Hi Guys
Please could someone help 
I have recently purchased a Smoothieboard (SB now) and have the following issues.
- Power supply to Fans
Here i have connected 3 fans to a box that the SB sits in and 1 fan to the hotend.
These fans have to turn on when i turn the SB on.
I have a 12v supply connected to PWR_in next to the P2_6 (jumper 28 is NOT connected)
I have the Fans connected to P2_6
I created a fan1 to control P2_6 and tried all ways of setting this to pmw and digital
but cant get the fans to power on with the board.
Having m106/7 to turn the fans on and off works, but this is not possible to use as
they will be turned on and off when the PLA fan connected to P2_4 is switched by the software
to control this fan.
Any help here to be able to have the fans power on when i turn the board on and stay
powered on ?
- Z-axis stepper motors (all in fact)
When i turn the SB on all the stepper motors are inactive, if i move the z-axis up
any distance that works, but then the motors keep humming (active) i have left it for 40+ minutes
and the stepper motor does not turn off.
If i run a print for 24 hrs then the z-stepper motors would seem to run for 24hrs, if
the print was 400 steps high then the z stepper should only be running for a total 7 mins
not the 24hrs.
The nema 17 are 1.7amp and i have the power set to .7 so its not an issue with over power.
How can i set the steppers to turn off when not active ?
Thanks for reading and i hope you can help
War
Imported from wikidot
Hey.
- Fans :
If you don’t want your fan1 not to answer to M106/107, simply change input_on_command and input_off_command for that switch, to other values ( for example M321/322 ), then it won’t get turned on/off at the same time as the P2_4 fan.
You can also set startup_state for that switch to true so that it gets turned on at startup.
- Z steppers.
If you turn off your Z stepper motors during a print, you will loose positional accuracy, so it’s not a good idea, especially in a 24 hours print.
Cheers !
Hi Arthurwolf
Thanks for your reply.
I have tried setting the startup_state to true but the fans didn’t turn on when i powered up the board
Would i still need to add the input_on/off_command M??? if the fans are not turned off.
The z-axis steppers on my ramps don’t run all the time during a print they are silent after it moves the Z-axis and the power on them is set to 1Amp through the stepper motor . Its not the noise that worries me, its the fact that the steppers on the SB where warm to hot with the printer just sitting there after moving the z-axis up 1 step and leaving the printer for 40 mins ?
War
Hey
Can I see your config file on a website like pastebin.com ?
Also, for the Z axis, the drivers and steppers being warm or even hot is perfectly normal, just don’t worry about it.
Cheers.
I am at work now.
I will post my config (fan section) here later
I don’t mind having fans running when a job is finished, but what you are saying with the SB is that if a job finishes at 01:00 in the morning all the stepper drivers will keep running (powered on) until i power the SB off 6 - 7 hours later?
War
Oh no, of course not.
They don’t turn off between layers, so that they keep their position, but you can put a G-code in your G-code file to turn them off : M18
See :Â http://smoothieware.org/supported-g-codes
Cheers.
Hi Arthurwolf
Thank you for your reply, that helps
But i cant understand why the motor has to run through the full print ?
You say it is to keep its position, but i have found that if any stepper is running then all the motors are locked.
If i move the x-axis left or right (yes it stays running after) but if i try to move the Z-axis it is locked in position and its not physically running.
Would this have to be a feature request to have the way it works changed ? is this a hardware limit or a firmware change.
Yes i know the SB is for other applications other than 3d printing, but the option would be nice. (i would be willing to beta test as well)
Sorry for being so negative, but you tend to move the extruder etc a lot when getting ready to print or testing a print before the run, and with making changes to the slicing software that can take ages sometimes and having the motors and steppers running all the time just seems wrong.
Its a pain having the extruder fan running all the time the printer is turned on, but i learned the hard way that with a e3d v6 this is a must or you will end up with blocked nozzels, but adding the steppers to this is just, well it seems ott
war
Hey.
But i cant understand why the motor has to run through the full print ?
Because if you turn a motor off, it looses it’s position, and if you do it repeatedly, your print will drift over time.
You can turn stepper motors on and off using G-codes, that’s enough for all applications I can think of.
What are you trying to do exactly ? Keeping the steppers ON is the way they are supposed to be used … There is absolutely no downside to keeping the steppers ON, and if you really want them OFF, you can turn them OFF with a G-code.
Cheers.
Hi Arthurwolf
Thank you 
got the fans working.
Here is my config for the fans in case anyone else wants to do the same
fan1 is the fan for the hotend
- Switch module for fan control
switch.fan.enable true
switch.fan.input_on_command M106
switch.fan.input_off_command M107
switch.fan.output_pin 2.4
switch.fan.output_type pwm
switch.fan.max_pwm 255
#switch.misc.enable true
#switch.misc.input_on_command M42
#switch.misc.input_off_command M43
#switch.misc.output_pin 2.4
#switch.misc.output_type digital
- useful to turn on a fan or water pump to cool the hotend
temperatureswitch.hotend.enable true
temperatureswitch.hotend.designator T
temperatureswitch.hotend.threshold_temp 60.0
temperatureswitch.hotend.heatup_poll 15
temperatureswitch.hotend.cooldown_poll 60
- Switch module for Hotend fan1 control
switch.fan1.enable true
switch.fan1.output_pin 2.6
switch.fan1.output_type digital
switch.fan1.startup_state true
switch.fan1.startup_value 255