Hello,
Can some one give me guidance on what I may be doing wrong.

I had purchased a cnc router and after having it for a few years I wanted to add a 4th axis

I purchased all the components that I needed and I matched exactly what I had existing in the machine.

stepper motor- Sure step STP-MTR 23079
stepper driver- Geckodrive G201

I matched the wiring as I saw it wired on the other motors and drives and I went into Mach 3 and enabled the 4th axis.

This is what I did so far:
Under ports and pins I enabled the A axis using step pin #8 and dir pin #9 step port 1 and dir port 1
Input signals A home enabled Port#1 Pin #14
Toolpath config A rotations enabled
I turned off the A axis inhibits under the settings tab

I tried to use the rotary and it worked but all 3 other axis when they move have a kind of grinding moaning noise.

I looked at the driver and miss read the power requirements and thought maybe there wasn't enough power, the power supply was on the low end but it was in the requirements.

Now I have a power supply on the middle to upper end and I still have the same problem.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Greg

Are the other axes making that noise when used without the A?
Hood

When it was making noise it was the 3 other axis and not the rotary that were making noise, the A axis was moving quietly.

but....

When I changed the power supply I kept blowing fuses again I made a mistake and had the polarity backwards on the AC into my transformer. When I corrected it the fuses stopped blowing and I was able to move the router for a short bit until the A axis motor got hot and tripped a estop.

I did a bit of reading of the Mach 3 manual and read about active low on Page 4-2 at the bottom, the factory settings was off so active hi, I switched them on and the router ran smoothly for a short while I was testing max speeds and fuse blew again. Now it blows every time I turn the power on and I just smelled some smoke, I hope it's not a driver.

I did test with a multi-meter before I turned the power on, I had 120ac out from the wall and 73v dc at the power running out of the transformer. Funny thing is that I bought a 63v dc power supply so it's running hot? I'm not sure.

I have it at the Kitchen table right now doing a teardown and I'm gonna start from the beginning and see if I can find a mistake or something I did wrong.

G201's are not very tolerant of wiring errors.
I wouldn't think the A motor getting hot could trip an estop, as a stepper drive and motor should have nothing to do with an estop circuit.

The wiring is correct.

I think I cooked one of the drives the capacitor smells burnt, it's the one with for the rotary axis, the motor was warm on that one too.

It's odd how it only cooked one and not all of them if the power was too much.

Did you install the correct current resistor for the stepper motor?
John Champlain

In regards to tripping an estop, all I know is that I look up at my screen and the estop what tripped and I went to pick up the motor and it was very hot, the assumption is that they are related.

The resistor I have in the G201 is at 3A – 35.25K the motor rated current is 2.8A/phase.

In regards to my power supply it's been really bugging me the values that I got so I went back to test again and this is the result that I get.
I miss spoke about the power supply value I wrote 63v it's actually 50v.

I start with the AC in and it reads 122v then I measure the output of the transformer I get xxv dc and when I switch it over to AC I get 53v so it makes me think did I buy a AC transformer instead of a DC transformer? Then I measure at the capacitor and I get 73v DC and then I try AC and I get 154v.

At this point I'm confused, wouldn't the capacitor blow if I put AC in them? And how did my machine run with me moving it around, not running programs or anything, it was only for a short while then I blew a fuse but shouldn't that fry my drivers if it was AC?

I'm going to hook my old power supply back up and measure it and see what I get.

I will post back later.

Thanks for all your help.

I start with the AC in and it reads 122v then I measure the output of the transformer I get xxv dc and when I switch it over to AC I get 53v so it makes me think did I buy a AC transformer instead of a DC transformer? Then I measure at the capacitor and I get 73v DC and then I try AC and I get 154v.

I am assuming you do have a full wave bridge rectifier between your transformer output and the capacitor ?

Tweakie.

Yes I do between the transformer and the capacitor, I need to look and see what voltage it's rated for.

Transformers only work with AC. Then you rectify it to a pulsating DC voltage and then it gets smoothed out by the capacitors to give a pretty smooth DC voltage with some ripple on it.

Mike