Okay, so I just finished my farmbot build! Everything booted up just fine, was able to login and connect to the farmbot.
I tried to use the manual controls to move it, and it simply doesn’t respond. I see the numbers count (if I set it at, 200, 10mm intervals) it’ll count up from 0 to 200 in jumps of 6, but the farmbot doesn’t respond, I’m only seeing the web-app counter. I saw other threads that suggested turning the speed down, so I tried that and played around with some of the settings; setting power to always on for the motors, among other things.
I’ve tried setting it at negative count, positive count, dropping the speed, etc. I’m not sure if I did the encoders wrong or maybe the motors are wrong?
I am running version 3.1.5; another side issue: the time is always stuck on 1:13 am, not sure if that is relevant to troubleshooting. Please see the attached photo’s for my set-up. I know with 100% confidence which cables are my X1 and Y axis cables, but it is possible I mixed up the X2 and Z axis, so I’m going to power down and swap those to see if it fixes the issue (however, I would think the Z axis would work regardless?) (It actually shows 1100 am now…)
Also, is there a guide of ‘first things to do’ for the first time boot/software that I just missed? Or are we on our own to figure things out?
Here’s an album of photos and screenshots I took, let me know if you need me to take other angles to see anything better.
Welcome, nice to hear that you finished up your farmbot!
First, are your motors reacting in any way, like making sounds or stutter shortly when giving the command to move?
You can try to move with disabled encoders, you only need to toogle the switches on the website.
Also I would recommend to turn off the “Always power motors” thing for at least X- and Y-motors (you probably don’t need this function).
I wonder how this can happen, because your encoders should track the movement of your motors, and since they don’t move, you should get at least an error after a short time
At first sight your connections seem to be good. If your motors are not responding at all, I would check if the Arduino/ramps board gets the supply voltage.
There is no noise, no clicking or humming at all that I can tell.
I think you may have helped me find my problem! I mixed up the green cable and had the one dedicated for later add-ons plugged in, I hear it making noises now.
Once I get it setup again (my WiFi is a little far away so it seems to have issues connected sometimes) I’ll update if it’s working! Thanks!
Grab a multimeter and measure your stepper drivers. Put the black pin of the meter on your negative input on the RAMPS shield (should be the right-most input on the green block if you followed the documentation on genesis.farmbot.io). Put the red pin of the meter on the screw of the stepper driver. Your multimeter should read at least 600 milliVolts. I believe they ship with default 600.
If you can’t get a reading, maybe your stepper drivers are fried? I’ve had that problem with one of them, and the motor was jittering at first, and later not moving at all. Perhaps all your stepper drivers are fried?
So update: after plugging the correct cable in, my motors work on the x and y axis, though the x axis is acting up, seemingly due to poor equalization?
X1 was moving its side before (I had x2 and z plugged in each other’s spots). Now, both X1 and x2 work, but X1 isn’t keeping up with x2, often not even budging without assistance.
To equalize, should I be tightening/loosening the track and wheels? It rolled really smoothly before I put the belt-track on so I thought the wheels were just right. I usually roll it to the very back to ensure they start on equal footing, but x1 doesn’t move without light pressure applied to help it keep up.
The Z axis doesn’t really work; it clicks sometimes, but doesn’t sound like the others when they are functioning but stuck (like X1), then goes into an ‘infinite’ count on the webpage while not moving at all in person. Sometimes I don’t get any clicks.
swap the stepper driver of a “lazy” motor with a driver from one of your working motors, and check if the problem moves also. This would indicate faulty stepper driver.
Sorry for the long delay in reply, I’ve been busy and it’s been rainy, I didn’t want to damage anything by exposure.
I swapped the z axis motor and with x2 motor, as well as tried tightening and loosening the belt on X1, but I’m still getting the exact same performance.
Z axis clicks in real space, and on the webapp it starts an infinite climb of numbers while failing to respond to further input.
X1 still can’t keep up with x2 without slight pressure applied (very slight). The belt on X1 did feel a little overtight and the wheels aren’t all spinning (the outer most topside in the front) when I manually roll it, so I’m trying to adjust the eccentric spacers more in hopes of getting it to work. I’m not sure what to do about the z axis though.
