Swap pins for feeder motor with one of axis. Marlin firmware.

Hello,

Short story:
I'm using marlin firmware and my board is msk mini. I want to swap pins(in firmware) for z axis with ones for feeder motor and test if those pins are working or not.

Long story: I bout printer from china (link). I've assembled it and tested all motors with pronterface soft. After that according to instructions from the seller I've set new z high in firmware provided (It's marlin firmware) and flashed it. And now my feeder motor doesn't work (using pronterface soft to test). So I think that pins might be wrong or maybe it was some super coincidence and one of pins in feeder slot was broken or something.

What I've already tried:
I've inserted feeder motor into z axis slot and tried to move z axis from app - it worked, so motor is fine.

Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks.

P.s. I'm not a programmer. But I can follow instructions =)

It sure seems to me the supplier of the hardware should already have made the changes to make Marlin work with your printer. If your electronics is a MSK Mini that must be a clone of something else, right? Do you know what it looks like electronically?

I had a similar problem with my extruder within a few days of completing assembly while I was testing the unit. The Extruder just clicked like it was jammed even when there was no filament loaded. I checked the cables and found that one of the pins had broken off from the related connector wire. Hard to tell without looking really closely because the break was right at the connector. I carefully removed the pin from the connector and re-attached it.

The other thing that is common is that pins are reversed. Put a "clock hand" mark on the shaft of your extruder on the visible side. Check to see if it is moving at all when you try to run it. For MK8 extruders, it should be moving clockwise to extrude and counter clockwise to retract.

And lastly, and I know this is a stupid one, remember that your extruder won't work if the controller thinks the hot-end is cold. You have to get it up to 180 or so before it works. It is OK to take the and cooling fins off temporarily if you want to see what is happening inside.

I hope that is helpful!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2015 11:26AM by Hodgepodgerama.

Oh, and it is OK to swap the pins 180 degrees if you find that they are reversed. Just switch them 180 degrees, but be sure to mark the cable as being reversed so if you re-use it somewhere else later (and you will...), you won't be surprised.

I have stepper motors from 3 different manufacturers and the pin outs for 1 is different from the other two. If I don't keep track of the cables and match them to the stepper, I get nothing but clicks and noise from the mismatched cable/stepper.