I was indexing my waste board and about two thirds of the way through the program the y axis motors stopped working. the x axis continued normally. I have had to trouble shoot the amount of power needed for the y axis and have corrected that on the g shield so i’m aware of what that looks like and how to correct it. when I attempt to move the y axis with the computer it “twitches” and the led on the g shield faintly lights up on the axis that i previously moved. ( i move the z axis up or down then try to move the y axis and the z axis led flickers and the y motors twitch but the led doesn’t light up. I removed the g shield from the arduino, uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers, switched com ports, checked the wiring connections even switched to a different computer. My fear now is that because the program was so long (8 hours before failure) i have damaged the arduino or the g shield some how. Any one have any ideas how to fix this?
What works? Do X and Z still work correctly? Which motors do you have, NEMA 17 or NEMA 23 from Inventables or something else?
Without many details I would guess that the gShield is bad.
Unless the X-carve is in a hot room I wouldn’t think that the length of your carve caused the problem.
The x and z both respond correctly. I have the cnc in my garage in Ontario Canada so it not hot. I’m running the Neva 23 steppers.
I have this old medical stainless steel cabinet with pullout 48" by 48" shelves/drawers. I just put the xcarve on of these shelves and it was the first time I was carving with it on this shelf when this happened. I’ve been reading on how certain frequencies will mess with the motors. Is this true?
Metal cabinet should not be an issue.
Try this: just for a test exchange the stepper motor wires at the gShield for the X and Y axis. Put X on the Y connector and put Y on the X connector. Then retest your motors to see if the problem moves or if the Y axis is still the problem.
I switched the x and y axis and the same problem occurs. The X axis and the Z still respond correctly. 
I played with the power pots on the y axis and it goes from no response at the lowest (correct) to a “twitch” about 2/3 of the way through the 270 rotation. The g shield leds on the x and z light up when any of the axis are being moved. this makes me think that the g shield is defective. the fact that it happened during a carve also leads me to think this.
@DougVanderschaaf
I’m not sure that I follow that comment.
With the X axis driver hooked to the X axis motor - X motor works
With the Y axis driver hooked to the Y axis motor - Y motor doesn’t work
With the Z axis driver hooked to the Z axis motor - Z motor works
With the X axis driver hooked to the Y axis motor - Y motor works/doesn’t work ?
With the Y axis driver hooked to the X axis motor - X motor works/doesn’t work ?
With the Z axis driver hooked to the Z axis motor - Z motor works
Which scenario is it?
The first three lines are correct then I switched the x and y wiring.
Then…
With the X axis driver hooked to the Y axis motor - Y motor works
With the Y axis driver hooked to the X axis motor - X motor doesn’t work
Z continues to work fine.
I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the y terminal on the g shield. Any of the motors work fine if connected to x or z terminal but not y. When I move the motor by hand that’s attached to the y terminal the led lights up but when I control it with the laptop it doesn’t.
I think that you have a bad gShield at this point. It’s possible that the Arduino is the problem, but most likely it’s the gShield.
Thanks Larry. I figured as much. Thanks for your help
How did this play out? Did you get the gShield replaced? I am having a similar issue.