[Colt4587]

Hello everyone.

I'll say off the bat, that I think I'm battling a defective board, but I want to make sure that it's not me first.

I have a UC300ETH on the 5LPT motherboard hooked into a MX3660. I can't get any sort of consistent logical behavior out of the stepper motors.

The issue. The Z and Y axis motors both move at the same time, but only in one direction. The X axis does not move at all.

I have more than quadruple checked my wiring, and I have tried both Mach3 and UCCNC and I get the same behavior in both sets of software. I have also tried both Port 2 and Port 3 on the board. Port 2 and 3 behave the same with Mach3, but only port 2 works with UCCNC.

I have more than quadruple checked my wiring, I have reset the the board to factory settings several times. I have moved the motors around between different ports. I have tried both ports 2 and 3. I have tried different amp and stepper settings. I'm all out of ideas, other than being a defective board.

My settings within UCCNC (and Mach3):

X Axis: Step Pin 2 - Port 2
Dir Pin 3 Port 2

Y Axis: Step Pin 4 - Port 2
Dir Pin 5 - Port 2

X Axis: Step Pin 6 - Port 2
Dir Pin 7 Port 2


Any help is much appreciated!

[ger21]

Are you saying, that if you try to move the Y or Z by itself, then the other axis moves with it?

If you look at the UCCNC diagnostics page, are the LED's displaying correctly?

First thing I'd do is measure the voltage on the direction pins, while jogging back and forth, and make sure they are changing between 0V and 5V.

[Colt4587]

So within UCCNC software, if I disable everything but the Y axis. And then I move the Y axis, it will move both the Y and the Z axis. However, it will only move one way, I can't reverse the direction of the motors.

So even with the Z axis disabled, it moves with the Y axis. And I can'not get any other axis to work.

I'll hook up the multimeter to it and see what's going on at a Pin level.

[OlfCNC]

Your LPT cable or the drive is broken.
There is no option to slave the Y and Z axis so if you move only one of them then only one will be moved by the uccnc.
If you have an oscilloscope then measure the step signals to see where the problem is. If there is no step signal but the axis moves then the problem is inside your drive.

[Colt4587]

When you say drive, do you mean the MX3660? (I apologize, I'm clearly new to DIY CNC).

And I think it's independent of the software. I also have Mach3 to test with, and I get the exact same behavior within Mach3. I don't have access to an Oscilloscope, just a multimeter. One reason I kind of suspect the board, is that when I first turned everything on I thought I smelled something, but never saw any smoke. The Motion controller itself works fine and will take firmware updates and whatnot, which gave my hunch to the motherboard. But it could have just been that new electronic smell too.

Thank you for your reply!

[OlfCNC]

Yes, I mean the stepper drive, the MX3660. If you could measure the step signals with an oscilloscope that could make things clear because if there is no step signal and the axis is moving then something is wrong inside the MX3660. or if there is step signal when there should not be then it is something with the motherboard. Measuring the step signal with a multimeter is not possible. It might be possible with a LED + resistor if your eyes are good enough then you could see it to light a little bit when there is a high frequency step pulse train on it.

[Colt4587]

I'm following. I think my best course of action is to order a new MOBO and return this one. If that doesn't fix it, I'll return the MX3660, if that still doesn't fix it then I'll return the UC300 CPU bit.

IF that STILL doesn't fix it, then I'm returning everything and starting with something else, lol.

This project really doesn't ever want to get finished. I got tired of messing with the electronics, so I started on converting it to a double nut ballscrew. But the kit that I bought has one of the double nuts on backwards, and of course it's the Y axis, so I can't really do anything at all now.

[OlfCNC]

It would be easier to just measure than sending everything back and forth. LOL.
Why don't you get a cheap USB scope and do the measurements? Then you will know what the problem is.

[OlfCNC]

If it behaves the same with both port#2 and port#3 then I don't think that it will be a motherboard issue.

[Colt4587]

If it behaves the same with both port#2 and port#3 then I don't think that it will be a motherboard issue.

So, I did get it to have different behavior by changing software.

So behavior was, that if I Y was going down, both Z and Y motors would move.

If I disable the X and Z axis, nothing moves (not even Y).

