So how do stepper motor drivers act when they’re going out? Or do they just quit?
My reworked i3’s extruder motor is acting weird in that after 1.5-2 hrs it’ll stop extruding and motor just toggles but doesn’t turn. I have a fan on the RAMPS clone. Drivers are cool to the touch as well as the motor. It’s acting as if it’s not getting enough current, but when I turn up the pot there’s no change. Crank the pot enough and the motor just makes a loud sound but still no movement.
I took it all apart yesterday and swapped motors, drivers, tested extruder motor, etc. Everything seemed to check out. Started print job this morning and it acted up again. I just swapped the stepper driver for a spare I had so will see if this fixes it.
What happens when steppers give up the ghost? Do they just quit working?
Is the connection between RAMPS and motor the problem? Do you have a meter you can use to check the coil impedance? It could be a connection gone high resistance, in which case most of the current isn’t getting to the motor, just enough to make a sound but not turn. Due to the high resistance not much current flows so the driver stays cool.
@Tim_Sills , everything from flat out not working to exhibiting strange behavior. I’ve had one work, but it would only go 1 direction. I’ve had another just simply quit. I’ve had another intermittently work/not work. I’ve had yet another continue to work, but seemingly at half power…
100% sure it’s not an extruder jam? My only extruder problem to date was a dust ball building up and jamming everything solid. Can you wind it by hand okay, assuming it has something external that would allow you to do so? Can you move the other motors fine with gcode? If so that rules out a common DC power input connection issue. If you pinch the drive shaft with your fingers can you feel movement? One coil going open circuit would prevent a full step cycle and it would step back and forth around the same spot.
thx guys. It’s looking a lot like @ThantiK described in that it’s just a weird failure. @Mark_MARKSE_Emery , I couldn’t manually step in Reptier Host, and yes, at first I thought my E3Dv6 had jammed. Took apart and it seemed fine and I could manually feed through. It all started printing fine yesterday after stopping and checking and I’m back at it printing again with the swapped out stepper motor driver. If it acts up again I’ll throw the DMM on the motor to check. What resistance should the coils measure?
Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out and thought you’d seen it all, something else comes along.
Just a quick follow-up on this post in that my re-attempt at printing a replacement direct drive extruder body seems to be doing fine after I replaced the stepper motor driver board. It’s knock-off hardware so I probably shouldn’t be surprised.
Depending on the failure many things could happen. If you have a cracked solder joint, the device could be connected when hot, but not when it is cold. If you have fets that are dead, you could have less power than expected(skipping steps) or it could just not work, if you have bad heat thermals power could drop off over time/just fail.