Tronxy X5S-400 problems solving help needed

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Country_Bubba
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Tronxy X5S-400 problems solving help needed

Post by Country_Bubba »

Hi,
First post here and hope it is in the right section.
I have a Tronxy X5S-400 that has been running for nearly a year now. Yesterday, printed an 8 hour print with no problems. Got up this morning and need to do an 18 hour print, but am encountering serious problems.

All of a sudden, the X axis stepper started resonating. Ya know the "stuttering" and loosing steps. I haven't changed any settings and as stated, it has been working fine. Took the belt off and commanded a move through the control panel with no load and it still resonates.

Anybody have any ideas where to start looking??? Any help will be appreciated.


Thanks in advance.
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GrueMaster
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Re: Tronxy X5S-400 problems solving help needed

Post by GrueMaster »

Moved this to the Large Scale Printers area. This printer looks similar to the Folgertech printers, and besides, the electronics forum is really for non-printer specific electronics topics.

As to your issue, this sounds like maybe a failing stepper driver. I could be wrong, but there are other more gifted troubleshooters in this area.
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Country_Bubba
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Re: Tronxy X5S-400 problems solving help needed

Post by Country_Bubba »

Well after I calmed down a bit, (read libation) and was on my way to refill, stopped by the printer and checked the connection to stepper motor itself(of course all power is off). Then out of habit, tried to rotate the motor by hand and it seemed rather stiff so unplugged the connector and removed the belt. Dang it is real stiff and hard to turn. So figure there might be an internal short or bad bearing. I was still kinda working so leaning on the bad bearing and I have had several of the idler bearing on this machine that were crap and had to be replaced.
So we have a new stepper on order that should be here tomorrow (thanks to Prime) and will report back when its installed.
Thanks for moving to proper location and the ideas.
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GrueMaster
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Re: Tronxy X5S-400 problems solving help needed

Post by GrueMaster »

Cool. Glad you found your solution. And I hear you on the self-medicating part. Makes me feel fortunate to live within close proximity of a few micro distilleries.
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LePaul
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Re: Tronxy X5S-400 problems solving help needed

Post by LePaul »

Let's hope that's the fix. While these printers are inexpensive...sometimes the components can be lacking in reliability.
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Country_Bubba
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Re: Tronxy X5S-400 problems solving help needed

Post by Country_Bubba »

Ok, USPS did their thing and the motors arrived. So picked one out of the box and said OH well, lets do it.
Took the old motor off and then put the pulley on the new on and put it back on the printer. The new one comes with a 1M cable and flat connector on the end. So pulled the cover off the control board and found the X axis cord.
Unplugged it and tried to see if it would fit in the "keyed" connector on the mother board. Dang it fit. So now which way up to plug it.
Murphy says that if you have a 50/50 chance of getting it right, you have an 80% chance you will do it wrong! Murphy was right! So I flipped the connector over and tried it figuring I would have to end up swapping one pair of wires to get it to work correctly. This time Murphy was wrong. I flipped the connector and plugged it in and IT WORKED!

Doing a test print right now to verify calibration of the belt tensions.

Anyhow, as the old stepper is bad, ohmed out the pins and they both showed 1.5 ohm per phase. Then I pulled the end cap on the back end to see what I could find. First off, found some rust specs on the bearing, but it turned freely. So next, pulled the front cap and this time didn't find any rust and that bearing turned freely. Figured what the heck, the stepper is bad so pulled the rotor out and looked at it. Looked OK so I used a tissue to try to wipe the rotor and found some little black specs of grit! Wiped the stator and again found some specs. Wiped it out and re-assembled and tried to rotate by hand. A bit better, but still crunchy. Figure there is just enough junk in there to mess things up!

Just did my torture test of speed and acceleration that was the best I could get when the old motor was "working" and no problems. Maybe I will re-visit this to see if I can increase thing even more???

Thanks for everybody's help and thought.
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