Sorry I took so long to chime in, but what @bar is saying is in line with my experience. The calibration moves the sled “home” before calibrating the Z axis and this can cause issues. You can skip Z-axis calibration and then come back and do it later. I think that’s how I got past the issue.
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I’ll try that next. Thank you @Walt_Moorhouse and @bar. @blurfl Here’s the log file. I’ll return and report after going through the Set Chain Length Automatic process. log.txt (268.3 KB)
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What strikes me first is
Connected on port /dev/tty.usbmodem1411
This should not be continued under Solved:
It is worth a new post in the troubleshooting
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Ok, A few things…
@bar you were correct. The reason the motors were moving was that the chains weren’t in a know position. I manually completed this step and the z axis now works as it should and will now Calibrate. Great find. Interesting that all motors run during the z axis travel.
During the set up process I had trouble with the over or under (to the sled) set up. If I clicked either option it seemed that the motor would run backwards to what it was supposed to. After the calibration step in GC I would tell it to move the sled up and it in turn would drop the sled. I believe that this is a problem with the motors being connected backwords? If there was a setting that I could reverse the direction of the motors in GC this would solve that problem. Or if the connectors were upside down I could reverse them (not sure if that is possible).
If you know of a setting in GC where I could reverse the motor direction please let me know. When I get home today I will try and plug them in a different way.
Thank you everyone, This forum has some great response times.
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Double check that you have the motors plugged into the right port:
Step 4: Connect The Motors
Attach the motors to the motor controller shield. Note that the motors connect to ports 1 and 3 not 1 and 2. This is to better distribute the motor power draw across both motor driver chips. Port 3 controls the left motor and Port 1 the right motor (as viewed when facing the MaslowCNC). The cables have two sides, so make sure that when plugged in the Arduino shield, the yellow wire is at the bottom in both ports as seen in the following photo. When using the optional Z axis, this motor is connected to port 2.
@madgrizzle The funny thing is that I checked again this morning and the ports are correct, the motors just spin the opposite direction they should. When I test the left motor it runs the left motor, when I test the right it runs the right. They are connected to the 1 and 3 ports just like the picture.
I’ll switch them and give it a try.
If you have no doubt they are cabled correctly, don’t switch the ports. It’s likely you picked the wrong configuration (top feed vs. bottom feed) when you ran the calibration. Take a close look at the pictures. If you have the slack dropping straight down you are in top feed configuration… if the slack goes along the top beam, you are in bottom feed configuration.
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