I see. I just had another strange happening. I got the motor test to pass, but I got a sled not keeping up message on the very next operation. It gave me the sled not keeping up error while trying to move the z axis. This is new.
I just swapped the L cable and the z cable. The error followed the cable. The test gave me a pass on the L motor in both directions, failed direction 1 for the R motor and it failed direction 1 on the Z motor.
I went ahead and swapped the opposite side with the Z and all motors passed the test. I swapped everything back to the original configuration and retested. L and R motors again failed in direction 1, z passed.
Ok, so if the problem moves with the cable, it would seem to be related to the motors or their encoders. The test moves the motors at the highest speed (maxFeed is completely ignored) for a while and looks to see that more than 500 encoder pulses have occurred.
Did you say that when the motors fail in a direction they shudder instead of moving the chain?
During the failed step does the chain fail to move (encoders donāt see pulses accumulating in the expected direction), or does the chain move the expected amount (encoders not producing expected pulses)?
The encoders on the motors should be able to work with as little as 3.8V to power them that the Arduino provides, but they might be affected by electrical noise. Do you have any accessories plugged into the AUX pins? Those would use the same power as the encoders, and might either introduce noise or draw the voltage low.
While moving the z axis, the left and right motors work to hold the sled in place. The alarm means that the encoder routines tihink that the position has wandered from the desired spot. Noise on the encoder line, or a faulty encoder(s) could cause that.
Finding the cause of electrical noise can take time and imagination. What electrical items/signals are in the area? New/different light bulbs? Router or shop vac power cord moved? Heaters turned on for the cold season?
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Did you say that when the motors fail in a direction they shudder instead of moving the chain?
No shudder, only a series of rapid pules/beep sounds.
During the failed step does the chain fail to move (encoders donāt see pulses accumulating in the expected direction), or does the chain move the expected amount (encoders not producing expected pulses)?
The chain fails to move.
Do you have any accessories plugged into the AUX pins? Those would use the same power as the encoders, and might either introduce noise or draw the voltage low.
Nothing plugged into board but original equipment.
Finding the cause of electrical noise can take time and imagination. What electrical items/signals are in the area? New/different light bulbs? Router or shop vac power cord moved? Heaters turned on for the cold season?
Absolutely nothing changed electrically that I can think of.
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Was the ātest motors/encodersā ever written to run with the sled attached???
I never used it that way and are wondering how many testers we have that have run it with the sled attached.
Do you get Pass? Just asking to rule out.
Edit: Sorry I canāt try as the old sled is dismantled and the new one not ready.
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It shouldnāt matter if the sled is attached, thatās how I always use it. A good thought, though. More ideas? Iām running out 
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Good to know!
The times we had a new motor shield mailed for free are almost over.
I fried 2 to death, but the 3rd one is ārunningā but not how I would expect it to. Strange and unpredictable and worst not replicable behaviour. Since TLE5206 I did not invest time on the original shield.
We do miss a āstandardizedā ādial inā procedure with couple of tests to examine terminal and log.
I guess we have have enough āreportingā to see if hardware is wrong. Just not the tools.
I am wondering if there could be a problem with the Maslow board or the cabling.
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Itās true that the motor test runs the motors a full voltage, and that is very very rare in other circumstances. The thing is that the z motor is driven by the same chip as the right motor, and any motor plugged into that socket passes, so the chip should be good. I guess the solder connections for the chip might be going high-resistance. Youāve got a point about the board.
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The left motor chip for me. Left motor would die first and shortly after the Z.
My mega is not on the back so l/r could create confusions.
I think you said that a heatsink fell off at one point, can you remove the
heatsinks and take a picture of the chips.
Did you say that if you swapped the left/right motor cables at the controller
the failing motor switched?
just to be sure itās notthe cables, swap them entirely (both ends)
David Lang
My heat sinks were super glued on so they are not coming off with out a fight. Both left and right motors are failing so swapping cables between them will not help.
It could not hurt to try a different computer just to rule it out.
I was planning to do so, but the only other computer I have available is an old dell laptop that is running Windows XP (cant upgrade to Windows 10) and the Arduino software will not run in that environment (Tried). The laptop is from the mid 2000ās and would cost more to upgrade than to buy a new one.
I discovered that cyanoacrylate is not thermal conductive. When you wrote that you used it to secure your heat sinks I became curious as in all my years of building computers I have never heard of it being used or recommended. If heat transfer has been impeded it could have cooked your chips. Some of the symptoms you mention kind of sound like micro-fractures that open up as heat increases. Just and idea, I have run into this in electronics before. Whatever the case donāt give up.
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sound like a weak power supply to me
I tested the power supply going to the Maslow brains. The volts and amperage was spot on coming out of the power supply.
I am out of ideasā¦
To date, I have done the following and not resolved the problems:
I have so far replaced:
: The Maslow board - did not fix issues
: Both Left & Right motors - did not fix issues
Tests or other things attempted:
: Reset the Arduino EEprom
: Moved the power supply as far away from boards as possible.
: Swapped motor cable connections (L, R and Z) in every possible configuration.
: Upgraded to the latest and greatest versions of GC and Firmware. (V1.25)
: Changed computers.
: Completely disassembled everything mechanical and assembled again.
: Disconnected and reconnected all electronic connections.
: Removed any possible source of dragging (Friction)
{HDPE under sled and on the contact point where the chains drag against the frame}.
: Reset chains (multiple times) in GC.
: Calibrated (Passed).
: Ran test program (Simple circle cut in two passes with no bit installed) and it ran fine. Then failed motor tests after running program.
I am still getting either the āsled not keeping upā error and/or motors failing the test (L & R in Direction 1 only).
All I can still do to try and resolve this so my system will work is:
Replace:
Both chains
Both L & R motor cables
The Arduino board.
If anyone has any other thoughts or recommendations let me know.
Not sure if this was suggested further up, but if it was not:
In GC click on āsettingsā, then on the grey menu-bar saying āmaslow settingsā, choose āadvanced settingsā, scroll to the bottom and change the value āposition error limitā from 2 to 20. Hope that makes the warning go away 
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I have not done this yet. I will try it tonight. It might help with the sled warnings, but the main issue is it fails the motor encoder tests and looses where it is (GC vs real world).