2 of my 4 Nema motors spin freely One of the other 2 is hard to spin and the other is hard to spin but has a ratcheting feeling when spinning I haven’t connected any wiring yet. When I have one free spinning motor and 1 of the “Bad Motors” on the Y Axis the Gantry is almost impossible to move and tends to make the belt jump on the Pulley and even loosens the Tension. Are these two motors bad or is this something that will change when power is applied.
Are wires connected to anything at all? Even to themselves?
Moving the wires away from each other seems to have fixed one of them but the one that seems to ratchet is still doing it. So maybe just one possibly bad motor
I’d say the ratcheting is the poles of the motor (normal).
Can you apply power and let them spin freely not connected to the machine to test?
Stepper motors will generate power when you turn them by hand. If you short the motor windings, this puts a large load on the motor. Smaller motors will “ratchet” and bigger motors may be impossible to turn. Make sure none of the wires are touching each other before you move them.
This voltage is potentially damaging to electronics. If you must move motors that are connected to electronics by hand, try to do it very slowly.
We have a good blog post on motors here.
We test every motor before we ship them. It is possible that physical damage in shipping jammed the shaft. If you think that is the case, contact help@inventables.com. We will need the motor back for analysis.
Ok I will Proceed forward it just seemed odd 1 motor acted different which is why I questioned it.
@Zach_Kaplan, steppers don’t work that way, you need a stepper driver to make it turn. Applying power to any pair will just cause it to stay still. The best way is to measure the voltage/current when you turn the stepper.
@NicoDarrow I meant connect it to the Gshield but not hooked into the belts. You can run them “in the air”