Stepper motor not working on Laserbot?

#1

I just finished assembling the Laserbot, upgraded the firmware, tested the microswitches, and then tried the test run. The carriage with the laser (X-axis) jiggles back and forth. It looked and sounded like the belt was slipping, so I removed the belt and started over. The shaft of the motor was only moving a little bit in either direction, and it made the same noise.

I swapped the stepper motor drivers on the MegaPi, but the motor still did the same thing.

The wiring is as shown in the video, and the Y-axis runs along the rail to the microswitch as expected, but the stepper for the X-axis won’t keep turning, it just rotates back and forth.

Do I need to replace the motor?

#2

Hi edisto,

Sorry that we don’t see the video you mentioned.

For the issue, could you please test if you can move the laser carriage along X axis smoothly by hand?
Is it possible for you to take a video to show the behaves on Laserbot while you testing home? You can send it to us(daisy@makeblock.com) via the pCloud transfer website:https://transfer.pcloud.com/

Besides, here we have a troubleshooting instruction for this issue, could you please check all the points mentioned in it.How to fix if the X-axis or Y-axis cannot move when test home.zip (3.2 MB)

#3

I meant the assembly video. The wiring is the same as in the assembly video.

The stepper motor behaves the same way with the belt off, so it isn’t the carriage. What I described to in my initial message covers the steps in the FAQ. the connectors came attached to the wires, and the solder on the wires seems brittle. I am going to strip and tin the wires, and connect them to the spare plug that came with the kit.

#4

Hi edisto,

Thanks for your feedback!
Please kindly let us know after you tried strip and tin the wires.
Btw, in your first post, you mentioned that you tried swap the motor drivers,did the issue transfer to the Y axis from the X axis after swapped the drivers?

#5

No…swapping drivers didn’t change anything. That’s why I suspected the motor.

I cut, stripped, and tinned the wires today, and used the spare connector that came with the kit, and that seemed to solve the issue.

What an amazing little machine!

#6

Wow, glad to hear that you solved it! We are so proud of having you as our customer.
Thanks for sharing the experiences.

#7