@dc42 I would imagine for the z motors, speed and torque is not much of an issue as its only raising and lowering the printing gantry at a slow speed. The only fast movements it would do is during probing. Perhaps I am missing something? Either way, continuing with the project in this capacity is perfectly fine for me.

@elmoret It would be parallel.

Just to confirm, I did finally get back to looking at this issue and have temporarily solved it. I made a splicer so that I could put both Z motors into the same socket on the Duet, and it worked. This leads me to believe that the problem is a hardware issue on the Duet itself? Would you agree?

Hi Folks,

I have been browsing through the forums and working on my own configuration for an IDEX machine I have built. I have come to the realization that I have my strong points, and weaknesses. Configuring control boards with my builds is my weakness for sure. I am hoping to connect with someone here that can assist me with my configuration to a point where I can print. In exchange, I am willing to pay commisions. Not looking for freebies, I just want to get past this hurdle of configuring my board. Once I understand some of the steps that were taken, I can learn quite quickly, but at this point, I need some 1 on 1 assistance.

To be fair, I have taken folk's suggestions to just keep trying, and I honestly just dont speak this kind of language to be frank. My time is so limited (father of 3, full time career, church and other commitments) that the thought of succeeding in configuring my own printer is slowly slipping away from me. Please let me know if this is something one of you could take on. I really appreciate it.

Jon

@nophead said in Z motors wont move together:

It is actually behaving like one of the sockets is shorted. The motor plugged into that one would not spin but the other would.

@dc42 said in Z motors wont move together:

I agree. Check that there are no solder bridges between pins of the Z motor connectors on the underside of the Duet. I recall seeing a report of a board with this fault recently. It didn't get picked up during testing because the boards are tested with the 2 jumpers in the Zb position, just as they are shipped.

I took a quick look at the board this morning, front to back, and cant see anything visual. I inspected the motor wires and connectors and cant see anything wrong. I trust the next step would be to check the pin headers with a meter for shorts?

Should I be running the motors off their own driver anyways at this point? There seem to be more benefits that way anyway?

If I switch the port the motors plug in, the opposite motor will work. Its as if there is a drop in power from one motor to the next. So the first one works well, the next doesnt have enough power. Its not isolated to any particular motor, but the order in which the power cycles through them.

1 question. If the Duet can handle running at 80% of 2.8A, why does the configurator say the maximum is 2000ma. Am I missing something? Can I put a value of 2240ma? Cause thats what I did.

Im using a 24v power supply for starters. 350W 24V Mean Well for now until final electronics have been figured out.

Motor details as such:
Current per Phase - 2.8 A/phase
Voltage (VDC) - 3.4
Resistance (Ω/phase) - 1.2
Inductance (mH/phase) - 4.6

I thought I had spec'd these motors to the correct size for the board capabilities. Beyond reassigning the 2nd motor to its own driver, should these not work wired in series? For a future config, yes, I would love to drive these seperately. For now, I just want to have the machine move to tweak my hardware.

Here is a photo of my configuration. IDEX system with the entire print gantry on the Z. I will be getting a Duex5 as soon as I can prove this all works, which it should. Just getting over these firmware hurdles.

Hi guys. Im a new Duet Wifi user and have to say, the learning curve for me is becoming a struggle. Its not overly difficult, but I consider myself more of a hardware guy than a software guy.

I have designed a beautiful printer and am currently working on getting the beast moving. On the Z, I have 2 Nema 23, turning 2 leadscrews each. They are connected to the same stepper driver on the Duet labeled Z. When I calculate the required ma for the motors (80% max of their rating), I get 2240ma. When I tell the Z to move, it will move one side of the printer, and the other just stutters into oblivion. If I dont reset the board, this would wreck my printer.

Steppers I am using on the Z axis are the PKP268D28A2 from Oriental Motors. Perhaps, with this basic information, you may be able to tell me if im already wrong with my ma calculations?

Lastly, as per my intro, I am struggling with the learning curve of the software. I am willing to work with someone and pay for help with firmware configurations so that I can start getting my machine moving. Father of 3 and a full time job does not leave me a load a free time to learn. I can learn well off of a working configuration and make changes to it from there.

@timcurtis67:

https://www.duet3d.com/forum/thread.php?id=829#p19656

I read through that thread, it doesn't really touch on the topic of auto loading a second spool, only dual color/material, which there are quite a few guides for. Maybe I missed something?

Hey guys, this is my first post here. I am curious about implementing a feature into my custom printer build. I want to have my filament automatically switch to a secondary spool when the first spool signals it has 'run out'. My machine is an IDEX design, so each extruder would have a secondary roll of filament to reload with. When it comes to hardware building, I am quite good at that. When it comes to firmware, I am not good at that.

My thought would be to have 4 extruding motors in a bowden cofiguration (2 hotends, each fed by a primary extruder and a backup extruder). There would be a sensor before and after each motor to detect filament presence. The first sensor before would be before the extruder, to detect if filament is present or 'run-out'. The second sensor would be on the extruded side of the extruder to confirm filament has retracted far enough to load the next filament in. Perhaps this wouldnt be necessary if, when the 1st sensor triggers that 'run-out' has occured, then retract x amount which would move the filament out of the way to load the next filament in. In order to have 2 filament feeds into one extruder, a 'Y' adapter would be inline for each hotend.

Perhaps this project has already been done? Perhaps I am over complicating it? Perhaps there is a better approach. I was hoping to bounce the idea off with you fine folks and get some feedback. Perhaps I need to be more clear in my intentions? I know there is a way to accomplish what I want, I just dont know how to program in order to complete it and have it be reliable.

I could also see this enabling multicolor / material printing with proper gcode macros.

Again, let me know what your thoughts are.