Devastated

[Squirrel]

I can't believe what happened to me tonight. Finally pulled my finger out on the weekend and made an attempt to finish some of my half finished projects. One being my CNC Router, it has been a joint effort between me and a uncle. I did the build and he shared the cost and studied the computer program.
I have been sitting on the electrical part for some months and got both my uncle and brother (electrician) over to assist with final wiring and hopefully a test run.
I am running a Xylotex board for 3 axis. I was going through the initial test by connecting the first stepper motor and checking to see if it had locked up. This seemed to work, I then disconnected this motor and connected the second stepper. When I switched it on I heard a small Click and a small release of smoke and that was it.....
When I tried it again, the small red light on the board lit up then faded out, same thing during next few attempts.
The problem is I have no idea what I did wrong, afraid that if I buy another board (US$155) I might do the same thing again.
Has anybody fizzed out their board on first attempt or is it just me....

Devastated, Squirrel.... :doh::C:~:no:

[Ch4iS]

Any idea what component the smoke came from?

If its just a common component you can easily replace it.

Could save you some moola. Its probbaly best to find the reason for the cause before buying anything else (unless if you plan to buy a whole new kit then I put dibs on the faulty gear :D), could be a dodgy power supply or something you never know.

[rodm]

Doesn't sound good at all. If the magic smoke came from the board then it is likely the cause of this is connecting and disconnecting wires while the power is on. The other most common cause if miswiring. I say this because you were changing connections when it blew.

Jeff offers a repair service of $50 a board if this happens but you will have to weigh up the freight cost in both directions to see if it is worthwhile. Go to his site and he expains about repair options there.

Either hop onto the Yahoo Xylotex board or email Jeff and tell him your problem but don't expect a sympathetic response. I have seen claims put forward and I don't think any of them have been accepted. All the same it is worth a try in case it is another component that has failed. If you examine the board you might be able to see a damaged part. The chips are under the heat sinks so you will not be able to see a blown motor chip.

To explain what happens to these boards the full motor current passes throught the board and the driver chips to the motors. Miswires or disconnection while power is turned on means that in excess of 2 amps has nowhere to go except through the chip and it does that very well. This is not a fault of his board as all the boards will do this with an Allegro chip. Usually these problems occur becuase we do a hash up to see if the board works. Far better to get serious about your connections so as to avoid trouble.

I have fitted up more than half a dozen of these boards and touch wood I have not had a problem yet but I am paranoid about connections and checking and re-checking connections before turning on the power. Some of the boards I have done have over one thousand hours of use so they are a well proven product.

Sorry to be the bearer of this news and I hope you can get a quick resolution and be down the CNC path sooner than later.

[WillyInBris]

To explain what happens to these boards the full motor current passes throught the board and the driver chips to the motors. Miswires or disconnection while power is turned on means that in excess of 2 amps has nowhere to go except through the chip and it does that very well. This is not a fault of his board as all the boards will do this with an Allegro chip. Usually these problems occur becuase we do a hash up to see if the board works. Far better to get serious about your connections so as to avoid trouble.



Yes I agree with Rodm :C from what i have read in the notes and what is on the groups its sounds like you will either need to get another board or get it fixed, I was ultra paranoid with mine three hours setting it up then had a mate come over and check everything twice then I checked it again and sent a email to rodm asking more questions just to be sure.

Keep us updated

Sean

[crocky]

I would have to agree with Rod as well, checking the connections should only be done with the power off and make sure they _are_ connected correctly before power is applied.

Let us know how you go, they are worth the effort :)

[woodbe]

Is there any reason why there is no miswiring protection on the boards?

[Big Shed]

Funny you should say that, I am no electronics expert by any stretch, however the few electronics things I have built (mainly infra red beam stuff for nature photography) has all had diode protection against shorts etc. Also built quite a few battery charger for gel cells to power that equipment, again all diode protected.

Seems an inherent design flaw in that board, especially as it has happened to quite a few ppeople by the sound of things.

[Greolt]

It just comes down to cost. To make it idiot proof costs a lot of money.

You can pay a lot more and get a system that is plug and play.

To provide for the low cost hobby market it is much more cost effective to simply provide some connection info in a PDF.

But ultimately it is up to the person connecting it up to take care and find out if not sure.

Worth noting that Gecko has had a policy that if you blow their drives by doing something stupid,
as long as you are honest, they will replace or repair one time for free.

Greg

[Big Shed]

Cost of a diode? About 20c or so?

[rodm]

This electronics stuff is way over my head but I would imagine if it was as simple as a couple of 20 cent diodes it would have been done. Gecko are considered top of the range for this type of driver and they do not have protection so I think the problem is in the design of the chip.

This problem is common to all the drivers using this chip so Xylotex are no different in this respect.

[Greolt]

Cost of a diode? About 20c or so?


I'm only a carpenter but I know that stepper drives are a bit more complex than that. :)

Greg

[Squirrel]

Thanks for the information Rodm, I will probably persue the option of sending the board back to have it checked and fixed (if possible). Don't get me wrong, I didn't rush into switching the power on. As mentioned I had others check it before I did anything.
At no time did I alter any of the wiring whilst the power was on, I'm too scared of electricity to attempt that option. I even have a breakout board to protect the printer port. Whilst I was doing my initial check this and the computer was not connected to the board.

