I don’t trust the color codes. The important thing is that you get the coils right. Their direction, or which coil is which doesn’t matter (it just changes the direction).
To tell if two wires are part of one coil, spin the motor, then short those two wires and try to spin it again. If they are part of the same coil, it will be much harder.
Call one coil A and the other B and you’re done…
Hi! I’m intersted in your build, and will build with 7i96 and THC as you have descirbed. Can you provide the HAL and INI files for your build. Would apressiate that alot as my Linux skills is lacking 
Thanks from Andreas Ekholm from Sweden
Thanks Andreas! Unfortunatly I won’t be able to get those files until next week. However, in the mean time I don’t remember making many changes beyond those files generated using the steps I’ve outlined previously in this thread. Post #6 is where I showed how I generated my base config, and post #77 shows how I converted that config for plasma.
@kd2018 Wondering if you may have some pointers. I have this all hooked up but only my single motor X axes moves. Neither the Y or Z motors will make any attempt to move. I’ve checked the wiring and it looks good. When the machine is turned on you can feel the stepper’s resistance to movement but under LinuxCNC I can’t get it to move at all.
No errors or warnings. Any thoughts on what to look for?
I verified the phases by unplugging them from the TB6600 and shorting the pairs individually. Verified each tb6600 to the ports in the 7i96.
In PNCconf and in LinuxCNC I can get no movement on Y and Z, no clicking, no humming, no bursting into flames. Not sure what I’m doing wrong to get nothing, usually when I mess something up it involves Bandaides or fire extinguishers.
On the TB6600 I have the 4 step and dir wires connected to the 7i96 but I don’t have the enc ports wired to anything. The phase A and B go out to the motors and then the power comes from the 12v power supply. TB6600’s light up with a green light and I see some blue in there too…
On the 7i96 pins I have
+5v blank
STEP1+ to PUL+
STEP1- to PUL-
DIR1+ to DIR+
DIR1- to DIR-
GND blank
I saw something in the LinuxCNC forum where they wired the 5v +/- to the Enc and they put 5v+ to Step+ and Dir+ but I don’t understand that because it breaks the phase…
Thanks,
Trevor.
I’d leave the ENA ports disconnected for now. (This is hgh to disable and low to enable anyway)
How many amps does your supply have?
What settings have you set for the tb6600’s dip switches?
Have you tried switching the motors to different drivers or drivers to different ports on the 7i96 to see if you can anything else to move? If it’s hardware this might narrow down the issue.
Can you post a photo of your wiring and your hal/ini files?
The wiring between the drivers and 7i96 on post #4 is what mine looks like.
Power supply is 12v, 6a
I actually used your diagram to validate my wiring. Plagiarism!
I tried lowering the amps to .5 and still no luck
Can’t post the Hal and ini files here. They’re not allowed types.
I think you can zip them together and post, or just change the file extension to .txt or some other allowed type.
DIPs look good. Can you post an overall photo that shows all the wiring as clearly as possible?
Did you try swapping components around to see if you could use process of elimination?
my_LinuxCNC_machine_ini.zip (4.2 KB)
Got them zipped… Will take pictures today of my messy implementation… Yours was so neat and well done…
I was able to verify all the motors work by plugging each into the X driver and then using the pncconf test function.
I’m noticing a green light on the x driver and then green and blue on the y & z drivers. I’ll look into that.
It’s not obvious to me what the problem could be. Make sure you test each of the tb6600s on the x axis too to make sure they are good.
It might be time for you to post your config on the linuxcnc forum. Those guys will spot any config problems out instantly! And if it’s a Mesa problem then user PBW is they guy who designed it so he’d be able to straighten you out.
hadn’t thought to move the wires from the Y1 to the X on the step side. I’ll try that…
You mean PCW? He’s looking at my config, we’ll see where it goes…
Thanks for the help, I’m further along at least.
confirmed, if I move the y1 to the x stepper driver it works. Perhaps I received 4 out of 5 bad stepper drivers? sigh
It’s possible. They aren’t the most highly regarded drivers but that still seems unlikely.
If Peter doesn’t find a problem with your config I’d say take a step back make a new config for just one motor and methodically test every component, as well as every stepgen output on the 7i96 individually to find the issue before buying new drivers.
Also check your wiring continuity.
So it turns out the card is bad, had to ship it back at my cost only to have them tell me that I have to pay $35 to repair a card that was dead on arrival. The next shoe to drop is they’ll want me to pay to have it shipped back. I’m very frustrated right now…
I’m really sorry you have to put up with that. I’m surprised to hear it too, this is the first time I’ve ever heard anything negative about them. I’ve seen PCW go out of his way to make things right before.
Anyway, hopefully you’ll be up and running and making sparks fly in very little time.
OMG Kyle! Totally envious!!! You just set the bar to stratospheric! I’ll be back here someday to build my own plasma lowrider2… with everything I learn on my new current setup!
hello sir, Would you mind sharing your stl file for the torch holder?
I modeled it on my old computer. I’ll try to remember to dig it up this weekend.
that would be amazing if you could! my lowrider2 plasma table is getting painted today! and then its mostly just wiring left!! 163197669_1137200300129698_7928165740998501592_n|666x500
