[cnccustom]

just got my 540 Driver box from camtronics and my red fault light stays on and motors don't work

I tried a different paralell cable that I know works, switched to epp in bios and no luck, port 1 is 378

what else can I try....would like to get up and running this weekend

[rowbare]

Do you have an eStop hooked up? If not make sure that your Ports and pins doesn't specify one.

[MrWild]

You need at least a jumper for the Estop on the 540. If running a control program without a charge pump signal, you need to remove the cover on the 540 and flip the switch located under it.

[cnccustom]

Got it guys.....when I switched to epp I never tried engaging the motors again just seen the red fault light with the power on

Dan at Camtronics just emailed me and said it must be engaged for the green light to come on,

We are good to Go...Thanks for Responding

Switching to epp did the trick

[Scooby Doo]

I am having a similar problem. I hooked up the G540 to the 48volt power supply and it gave me the fault light. I hooked up the parrallel port and still got the red. I switched to a 24 Volt power supply still red. Changed to Bios to EPP and still have the issue. I know that I am missing something but I just can't see it. Please help, I have set a deadline for New Years Eve and don't want to have to tell people that I have failed in the attempt. I read the warning about not switching off the AC but since there is no switch to do that I doubt if I killed the G540.

[Scooby Doo]

I am also running Mach 2 and will be making the down load of the .xml shortly. Please let me know if there is anything else out there that I need to be looking for.

[David Campbell]

Scooby,

See the last page of http://www.geckodrive.com/upload/G54...3%20MANUAL.pdf (this should have come with your drive).

The relays, limit switches & VFD are all optional but the E-stop switch connection is mandatory.

Please make sure that you have a E-Stop (emergency stop) switch between terminal 10 and the common ground (terminal 12). A wire link can be used as a temporary measure in place of an E-Stop however I STRONGLY recommend installing an E-Stop switch for safety sake.

While there is no electrical connection the G540 goes into "Fault" state which disconnects the drives from the power supply. This is not a fault due to the driver or the stepper motor but the driver will not proceed until it thinks it is safe to do so.

David Campbell

PS: I need to check my G540 but I am pretty sure that the Fault light goes out while the driver is disconnected from the printer port.

[Scooby Doo]

I used a jumper between the two. Now no lights come on. Did I kill it?

[David Campbell]

Scooby,

When did you buy your G540?

There appears to be two different revisions of the G540, specifically the date is 22 Sept 2008 (?). See the following link for details:
http://www.geckodrive.com/forums.aspx?f=7&p=100011

Did you receive the DB9 and backshells with your order?
This appears to be "an extra" that Gecko started throwing in for the G540 Rev 2.

The enable / disable pin for the Rev 1 series is terminal 6 rather than terminal 10. The Rev 1 series apparently also requires a 5V supply from the PC.

Below is the links for the Rev 1 and Rev 3 manuals. Which one matches the user manual that you received with your drive?
http://www.geckodrive.com/upload/G54...UAL%20REV1.pdf
http://www.geckodrive.com/upload/G54...3%20MANUAL.pdf

Could you disconnect the jumper and power it up again?

On my G540 Rev3 with power applied and no other cables (parallel port or motors), the fault light is lit. If I bridge Terminal 10 to Terminal 12 then fault goes out and the green power led lights up. I can post a couple of photos to prove this if you want...

If you have a G540 Rev1 you *may* need to supply the +5V before it is happy.

Looking at the circuit diagram for the Rev1 there should have been no damage done as the output is a current sink to ground. All you could have done was effectively connect two sides of a transistor to ground (effectively no voltage and therefore no damage).

David Campbell

PS: Sorry if I came across a bit rough about the E-stop in the last posting but at my day job, bypassing a safety system is grounds for instant dismisal (zero tolerance on safety).

[sse4]

Hello David, I'm confused now, can't tell what version of G540 do I have. I received my G540 around the middle of Aug. Got 2 of them (one for my buddy). Ordered them from Eastern Europe, paid dearly for shipping, and duty. Hobby's have it's price, but this isn't the problem. I have not received any instruction with it, assumed that everything is available from the net.The first hookup info i got was for the rev3. Obviously didn't worked. Well i find out there is a rev1 hookup diagram, great i thought, but it still not working. I received with the package those DB9 shells and 4 9pin male plugs. Does this makes it a rev2?, this is confusing.I had to take the case off and it the 250's are those reworked ones, with the tiny blue wire jumpers. So i would like to know which version of hookup drawing can i use. I'm sure you going need some more info to help me out. The E-stop switch regardless open or closed the red fault light don't come on. I hope didn't damage anything, applied +5v to pos 1 from usb, i did many things, maybe better if you ask things about. Sorry for the lengthy post.

