Good, now I can see on the picture, your pots are very low. You’ll see cross lines on it. On line which is screw slot is longer than other. Let’s go ahead turn those pots longer slots to 12 o’clock position.
Still nothing. Shall I go higher until I see motion?
If you have any power going to stepper motors, you must see some movement. Do you want to run Machine Setup on Easel one more time.?
Turning those pods too much will cause temp thermal shutdown. Don’t go over 1 o’clock.
Pots all half-way from lowest to highest. Double-checked that Windows believes that there’s an Arduino Uno in COM3. Ran Machine Setup once again, still no movement at all.
Thanks for hanging with me through this. I really appreciate it.
Okay, at this point I don’t want to struggle anymore. You better call Inventables, they’re already watching our troubleshooting history. They will give you better idea or possibly G-Shield replacement.
Will do. Thanks again for your help.
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You may need to re-load the software into the Arduino.
Do you have HyperTerminal or Putty?
Is the baud rate on the Arduino COM port set to 115200?
I do have Putty (it’s mandatory for any Windows install of mine). Do you have a link to the re-loading instructions?
I did notice that Windows thinks the Arduino is 9600 baud (8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit). I’m going to manually change that to 115200 and re-try.
Update1 : Windows is not saving that change—it reverts to 9600 when I go back into “Port Settings.”
Update 2: I got it to retain the 115200 baud rate (by clicking the “Change settings” shield icon instead of just navigating right to “Port Settings”). But still no movement (after a full reload of Easel). Tried other USB ports to no avail. Tried Windows “Troubleshooting”, but I had to stop when it said that the Arduino Uno is too old for USB 3.0 and that I should use a USB 2.0 port. I have no USB 2.0 ports. I thought 3.0 was backward-compatible.
Update 3: Found the instructions: https://inventables.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/2058884?b_id=9562
It is backward Compatible. I’m connecting to USB 3.1.
When you get the software reloaded, bring up Putty and connect to the COM port that your Arduino is plugged into. Grbl should announce itself and wait for a command. Enter $$ and post the output from that command here so we can see what the Grbl parameters are set to.
Yep, that’s bad. Sharp eyes.
I think that’s just a reflection. The pads still look to be seated if you open up the pic and look real close. The reflection does make them look like they are floating though.
There’s just not enough detail in that picture to say for sure, but it does appear to be a reflection. The edges of the solder pads are just to clean to have been ripped off the board.
Thanks all for taking a closer look! Here’s a photo of the pins—they do seem seated and not loose.
I’m going to reflash Grbl to my Arduino now.
After you re-flash your Arduino and run the Easel setup, take a good look at the grbl parameters. Depending on which version of the grbl software you load, Easel may not set things up correctly.
Even better - post the parameters here and I’ll check them.
Status update: I tried to run the EEPROM clear program in the Arduino IDE, but it wouldn’t run. After reading the Troubleshooting guide on the Arduino web site, I realized that the Arduino was probably touching metal (the sides of the board against the inside of the enclosure—remember that I can’t fit the pair in the enclosure with the Arduino screwed down). I removed the Arduino/GShield assembly from the case and the eeprom_clear program ran. Then I loaded the grbl upload program, and it ran, too.
Then I waited a good 10 seconds for the gremlins to go somewhere else, and reloaded Easel. Still no motor movement at all.
I used Putty to try to connect to COM3, but I was unable to make a connection. I ensured that the settings in Putty matched those in Windows’ hardware properties tab: 115200 baud, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, no flow control. Are those setting correct for the Arduino Uno?
Edit: If both Windows and Putty are set to use “Xon/Xoff” for “flow control”, the connection opens. But grbl does not prompt, and the connection times out after 5-10 seconds. It seems that grbl did not take, regardless of what the Arduino IDE says.
Damn, I was using Putty wrong. Reflashed the Arduino (very picky! had to unplug and replug Arduino for the upload to work), connected with Putty, got the prompt, $$ returns:
Grbl 0.9j [’$’ for help]
$0=10 (step pulse, usec)
$1=255 (step idle delay, msec)
$2=0 (step port invert mask:00000000)
$3=3 (dir port invert mask:00000011)
$4=0 (step enable invert, bool)
$5=0 (limit pins invert, bool)
$6=0 (probe pin invert, bool)
$10=3 (status report mask:00000011)
$11=0.020 (junction deviation, mm)
$12=0.002 (arc tolerance, mm)
$13=0 (report inches, bool)
$20=0 (soft limits, bool)
$21=0 (hard limits, bool)
$22=0 (homing cycle, bool)
$23=3 (homing dir invert mask:00000011)
$24=25.000 (homing feed, mm/min)
$25=750.000 (homing seek, mm/min)
$26=250 (homing debounce, msec)
$27=1.000 (homing pull-off, mm)
$100=40.000 (x, step/mm)
$101=40.000 (y, step/mm)
$102=188.947 (z, step/mm)
$110=8000.000 (x max rate, mm/min)
$111=8000.000 (y max rate, mm/min)
$112=500.000 (z max rate, mm/min)
$120=500.000 (x accel, mm/sec^2)
$121=500.000 (y accel, mm/sec^2)
$122=50.000 (z accel, mm/sec^2)
$130=290.000 (x max travel, mm)
$131=290.000 (y max travel, mm)
$132=100.000 (z max travel, mm)
ok
Needless to say: still no motor movement on any axis.
Those parameters look good. Do you have the green LEDs lit up on the gShield?
Did you say you called Help Desk.??