I unplugged my control board and forgot to take pictures of where the stepper motors plugged into. Each driver has an actual plugin for each stepper motor, the plugins on the board are labels "A", "Z", "X" and "Y". I can follow each wire to its place on the control board. My problem is I only have one"Y" plug BUT to "Y" stepper motors. Not sure how to plug in (2) "Y" motors. When I use my "A "plug to plug in my extra"Y" stepper only one side of my CNC works. Something is very wrong here. Are there any experts out there that can help me.
What control board? If it is either a BlackBox 4X go here docs:blackbox-4x:start [OpenBuilds Documentation] if 32X go here docs:blackbox-x32:start [OpenBuilds Documentation] If it is an OpenBuilds product, what machine profile did you use for your machine? One Y plug should go into Y, and one should go into A. Is there a chance there is a loose wire in the one not working? What happens if you swap the two?
I am building the Worker Bee 1000. I switched out both Y motors and the Y plug works with both motors but the A one gets no response
I’m running mach3 I noticed that the “A” driver had red wire running to B- AND BLACK RUNNING TO B+. Switch them around but still nothing. I think it was originally wired correctly so I’m going to switch them back. All the other drivers are wired red to B+and black to B-. These are lol brand new drivers
mach 3 is software, what model drivers/hardware are you using? a pic could be helpful as well. Thanks Gary
Ok that helps, so you should see from the controller board Y-Pulse and Y-Direction signal wire running to both Y drives, in parallel, trace those wires and troubleshoot. Make sure you are getting power to both drives and and they are lighting up, should be a power and or enable LED on them. Make sure the dip switches are set the same on both Y drives. Gary
I can configure the “A” driver as a slave and it will activate the y axsis on the left side while the right side is separately activated by a separate key. I know the “A” driver has power since I can activate it. Dip switches are exactly the same
After tracing the wires from the A driver they are going to the “A” side of the control board. My “Y” driver wires are going to the Y side of the control board. I do notice that my B+ and B minus coil has been flip-flopped on the “A” driver compared to the white driver
I always thought A was used for rotary axis on mach3? Is the machine setup for dual home switches? I'm sure it's possible to use A for Y2 but unless you can do Y1,2 homing independent wouldn't it be easier to parallel the output from Y to both drives? Was this machine working fine before the disassembly? Thanks Gary
That I can’t answer. The person that had it before me had it built for him said he never used it but was able to manually move all the axis’s How do I tell Mach 3 to pair both motors? Or parallel both together. I’m new at this game but know enough to be dangerous.
I dont know how to do that, perhaps the Mach3 forums/documentation will answer that? Machsupport Forum - Index
So that would be running the pulse and direction wires from both drivers to the Y axis on my bob. Is that correct?
Twist them together and insert. And use appropriate sized wires, its a 20mA signal so 0.2mm2 is plenty If you really have to, split it up a couple inches away into a Y. Or... Easiest option of all, get a BlackBox (https://docs.openbuilds.com/blackbox-x32 no need to wire up all the little bits, proper documentation and videos etc. Well worth it)
If I went that rout I would have to change my laptop to a 32 bit instead of my 64 bit. I’m going to try to contact Mach3 and see if I’m missing something simple in my configuration here if that doesn’t work I will run both drivers through the Y port on my bob. Thanks
Well reading up on blackbox32 it only can run on a 32 bit system cost 239.00 + another laptop ,say 200 .roughly 500.00 . Adjustment in Mach config (if there is one in Mach 3 I don’t know about is free and I can keep everything as is.
I do think I can use smaller wire like you said an accomplish what I want without splitting my power to each stepper and my burn up my driver by over load. I don’t wan6 to run both motors off one driver . That sounds real iffy
I take it that they will run square with each other as well or will I have to step one up? I’m using the same nema motors
I think you are confusing power wires from the motor with the signal wires coming from your controller board. Move the signal wires from the bob A channel and land them the same way on the Y channel of your mach3 board. If the ferules on the wires make it so you can't fit both just cut them off and twist together the two signal wires. The motor power all comes from the drivers not the bob. Also the reason one of your motor pairs are swapped around is to reverse one of the Y motors. Swapping any one pair of wires (one coil) will change the direction the motor runs. If your machine is belt driven you would need one motor reversed. OR I found this video quick about mach3 setup, about 11:30 mark they discus channel assignments, might help. Cheers Gary
