Saturday, February 8, 2014

Electronics testing

As part of the Shapeoko 2 build documentation (http://docs.shapeoko.com), the first thing that is recommended is to test the electronics before you start building the machine. The documentation provides clear instructions on how to connect the different components together though it does not provided a clear understanding of the Y axis wiring. Based on the wiring picture in the documentation it is easy to over look that one of the Y axis stepper motors has the wires switched (The green and black wires are switched). The Y axis has two stepper motors which should spin in opposite directions of each other. When wiring your Y axis stepper motor make sure you have the wiring correct and that the motors are not spinning in the same direction.

I downloaded the Universal G-Code Sender for testing the electronics as this would allow me to control the axis manually. The test of the electronics was good and everything worked as expected. I also ran through the "Hello World" example in build documentation which looked to work correctly.

While testing the electronics I noticed that the Z axis stepper motor was vibrating on the table much more than the other axis stepper motors. Unsure if it was the stepper motor of the gShield I swapped the X and Z axis stepper motors ... it was clear then that it was an issue with the gShield. I then adjusted the trim pot for the Z axis (counter clockwise) to reduce the motor current which did lessen the vibration of the stepper motor. I also lessened the motor current for the X axis which made that stepper motor seem to run much smoother. I guess since the Y axis has two stepper motors the default current setting on the gShield was sufficient. As of right not I am not sure if changing the motor current on the X and Z axis will affect the performance of the machine but it did make them seem to run smoother.

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