Help with Maslow Due

Troubleshooting
1

Hi,

I made a Maslow Due shield, connected it to a Due board, installed bCNC and everything is working fine without connected motors. I can work in bCNC, configure the board, run a job etc.

But when I connect one or more motors, the usb led dims or stops working and so does the board :confused:

Did anyone experience similar issues?

BR

2

The Due is a 3.3V board. The arduino a 5V board. Have you considered that? You might need level shifters.

3

If I understood correctly there is no issue using the power supply from the original maslow.

Thanks

4

no, it’s not the supply voltage to the board I am talking about. I am saying that the voltage levels for reading and sending signals is 3.3 V for the due, while the regular arduino outputs 5V signals. If you are not shifting these levels up to 5V again, then the driver board receives significantly smaller signals. This might cause the driver board to mess things up.
Just a guess, but seems likely.

5

the problem isn’t the power supply, the problem is that the signals that the due
sends to the motor controller board are 3.3v instead of 5v, so it doesn’t power
the chips on the motor controller properly. The stock motor controller cannot be
used with a due unless you put 3.3v <-> 5v level converters on each pin.

In addition, IIRC, the Due doesn’t have eprom, so you would have to wire in an
eprom chip as well.

David Lang

6

We are talking about U1 position on the board right?
24LC256T-I/SM EEPROM, 32K, SOIC

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It seems that the issue was with the motor wiring. I have different Chinese motors instead of original Maslow ones. Im trying to set them up correctly according to Schematics. Im not familiar with bCNC so any advise would be appreciated. Is there a simple way to test motors, like featured in Ground Control?

Thanks

1 Like
7

Good tracking down what is going on. You should be able to use the built in test motors/encoders function to find the right connections.

Each encoder has connections +5v, GND, Encoder A, Encoder B. 5v and GND are pretty easy, figuring out A and B is the hard part. The good news is there are only two possibilities and no harm comes from swapping them. I would simply try both options until you get tests passing.

If after you get tests passing you run into issues with the motors turning CCW when they should turn CW you can swap the red and black wires going to the motor to reverse their direction.

8

Thank you all for insightful suggestions.

Unfortunately, somehow I managed to short circuit and fry one due board chip while playing with it :partying_face: I will post the results when I obtain a replacement…