Crocky, I wont be giving up. I have a job in the country for a couple of days, when I get back I will sent an email to xylotex and assess my options.

Rodm, if it is alright with you, when I get back on track, I might take a photo of the wiring and get your opinion. I don't want to put any pressure on you I just want to be sure.

The suspense on getting this router running is killing me.

Squirrel.

[rodm]

Look at it as a minor set back. Once you have the machine running you will forget about this. No problem with helping you out and this is something you will find out about us CNC junkies. We all needed lots of help to get started and made lots of mistakes therefore we are keen to help others.

What type of motors are you running on the driver - Nema17, Nema23, Nema34. Are they new or salvaged motors? Also how many wires are coming out of the motor - 4,6 or 8? Any other details you might have on the motors and a photo would be helpful.

[simso]

I feel for you mate, I was lucky rod gave me heaps and heaps of warnings about making sure power is of and dissapated before making any connections or disconnections, that being said, they are a fairly robust item and I think you may have made a miswire instead of unplug whilst power is applied, I say this becuase all my motors have connectors on them and one popped of during z axis travel, there was a massive bright blue spark at the connector, and I feared that I had burnt the board out, but no it was all still good, so I would suspect maybe miswired is the problem

Steve

[Squirrel]

I'm taking on board everything that has been suggested. I will check all my wire joints and make sure that I didn't cross any colours that I jointed, I'm pretty sure that this is right but will double check to be sure.

Rodm, I am using Nema 23 425 oz.in Dual Shaft Stepper Motors, all three purchased new. These motors have eight wires, Red, Black, White, Green, Yellow, Blue, Orange and Brown. The paperwork I have indicated that the Yellow and Blue had to be joined to each other along with the Orange and Brown to each other also. To extend the other 4 wires I used 4 core shielded cable having the same colours as the remaining wires from the motors. I also followed my brothers instructions and earthed the shield wire to the metal case.

The driver is the XS-3525/8S-3.

All my wires have the end crimped with the correct type of connectors, so I am not trying to push frayed wires into the board sockets.

At the time of my mishap, I was following the setup instructions, with the heat sink terminal facing me, I connected the wires in this order - green, white, black and red (if this makes sense).

Following the setup instructions, I connected 4 wires to the z axis with the power off and when completed, I switched the board on. The red light came on and then I tried to turned the stepper shaft by hand. When I found that it was locked up (as per instructions) I turned the board off.

I waited a short time and removed these wires, I then did the same process with the y axis. After I checked that the wires were in the right/same order I again switched on the power. Shortly after the red light came on, is when I heard the ""Click"" and the all precious smoke escaped. ( I tried to collect the smoke to put it back, but half of it went up my left nostril ) After this when I switched the board back on the red light would come on then dim out. That's when I walked away.

Sorry to bore everyone but this is the full details of my Devistation.

This is a minor set back, I will get there...:cool:

Squirrel

[rodm]

Hi Squirrel,
Good to hear you still have your sense of humour. :)

I have looked at a few wiring diagrams I have (no guarantees they are correct for your motors though) and it appears you have matched the colours correctly for a bipolar series connection. I would go bipolar parallel but this is of no consequence to what happened.

The wires you connected are to spec so long as you are calling them from right to left facing the heat sinks. In any case if you went the other way left to right it would not cause a problem - the motor would just run backwards.
If you had matched say a white and red or green and black you would have a problem.

Also sounds like you have taken all precautions with stray strands of wire so just send Jeff an email and see what he thinks.

I does sound like you have taken care and the only other thing I can think of is did you adjust the vrefs with motors connected?

Keep us informed.

Earthing the shield wire should only be done on one end and all earths should go to a common point. This is to eliminate EMI which can be a problem with signal wires. Again this should not be of any consequence to what has happened. Just make sure that there are no stray shield wires on both ends of the cable contacting anything as this would then be a direct short.
Run a mutimeter from the connector to the motors to the end of each wire you connected to the board to make sure you don't have a break or bad connection. Also double check your connections where you joined yellow/blue and orange/brown.

[Squirrel]

Rodm,

I have received my replacement board a little while ago and have only just had time to get back into it.

I have wired it all up, but this time without a breakout board. I have put it off for about 2-3 weeks with lame excuses but finally took the plunge today. Was alittle scared of letting that smoke out again.

I powered it up and gave it a go with the Mach3 program. Everything seemed okay with power going to the steppers. I can hear each axis power up but had no rotational movement. I removed a stepper motor from the machine so there was no load and still get no movement.

Tried connecting it to another computer (something a bit newer) just in case it needed more power to spin the motor but still got the same result.

Have you experience this or have some advice to get me going.

Squirrel

[rodm]

Hi Squirrel,
This could be caused by a number of things.

I am assuming that your motors are locking up when you apply power. ie hard to turn the motor shafts. If this is the case then that is good and what is supposed to happen and I take it from this point.

