Struggling with Einsy

I’ve been struggling with my einsy Rambo board and need some help. I used to have a ramps 1.4 connected and the printer ran with that. After I connected the Rambo I’ve been successful in moving the head manually without any problems. The problem comes when I try and home either the x or the y axis. Both x & y axis will make a grinding noise when a home command is sent to the printer. Tonight as part of my troubleshooting I tried to connect a LCD. I have the Reprap Discount Full Graphic smart controller and connected it but the LCD won’t power up. I was hoping to be able to see what the einsy was using in terms of acceleration and speed values to home the x & y axis. Does anyone have suggestions as to what I could do to get the printer to home both x & y successfully?

Who flashed the Rambo board for you? If it was you, then go through all the settings in configuration.h and figure out, what's wrong.
For starters you could send M203 X... Y... to a level, where homing works. ( homing speed can't be set with gcode commands, but limiting max. speed should have the same effect )

Those LCDs ribbon cables are in the right socket and in the right orientation? Many people had to cut off the nose on their cable connectors and reverse the plug.
IDK if Rambo has an issue with that, but some other boards do...

Quote
o_lampe
Those LCDs ribbon cables are in the right socket and in the right orientation? Many people had to cut off the nose on their cable connectors and reverse the plug.
IDK if Rambo has an issue with that, but some other boards do...

Thanks! Clipping the index nub off and flipping the cables around the other way did the trick. The display now works.

Quote
o_lampe
Who flashed the Rambo board for you? If it was you, then go through all the settings in configuration.h and figure out, what's wrong.
For starters you could send M203 X... Y... to a level, where homing works. ( homing speed can't be set with gcode commands, but limiting max. speed should have the same effect )

I did flash the board. Since your previous post I did go through the code 2 or 3 times to hunt down the problem. I've tried all kinds of speeds (as little as 10mm/m and as high as 300/mm/m for max feedrate )and setting configurations to try and get the axis to home without any luck. I also found a post on another forum showing their progress with getting their system to print. I downloaded the config file that they are using and there didn't seem to be any huge differences in settings.

Attached are my most current Configuration.h and Configuration_adv.h files.

If anyone has a few moments to take a look at the files and offer any suggestions. I would certainly appreciate any help that I can get.

Loren

Without knowing more about your printer & hardware it doesn't make sense to look into the config files.

Did you try running the RAMPS-Test on the Einsy to check drvers and steppers functionality? You might have to change some pin-assignments, but you can use Marlins Einsy-pins.h for reference.

What kind of information would be helpful?

This is the kit that I have: [www.amazon.com]

It did work with the ramps 1.4, but when I saw some of the functionality of the einsy I wanted to upgrade it for that controller.

I'll definitely go through the pins file and adapt the test file accordingly, see what I come up with, and report back.

Thanks you for all of your suggestions and help @o_lampe!

Ok so I went through and updated the ramps test pins from pins_EinsyRambo.h. This is what happened after the file upload finished: TestVideo. After I unplugged the power supply and restarted the board the motors didn’t move or even make any noise which is curious to me.

That looks weird...
I think we have to go back to square one:
Check the powersupply and the power wires.
Check the drivers and steppers on the RAMPS board, if possible.
Check the drivers position and orientation on the Einsy. The position of the Vref potmeter is NOT the same on different drivers, so you have to look for the pin labels, DIR a.s.o
Is the header for the steppers labelled the same as on RAMPS? Maybe you have to switch some wires to the steppers?

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o_lampe
That looks weird...
I think we have to go back to square one:
Check the powersupply and the power wires.

I did check polarity on both the power supply and einsy board. Both are wired correctly. I also measured voltage at 12.5v at the einsy input.

Quote
o_lampe
Check the drivers position and orientation on the Einsy. The position of the Vref potmeter is NOT the same on different drivers, so you have to look for the pin labels, DIR a.s.o

. Here is a pic: photo of einsy The drivers appear to all be oriented the same way.

Quote
o_lampe
Is the header for the steppers labelled the same as on RAMPS? Maybe you have to switch some wires to the steppers?

I did swap two pins and movement is better. Here is a video of what is happening now: Another einsy vid

I've highlighted a few settings, that confuse me.

