Gecko 202 on 4g board inop

[cjohnson]

While making some Christmas gifts tonight I lost the x1 motor. Swaping the wires cause the other motor to not work so I knew it was something else. I reloaded the software and problem remained. I then swapped the wires back to their orginial position and swapped x1 gecko with z gecko. Bingo. Both x1 and x2 worked and the z did not. I have used the machine only about 4 to 8 hours since upgrading so i am a bit discouraged. Hopefully, I can get a replacement sooner rather than later. I've always heard that if electronics fail it will happen during the first few hours. Anyone have any other suggestions as to what I could look for?
CJ

[richards]

Because the problem followed the original x1 motor as you tried different solutions, it looks like the original x1 stepper motor or wiring from that motor has a short. The G202 stepper driver shuts down automatically when the motor pulls too much current. That can happen if the coils inside the stepper motor short out (not very likely) or if two conductors in the stepper cable touch together (much more likely).

You should have about 4.4 ohms of resistance between the black wire and the green wire on the A coil and between the red wire and the blue wire on the B coil. You should have infinite resistance between the black wire and the red or blue and between the green wire and the red or blue.

[harold_weber]

Mike, the way CJ's post reads to me, he has a damaged Gecko drive. If you're certain that's wrong, please explain.

CJ, I lost one Gecko in about a week, and a second one about a year later, so not always the first few hours. Keep a spare on hand.

[cjohnson]

I spoke with Harold at Shopbot (first thing this morning) and they are not only covering this under warranty, they are shipping 2 day and proving a way to ship the defective unit back. Looks like we may have Christmas after all!

Those of you who are sitting on the fence about purchasing a shopbot should consider the excellent customer service and support both with Shopbot and here on this forum.

Mike, thanks for the technical suggestion. I will double check to make sure the motor is not contributing to this issue.

[richards]

Sorry guys, but I totally read the first post wrong. I read it as the MOTOR being swapped between drives when it was actually the drive being swapped between motors.

This old age thing and a bottle full of pills each day is not for sissies.