the machine originally came with.

So...
X = 1 NEMA17 (belt driven)
Y = 2 NEMA17 (Y split - belt driven)
Z = 1 NEMA23 (M10x1.5)
all are guided by 2x linear bearings ea.
E = 1 NEMA17 ea. (currently just using E0 for setup) Direct drive- (E3D-V6 12v hot end)
all are wired dual.

Axis currents (mA) - X:400, Y:800, Z:575, E:1100:1100:1100:1100:1100, idle factor 30
M201 X700 Y700 Z75 E500 ; Accelerations (mm/s^2)
M203 X9000 Y9000 Z700 E3600 ; Maximum speeds (mm/min)

The motors I happen to be using are all slightly higher resistance/lower holding torque than what I've read other machines are using but I think its 'close enough to work'
Its pretty loud as it stands kind of a low hum while running. I had read it might just be my stepper driver/motor combo. is a bad match.

At that power the extruder cannot extrude at 50mm/s, at idle it does 5mm/s. During prints it can't seem to keep up while printing PLA... just seems to me its set pretty high compared to the Ormerod but would fall around 50% or less of what the stepper driver is capable of.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Can you provide the specifications of the stepper motors you are using, so that I can get a better idea of what currents you should be using and whether 12V is enough? Are the two Y motors connected in series or in parallel?

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

MotionControlProducts M42STH47-1684S (near the bottom) -In parallel the origional stepper driver was TI- DRV8818 fyi

and...
NEMA23 FL57STH51-3008B-1

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2015 12:11PM by Epop.

Looking at the specs for that nema 17 motor, I think you would be better off connecting the two Y stepper motors in series. Currently, you are running them at 400mA each, which is very low for a stepper motor rated at 1.67A.

I have very similar stepper motors in my Kossel, and I normally run the XYZ motors at 800mA (or 1000mA when doing speed tests), and the geared extruder motor at 400mA or 500mA (because I want it to skip steps in preference to chewing through the filament).

For the nema 23 Z motor, I suggest 1100mA, unless you are sure it is working well at lower current.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Hm... thats what I was thinking but they start screaming('singing'-at idle) when I turn the amperage up. Which I read was a sign that I had it set too high...

as for the NEMA23 I dropped it back down until it stopped 'singing' and adjusted my accel/max speed to accomidate it. It was also an assumption of mine that the torque required was far below what 2 NEMA17 could deliver, the second was mostly to keep the X carridge perpendicular to Y.

I agree with setting the extruder lower~ the way they had the electronics set up originally was it would chew the filament... packed the block they have guiding the filament full of 'powder'. "you need to take it apart and clean that out. its hard to set it back in position to work again though" (this was their $100 'pefect' filament btw)

If that's what you have yours set at and previously those same motors were chewing through the filament instead of skippping... I'll try to use one of the other 4 I have to see if they chew through the filament instead of skip... ? maybe the motor is bad.

*Thanks,

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2015 07:52PM by Epop.