I've just started with a cheap chinese mill, using the woodpecker GRBL v0.9 controller. I've been finding my way around, designing and milling a few pieces, and starting to feel like I knew what I was doing. Then everything stopped.
I tried machining a piece of aluminium and wasn't having much luck - there was a lot of vibration, so much so that the controller would lose its connection to my PC. So I gave up on that and went back to another wooden piece. That was working away until the leadscrew for my Z axis fell out of the stepper motor (grub screw had vibrated loose), and the spindle fell down into the work piece and dug its way in. I think I hit "Reset" in the GrblControl GUI and stopped the spindle.
Now I can no longer move any axis. The spindle can still be started and stopped, but any attempt to move an axis shows movement happening in the GUI, but there's absolutely nothing happening with any of the stepper motors. I have two ideas:
- some part of the electronics either has a dry joint or has burnt out. I'll have to spend some time, understanding how the controller works, before I can use a multimeter to test if the controller is trying to turn the axes or not.
- something in software is blocking all commands from reaching the hardware. I've tried doing a bunch of resets, but I still have this feeling that maybe I've hit some safe mode that has disabled the axes. But I haven't been able to find out where that might be.
Anyone got any ideas?