I was finally (FINALLY) getting around to my first cut this weekend and ended up disappointed as my z-axis is only partially working. When I try to raise or lower the z-axis, the stepper motors may or may not actually move. One of the motors moves most times, but going up by 5 mm and down by 5 mm has a couple mm gap difference (started movement from the bottom of the sled). The other motor rarely moves. I would say 1 out of 4 movements (jogging through the web interface) actually triggers the motor to move. Note: when I say it doesn’t move, I mean that it isn’t even engaged. It doesn’t click or make any sounds, like when it is trying to move but can’t. It acts like it was never commanded for the movement. I can disassemble it and attach an oscilloscope (if required, I would prefer not to disasemble the machine before ever getting a cut…) to see what is going on.
I swapped the cables between the z axis ports on the board (very tight, but I was able to make the swap) and the behavior swapped between the motors leading me to believe there is something wrong with my controller board?
I also updated the firmware to the latest version, reset the machine (at the power source), reset the z-stop height, everything I could think of.
I’m not sure what steps to take. I don’t recall odd behavior during the initial calibration (I could rerun that if anyone thinks it could help) and I haven’t done anything with the machine (or even had it plugged in) for a while as I was too busy to work on projects.
Any help is appreciated. Thanks!