Z Axis Motor Cannot Move It But Moves Freely By Hand

x axis works fine. Had plug the ZY encoder cable into the Z encoder on the Farmduino to get the Y axis to work properly. The ZZ cable (I presume because it doesn’t have a label on that end) is plugged into the Y encoder at the Farmduino.


The Z axis is stuck. It attempts to move down 3 times and stalls. There doesn’t seem to be anything blocking movement. It behaves the same regardless where it is on the Z track when moved manually. Plugging the ZZ encoder into the Z encoder on Farmduino allows it to move again. But measuring length stalls out and the Y axis has the same behavior as Z did previously. The encoder connection at the motor and it feels snug as well.

A few other facts

  1. Beginner setting up v1.7 for the first time.
  2. ZZ encoder cable in Y encoder on Farmduino allows the Y axis to move across the entire Y axis.
  3. ZY encoder cable in Z encoder on Farmduino causes the Z axis to attempt 3 times to move down before halting.
  4. Using Find Length on Z axis, attempts to move down 3 times before giving up then moves with no issue. I was able to test this by manually moving to about the middle of Z axis before doing Find Length.
  5. Disable encoder on Z axis allows it to move freely.
  6. Messing with the exccentric spacers hasn’t changed behavior. But admittedly I can’t figure out if clockwise or couter-clockwise loosens the grip on the 3 wheels. The bolt just gets harder to tighten or freely loose.

Any help troubleshooting is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

The weather here has been less than ideal for a laptop outside to troubleshoot this issue. Today is finally good enough to work on it again. Any help is very appreciated. Has anyone one else run into an issue like this or am I a special snowflake?

Hi @Zpetschek
have you checked out the Genesis v1.7 Troubleshooting doco. ?

Z-Axis Movements | FarmBot Genesis Documentation

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