I seem to have hit a hard stop. I loaded my spoil board surfacing program this afternoon and it began working across the spoil board. About 1/3 of the way into the job the controller shut down the spending and stopped all motion showing an X Motor Alarm flashing where the Estop button is normally located. At the same time it began flashing the Home button. I depressed the Estop and reset it, I then double tapped Home but the X Motor error continued to persist.
Trouble shooting steps I’ve taken.
Rebooted the controller - as soon as you attempt to re-home the error returned.
I powered down and unhooked every connection on the X axis and re-connected–no change.
I powered down again and manually twisted the axis’s screws but all moves well.
I looked over every surface for dust build up and wiped them all clean.
I removed the limit sensor on the X axis to ensure no debris.
Am I missing any other trouble shooting steps? I successfully ran the .nc file sent from the factory and my original surfacing file was running great so I don’t think it was a software related issue.
Have you emailed support? Not too many of us have recieved our elites yet, although i am expecting my shipping notification any day now (been saying that for 3 weeks).
Is it a single trouble spot or does it fluctuate/ move… if it happens while running code, could it be a bad line? Can you manually jog to the corners?
I did find this…
Motor Drive Alarm. This alarm is triggered by the stepper or servo motor drives when they go into any fault condition. The fault can be caused either by any electrical issue or the motor might be stuck. As soon as MASSO receives this signal, it will put the system into feed hold and will stop the spindle.
How to set up and clear this alarm?
Go to the F1 screen and use any of the free inputs. Assign Motor Alarm Input from the list. There are alarm inputs for each axis motors so you can connect all axis motors to different inputs. If any of those motors give any alarm, the system will go into feed hold and display a message on the screen.
To clear this alarm, we first need to find the issue that caused the alarm. Again it can be an electrical or mechanical issue. Once it’s fixed, press ctrl + alt + home to home the machine.
I got my Elite Woodworker a few days ago and found the X motor to be damaged, ( from packaging or shipping) it was hard to see the damage but when I did the first home the z was good but on the x , the dro was reading progression but the rail was not moving, working with 1F they showed me the damage on the X motor and are sending me a new one, pretty sure there have been a few of us with damaged X motors, might look real close or pull the end cap off of the driver and look.
Pat
I did email support and they’re helping me work through it. I found the Masso Alarm document but it’s not helpful and I wasn’t able to find much on Thier forums either.
I posted here so we can have a record of solution for the community. The support team is great and I have confidence in finding a solution.
Regarding shipping damage, there’s no visible sings of damage and I have been operating the machine for a couple days and had successful job simulations run just fine.
The odd thing is that the motor wouldn’t move at all yesterday but today it only moves in one direction regardless of the button I press.
When you do this, what is the DRO showing?
Try zeroing the X axis, then try to move it in both directions.
Does the DRO change in just the one direction, or does it show a change when trying to jog in both directions?
If the DRO numbers change in both directions, I believe it might be the X axis Step signal is being interrupted in the wiring. Can you check the continuity of the wiring from the controller X axis STEP output to the STEP input at the X axis motor?
I would just try both STEP+/- and I predict one will not pass the signal from controller output terminal to X axis motor input terminal. Do you have a multimeter with leads that will span the distances from controller to motor?
I don’t have the Elite, but have had a Masso for a few years now. One other thought for a quick test is to temporarily plug the X axis motor cable into the Z axis motor cable connector on the electronics box. The configuration will be different, but you will just need to jog the ‘Z’ axis with the arrows on the screen a little bit both ways to know if the X axis gantry moves now in both directions. If it is the X axis cabling - from box to motor - you should still have the same issue.
Caution:
Don’t use the Y axis - it is slaved to two motors.
Also, do not plug/unplug while there is power, only do the cable switch with the power off, then do the test.
In the absence of an oscilloscope to view the direction outputs I’d attempt what @TMToronto suggested to attempt to see if it’s the motor or the signal from the controller causing it to only jog left.
Great idea! @OnefinityCNC would swapping the x axis to z on the controller void the warranty? Seems like a safe thing to try to isolate the issue between motor/wires and controller.
You could also check the X axis settings on the F1 screen, but usually a settings issue would have the DRO only show movement when jogging in one direction, you observed the DRO change when jogging in both directions but only physical movement in one direction.
Good to ask Onefinity, but since I will assume all motors and drivers are the same (re V/A), the only difference would be movement settings/parameters, which is why I mentioned only a short jog both ways to test.
I had a weird problem on my Y-axis where after booting up, the machine would trigger the Y limit switch. I reached out to Masso support and found them extremely helpful.
I’m afraid to say what the problem was because I’m still not sure why it was a problem. I accidentally found that when I turned on the machine with the Masso cabinet open it would not fail. Every time I closed the door Input 14 would show open in red on the F1 screen. One of the techs at Masso thought the center bundle looked a little off center and could be causing an issue (even though I verified that the wires were not being pinched) So I used a small zip tie to fasten it in the center and have been running trouble free for a couple of days now. Man, this was a long post and probably doesn’t help Wes, but wanted to share with the group.
Thanks for the post. Like you said, I’m not sure its a solution but doesn’t hurt for me to open the box and see if something changes.
I’m an early adopter of technology so these little bugs don’t bother me much, but I’m thankful for the @OnefinityCNC team and this forum to help me noodle through it.
Quick update.
I swapped x for z cables and z still performed as expected and x only went left.
I learned from Onefinity support that the gray and black wires on the motor control direction. I verified that the wires were in correct order and were tight both on the motor and in the controller.
I swapped a y rail motor to the x axis and put the x axis on the y rail and eliminated the motor from being the problem. Y axis functioned as expected and motor moved both directions and the x axis still only moves left.
So, I guess there’s a remote chance that there is a short somewhere in the wire to the x axis or the controller is totally confused about what signal its sending. It increases the DIR when attempting to move right and decreases when moving left but sends the same signal to the motor.