* Default Max Acceleration (change/s) change = mm/s
 * (Maximum start speed for accelerated moves)
 * Override with M201
 *                                      X, Y, Z, E0 [, E1[, E2[, E3[, E4]]]]
 */
#define DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION      {1000, 1000, 30, 2000}  //my orig settings:  { 3000, 3000, 30, 2000}

/**
 * Default Acceleration (change/s) change = mm/s
 * Override with M204
 *
 *   M204 P    Acceleration
 *   M204 R    Retract Acceleration
 *   M204 T    Travel Acceleration
 */
#define DEFAULT_ACCELERATION          3000    // X, Y, Z and E acceleration for printing moves
#define DEFAULT_RETRACT_ACCELERATION  150    // E acceleration for retracts
#define DEFAULT_TRAVEL_ACCELERATION   3000   // X, Y, Z acceleration for travel (non printing) moves

// Homing speeds (mm/m) ; this is 60 times slower than max_print speed, why? 
#define HOMING_FEEDRATE_XY (200)
#define HOMING_FEEDRATE_Z  (25)

After more reading I understand why you are confused. I've made some adjustments. They are as follows:

* Default Max Acceleration (change/s) change = mm/s
 * (Maximum start speed for accelerated moves)
 * Override with M201
 *                                      X, Y, Z, E0 [, E1[, E2[, E3[, E4]]]]
 */
#define DEFAULT_MAX_ACCELERATION      {1000, 1000, 30, 2000}  //my orig settings:  { 3000, 3000, 30, 2000}

/**
 * Default Acceleration (change/s) change = mm/s
 * Override with M204
 *
 *   M204 P    Acceleration
 *   M204 R    Retract Acceleration
 *   M204 T    Travel Acceleration
 */
#define DEFAULT_ACCELERATION         200    // X, Y, Z and E acceleration for printing moves
#define DEFAULT_RETRACT_ACCELERATION  200    // E acceleration for retracts
#define DEFAULT_TRAVEL_ACCELERATION   200   // X, Y, Z acceleration for travel (non printing) moves

// Homing speeds (mm/m) ; 
#define HOMING_FEEDRATE_XY (600)
#define HOMING_FEEDRATE_Z  (25)

Homing still doesn't work but now that I have a better understanding of what each of the functions do, I'll keep trying combinations until I find something that works.

Just had another crazy idea. Maybe it's not the firmwares fault? IDK, which tool you were using to home, but if you use the pronterface jog-dial, you can set the speeds there too:

I really do appreciate all of your help, but this is getting super frustrating.

This morning I moved the X axis through pronterface. The acceleration was set to 200/s2. I changed the acceleration to 300/s2 but the motor just resonated and didn't move the head. So I changed the acceleration back to 200/s2 but when I did there the head wouldn't move, it just resonated. I decided that I didn't think I could get repeatable results. From then on I started using the LCD interface. I started with the feedrate at 100 (I'm not certain what the units are, I assume mm/s???) and adjusted the acceleration from 100-1500 by 100 each movement. I couldn't get any combination to move the x axis without some sort resonance. I decided at that point to try adjusting the speed. I set the acceleration to 200 and then had to lower the speed down to 15 to get any kind of smooth travel. Once I had the head moving smoothly, when I tried the auto home option on the LCD the x Carriage simply sat and resonated without any movement.

Where do I go from here. I feel like Ive tried every conceivable combination possible to get the printer to work correctly. Could it be that I have a bad control board?

Again many thanks!

Loren

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2018 09:32AM by lorenjz.

Maybe I need to switch tactics. Can someone tell me which commands in the firmware are responsible for how quickly each axis travel to home when a home command is sent?

Your settings are sooo low, it must've worked already. You either have a hardware- or wiring problem.
Did you check Vref of the drivers?
Voltage/Wattage of the power supply are up to the task?
Stepper wires are in the right order for the Einsy? Usually black, green, blue, red, but who knows, maybe this Einsy guy is a joker? Remember the LCD connector?

So this morning I was able to get the x axis to home. Once I started to work on the sesorless endstop settings the LCD went blank. I just sent the vendor an email asking for a replacement. I’ll post updates as I get them.

Thanks again!

Loren

Interested in this, having similar issues.

Im told that sensor-less homing doesn't work if the feed rate is slow, and the normal trick of homing then backing up and bit and homing slowly for accuracy is a bad idea for sensor-less

For anyone following this and having issues with a LCD. I did receive an email linking this post from Ultimachine tech support: [github.com]

Changing the ultralcd config file has solved the LCD issue.

I'll report back if they have any suggestions for my motor problem.

Loren

Did you adjust the voltage of stepper motors? Rambo card have digital pots as far i as know.
High voltages make awful sound from motors. I had a similar problem. I adjusted motor voltages and
the noise has gone.