If I enable Z and Y, but disable X. When I move the Y axis Down, the Z axis moves one direction. When I move Y up, the Y axis moves the same direction. The only real thing that tells me is that the Z and Y aren't slaved, or aren't getting crossed in the MX3660. I've also noticed that the MX36660 manual states that everything needs to be active high. But I can only get the steppers to move when active low is checked.

I'll look into a USB scope as well.

[ger21]

I would disconnect everything, and rewire, starting with one motor.
Get that motor working, then add the next one.

Hard to believe a damaged board would cause what you are seeing. A damaged board would typically not work at all.

[Colt4587]

Oookkk, this is a nightmare. Help me make sense of this:

This is all setup with "active low" enabled.

This is the IO page at Idle (IO page at idle attachment), I currently have all axis enabled, with the proper step and Dir pins output to Port #3.

If I press up on the arrow key to move the Y axis (attachment "up on Y axis"), both pins 5 and 6 light up red. This makes absolutely no sense to me, as pin 5 is the Dir Pin for the Y axis. And Pin 6 is the step pin for the Z axis.

If I then press the down arrow on the Y key, Pin 5 disappears , but Pin 6 remains lit. (attachment down on Y). If I press "page down" on to move the Z axis, nothing will change.

But, if I press down on the Y to remove the red from Pin 5, and then Press page down, Pin 6 will go away.

Absolutely randomly, on either button press of Y Up or Z down, Pin 7 will light up. But I can find no pattern to it.


Now, with "active low" turned off. This is the I/O behavior in software:

Active high idle is attached as named.

Y arrow Up activates Pin 5 and Y arrow down turns it grey. However, it makes both Z and Y motors move so little I can barely feel. But they keep moving until I make Y move down.

I can get the Z axis to move on it's own but only after I press up on Y and then down on Y to cancel, then Page down will work. If I press up on Y to light Pin 5, then Press page down, and then press Page up, I can get the Z axis to move the other way.

The X never moves and it's lights never change, regardless of behavior.

Same behavior with Port #2, the only difference with Port #2 is that Pin 4 is always off. So Pins 1-4 are always red on Port 3, but Pins 1-3 are always red on Port 2.

And no, I'm not making this up. I'm not even for sure if I could.

So since I'm getting such strange behavior on the IO monitor, I'm now convinced it has to be the board, I can't come to another conclusion. Since it's independent of the MX3660. The lights have the same behavior without the MX3660 plugged in.

[ger21]

Post your profile (.pro file)

[ger21]

Unplug the MX3660 from the 5LPT and see if you see the same results.

[Colt4587]

Yeah Ger21, I'll start from scratch, factory reset everything and try again. But It's just strange. l'm a noob when it comes to CNC stuff, but I'm no stranger to Computers/technology. I'm the guy all my friends come to fix their stuff. I'm really glad I have you guys to come to here, or I'd be super lost!

[Colt4587]

Unplug the MX3660 from the 5LPT and see if you see the same results.

Yeah, I mentioned in my last post that the lights have the same behavior with the MX3660 completely unplugged. The Pin lights in the I/O status monitor have the same behavior with the MX3660 out of the equation. I can get the same IO monitor behavior with no cable plugged in to a port. Just 5V 850mah power cable, and an ethernet cable plugged in.

[Colt4587]

As another test, I completely uninstalled UCCNC from my computer. And then factory reset the UC300ETH. I then turned the UC300ETH on, and ran Mach3. Mach3 installed it's firmware, I opened up it's port monitor and I get a whole different set of odd behavior on the Ports than with UCCNC.

I then closed Mach3, ran UCCNC and it did it's firmware update. I set the Axis up, and opened the I/O monitor window. Same exact behavior.

At this point, I think the only common denominator is the board.

[OlfCNC]

You should measure instead of uninstalling and reinstalling. that will not solve anything, it will just confuse you.

Measuring the step signal on the axis which does not have to move will make things clear instantly.

[dezsoe]

And don't forget to upload your profile (.pro) file from UCCNC\Profiles after pressing "save settings"!

[Colt4587]

Forum won't let me upload the profile file. Here is a google drive shareable link:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1l6...DtqDmRWoGJ_RFJ