Jim.

[sse4]

Forgot to tell you, that I using Mach3 for software.

Jim.

[Scooby Doo]

I just rehooked it up this morning to the power supply. No lights not even the fault light. I will be giving Gecko support a call later today.

[David Campbell]

I just rehooked it up this morning to the power supply. No lights not even the fault light. I will be giving Gecko support a call later today.

Scooby,

Could you a look at your wiring again.

I was rewiring my G540 today and I accidentally put the power to the wrong connections (opposite end), when I powered up the system no lights came on. Powered it down, everything looked right until I compared the wiring diagram with the system. After a couple quick curses and flipping the wiring to the other end of the terminal strip it came up OK (praise Mariss for making it nearly idiot proof).

Remember: The diagram is looking from the side where the wires go in, not the screwdriver. The back of the G540 should be flat on the table.

I think I deserve this => :withstupi

Anyway it all worked out OK in the end.

David Campbell

[Mariss Freimanis]

Dave,

I'm not real sure on what you did, I just feel happy it all worked out.

The short history of the G540 is a happy one for me. Some ideas look good when you start on them, some don't. The G540 history started with the G250; as far as I'm concerned, the G540 is just a random bunch of G250 drives all hooked together in a box.:-)

The G250s started as an answer to the question "What if we were to build a little drive?" Most everyone knows this random thought occurred while sitting in a California hot tub just about a year agoo.

Here's the thinking as it transpired (in the hot tub). What is a drive worth? I don't, know; how about you take the rated current, multiply it by the rated current and then divide it by what the sucker costs? Take a G201. 7A times 80VDC and divide by $114. You get 4.9 or so. 4.9W per $, hotdamn, pretty good! "Bang for the buck" is 4.9!

But what if you are running a 2A motor at 36V on a G201? Uh,.. not so good, only $0.63 per Watt. Bang for the buck is now 0.63. Pretty pathetic actually.

Enter the G250. 3.5A, 50VDC, $69. Bang for the buck, a much more reasonable 2.5.

The idea from that depressing realization was "What if you were to design a really, really cheap drive that had all the good stuff (accurate microstepping, mid-band resonance compensation, full-step morphing) and you made it smaller and totally economized on production and assembly? What would happen if you used everything you know about drives and didn't cheap-out on anything that really mattered but still built the least expensive drive possible given those limits?

What a challenge for an engineer. It doesn't get better than that! Our other drives are "no cost spared" designs. The new (G250/G251) design required a "cost first" design. I felt so proud of the G250/G251, a technically perfect design while still meeting the challenge of the lowest cost possible. The "lowest cost possible" entailed conquering new manufacturing techniques like thru-hole reflow which we had never done before. Literally no human hands touch the SMT production line from beginning to end. Zero labor from from start to finish; that is where the real innovation is.

So on to the G540. Just a collection of G250s all hooked up. The G540 has been the runaway hit of the past 5 years. It is really is at core just bunch of G250s hooked up with protection circuits (a la G203V) and auxiliary to service a parallel port all packaged up in a nice enclosure. Nothing really special at all except for the drives.

Still, they (G540) are flying off of the shelves faster than we can make them. Go figure.:-)

Mariss

[port_huon]

As someone pointed out in another thread here, the G540 represents great value for money. By the time you add the cost of a breakout board, 4 x G250/G251s, connectors cables, etc, you're looking at a total that's more than the cost of a G540.

I bought a few of the G251's when they were first released - the introductory price was too hard to pass up. By the time I add BOB, connector, plugs etc. I'm not that much ahead. Plus I don't have the G540 over/reverse voltage protection etc.

Given any future need for stepper drivers, I'll be getting G540's ,assuming the Oz $ improves a bit :-(
If I could buy G540's without the G251's installed, it would save me a lot of messing about.