In this still shot from one of your videos it looks like you have 2 couplers already on both sides of the stepper motor. Can you confirm that the stepper shaft and the coupled shaft are both the same diameter?
If the stepper shaft of your new motor is indeed 6mm and the shaft that it needs to be coupled with is 8mm then you may be able to just get a coupler with different sized holes…
While you are waiting for a new motor, why not try changing the 3.5A setting on your Y axis motor to 1.5A and see if it turns the motor? It’s just a matter of moving SW3 from off to the on position. And with the motor disconnected it’ll be easy to see if it still chatters. You’d be surprised at what an over driven stepper motor will do if indeed that motor is not really capable of 3.5A.
I believe I have found the specs for your motor - it may help you to source a local replacement: 23HD450Y-28S.pdf (364.3 KB)
@DougL The motor looks like it is rated at 4A - perhaps it was set at 3.5 to keep the motor a little cooler? - although if the longevity of the motor was a concern then I am curious if it were necessary to have SW4 on?
Did you get that number off of a picture of her motor?
Regarding the current rating of the motor, I would believe more that a motor was mis-marked or built to lower specs than listed before I’d believe a 3A or 4A NEMA23 motor would fail after just a few weeks. I’ve had a stepper motor bearing go bad and repaired it and there’s nothing to go bad in these motors except shorted windings and it’s unlikely that would turn up later rather than sooner. And a DMM can be used to diagnose that from the outside by reading resistance of the 2 windings and between windings.
The shuddering looks like a driving issue and unloaded it should still move easily at under 1A.
I remember she swapped all wires between drivers and the problem stating on the Y axis AND that this same problem showed up first on the X axis but corrected itself for unknown reasons.
Yes, from the model number on the motor in the pic.
I tend to agree with you that the motor failing seems very unlikely, however since the factory seemed rather quick to blame the motor it makes me suspicious that they know that it is a weak component?
I say “quick to blame”, because swapping ALL the wires on the drivers (inputs and outputs) and then observing X-axis working ok (X control to Y driver to X motor) may give the Y-driver an out of jail pass, but is not necessarily a slam dunk on the Y-motor because (to be thorough) you’d still have to rule out the potential of either a bad Y-driver control signal, or bad Y-driver power input as swapped in the test now poorly feeding the X-driver to Y-motor.
So to be thorough (before replacing the motor) these are the tests you could easily do;
swap the DC inputs only at the stepper motor drivers. If the problem on Y disappears - it is the DC input to the Y motor driver that is the issue.
swap only the Ruida controller X and Y-axis control signal connectors at the stepper drivers or ideally at the controller if it’s easier - if using the X controls now moves Y-axis motor without any issues then it’s nothing to do with stepper motors or drivers.
Support is expensive, more so than sending out a motor and after switching all the wires from one driver to the other and the Y axis still studdered, that is the easy thing to “shot gun”/replace.
I tend to try and investigate and will spend hours and even days chasing down the silliest and smallest problem. I also have a very diverse background which includes automotive mechanics, plumbing, electronics technology and software engineering. I don’t like “magic” so I try to dig to understand.
I thought she did that for you after she’d swapped all the wires as asked by Omtech and then mentioned it was acting crazy because the when she went left/right it studdered and when she went front/back it moved left and right.
she tried a bunch of stuff and it all seemed to point to the Y axis motor not working as expected. I don’t know Ruida but she should have checked that her acceleration wasn’t set too high nor movement speeds for manual moves.
Yes I can confirm they are. I will check out the links and get a shaft coupler thanks
That’s great thank you
Again a big thank you to every single one of you that has asked me to try or check something on this laser. You have all been a fantastic help I feel like i’ve also had a crash course in learning all the sections on it at the same time.
I have as yet not had the replacement motor from the vendor. I am expecting this week the one I ordered myself which has the different shaft size so I will look at getting a shaft coupler to accommodate it that @berainlb suggested.
For anyone that wished to know what happened I ended up buying a whole new laser, I couldn’t be out of action any longer. They never did send a replacement motor.
The company refunded the other one and rightly so as a brand new machine with so much errors and faults just shouldn’t happen.
I wish to thank you all again @jkwilborn@ednisley@NicholasL@berainlb@micrololin@DougL
you were all amazing with your suggestions and helpful tips. I couldn’t have done it with you all giving your free time and knowledge.
I now have a box of spare parts should I ever need to call on them in the future