Can be three things.

1. You have not set up Mach3 properly. Go to "config", "ports and pins" and the "Port Setup and Axis Selection" tab. Make sure Port #1 is enabled and that the corect Port address is entered. Check port address in Device manager of XP.
Go to "motor outputs" tab and make sure X is set up as "step Pin" 2, "dir Pin" is 3 and for Y it is 4 and 5 and for X it is 6 and 7.
Now this is the tricky hidden bit. Go to "Input Signals" and scroll down to "Estop". Don't try to deselect it as it cannot be diabled - it sneakily changes back to enabled one you leave the screen. So to disable it enter port 3 and pin 10 which of course your computer does not have and if needs be then change it from active high to active low or vise vesa. As long as the big red reset button is not lit up on the main screen you are OK.
I won't go through motor tuning as this should not have prevented your motors from turning but will affect the performance of your motors.

2. Did you set the vrefs on the Xylotex board. If not go to Jeff's instructions and they are good enough to follow. Make sure your motors are disconnected for this.

3. Check that your parallel cable is wired through all 25 pins. Use a multimeter and check continuiuty for all 25 pins. A lot of parallel cables do not have all the pins wired up as a printer does not need all the pins to work.

Get back to me if this does not get your motors moving and I hope it helps.

[crocky]

Make sure that you have done this:

2. Did you set the vrefs on the Xylotex board. If not go to Jeff's instructions and they are good enough to follow. Make sure your motors are disconnected for this.

I just got a new board from Jeff and that was all I did with it :)

Yours may be different though.

[Greolt]

I will just add one small thing to the excellent advise above.

The latest version of the Xylotex is 4.04 (at least mine is) and this has a different vref setting to the older versions.

Vref setting on version 4.04 is 2.00v for 2.5 amp. The older version was 3.6v for 2.5 amp.

The instructions on the site have not been updated for this version, I just checked.

Just be aware of that. :q

Greg

[Squirrel]

Thanks, Rodm, Greolt & Crocky...

A small misdemeanour on my behalf :B, on my original board I had set the Vrefs before I let the smoke out. For some unknown reason I didn't check this :doh:. The board Jeff sent back was not my original board but a new one, when I double checked this on your reminder/advice, the Vref were all on 0.00. On top of this I checked my parallel cable and not all the pins were working. Found a new cable and adjusted the Vref and hi 5's all round :U, the stepper hummed along nicely.

I only ran this checks with one stepper on my desk, will set it all up tomorrow and see how the three axises work.

The only thing I'm not sure of is on one of the setup instructions I downloaded it said to connect the comupter and power it up and the red light on the board should come on, this didn't happen. It only come on with the main power is switched on... Is this something to worry about?

Again thanks for all advise given. Now, I will just have to register my Mach3 to get the full use of the program.

Squirrel...

[rodm]

Hi Squirrel
Great to hear you are ready to go.
I have only ever noticed the red light on the driver board lite up when power to the driver board is turned on which is what you are saying is happening. I could be wrong and I can't check it without dismantling my driver box so perhaps the others can confirm this is the case.

In my mind I don't see a problem with this as the parallel port only delivers a very small 5 volt signal and certainly not enough to drive anything other than a limit switch. It is working as you say so I would go ahead as it is. If you are worried then check with Jeff before you run it up.

[WillyInBris]

Hi Squirrel
I have only ever noticed the red light on the driver board lite up when power to the driver board is turned on which is what you are saying is happening. I could be wrong and I can't check it without dismantling my driver box so perhaps the others can confirm this is the case.


Thats what I remember as well the led will only light when powered up by the power supply :2tsup: or you turn one of the connected motors when powered down state.

[crocky]

There was enough people working on it :) it should have gone :) too!

Sounds good now :)

[echnidna]

Funny you should say that, I am no electronics expert by any stretch, however the few electronics things I have built (mainly infra red beam stuff for nature photography) has all had diode protection against shorts etc. Also built quite a few battery charger for gel cells to power that equipment, again all diode protected.

Seems an inherent design flaw in that board, especially as it has happened to quite a few ppeople by the sound of things.


The xylotex is a bipolar board which means current can go in either direction through the motor coils. I don't think you can diode protect a bipolar board though it may be possible with a unipolar board, I'd have to study some circuits and think about it.

[Squirrel]

Got my Uncle over tonight (partner in this cnc project) and we connected all the steppers up. Needed a bit of fine tuning, but all the axises worked well. I did notice at times when I had the computer only connected to the circuit board that the red light had a slight dim, so this information is correct.

Was over the moon as we actually cut/scribed out our first road runner. It was actually very neat. Will now have to study the Mach3 instructions and get the travel dimentions right. At the moment I have no idea of the co-ordinates and the distance the cutter is moving, this will come in time.

Can't wait have stacks of plans and projects I want to make with the router. Even already thinking of making a more solid build using aluminium instead of MDF and wood.

When setup a bit better will post some pictures.

Thanks again for everyones help, support and advice.

Squirrel...

[rodm]

:2tsup::2tsup::2tsup:

[thkoutsidthebox]

Never mind! :D