Re: Cannot Get ACORN to work with my small CNC machine
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2025 8:34 pm
by Ken Rychlik
I am not trying to fight with you. I am trying to help you get your machine moving. leaving the enable lines off of the driver will probably get it moving. If you want to try and get the enables working later, you can still circle back to that. They are enabled by default with power applied so it's really not needed and I never use them. I do like using fault signals but I don't hook those up right away.
Re: Cannot Get ACORN to work with my small CNC machine
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2025 9:04 pm
by ShawnM
Who said to use diagram S15207? That’s incorrect. I referenced S14976, this is the diagram you should follow. Any other diagram is incorrect.
The drives NEED to be powered with 5v. If you’re hooked anything other than 5V up to it without a resistor, the drives are probably no good now as Ken mentioned.
Until you follow the correct diagram, nothing‘s gonna work and you’re gonna keep banging your head against the wall.
You may not believe this, but we are here to help you. If you can’t follow the path we send you on then I don’t know what else we can do.
I’m guessing you didn’t follow the install manual and do a bench test first. You can’t wire everything up at once because when you get one thing wrong on a drive now they are wrong and you’ll be chasing your table for hours. You should be wiring one single drive and one single motor to Acorn and get that working and then duplicate it two more times.
Re: Cannot Get ACORN to work with my small CNC machine
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2025 9:06 pm
by 762x51
Hi Ken Rychlik,
I have used these drawings (S14976, S15207 and S15007) to see which way the system would be the best but I have never gotten it to run.
I contacted CENTROID earlier today regarding my problems. They asked me to send the ACORN back to them so they can check it out.
I sent it to them today via Priority Mail so they will receive it on Thursday.
I hope I will be told what the problem has been so I can get it fixed.
Re: Cannot Get ACORN to work with my small CNC machine
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2025 10:31 pm
by ShawnM
Without the Acorn hooked up, power up the drives with no step, dir or enabled lines connected, do the motors lock?
I’ve been asking a few times now and you still haven’t uploaded a report. Why?
Good luck.
Re: Cannot Get ACORN to work with my small CNC machine
Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2025 6:14 pm
by 762x51
With the Acorn disconnected and the power on, the stepper motors do not move.
Re: Cannot Get ACORN to work with my small CNC machine
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2025 11:08 am
by ShawnM
762x51 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 08, 2025 6:14 pm
With the Acorn disconnected and the power on, the stepper motors do not move.
That alone tells you that you DO NOT need the enable lines hooked up. On those drives, that are obviously enabled by default since you just verified that, if you hook up the enable line the signal will DISABLE the drive. Had you followed diagram S14976 like I first mentioned, without the enabled lines connected, it would have worked if the Wizard was also configured correctly and the drives DIP switches are set correctly.
Since you never uploaded a report we couldn't see how you had the Wizard configured. You could have also had a setting wrong somewhere, headers vs DB25, that was a simple fix. This is why the forum requires a report when you ask a question. Your report tell the forum EVERYTHING about your setup and configuration.
Again, good luck with your build.
Re: Cannot Get ACORN to work with my small CNC machine
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2025 12:39 pm
by richardb15
Just outside this Acorn good/bad discussion, I haven't seen any evidence that one of the drives actually works? You can test this without the Acorn connected at all by using a 5V power supply. Just connect the main power and the stepper motor to the drive, then the +5V power supply to PUL+ and DIR+ on the drive. Now just touch a wire between the power supply 0V (COM) and the drive PUL-, the motor should step a tiny amount each time you touch off the wire. Does this work, can you confirm the drive(s) are ok?
Re: Cannot Get ACORN to work with my small CNC machine
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2025 4:25 pm
by cnckeith
Re: Cannot Get ACORN to work with my small CNC machine
Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2025 6:55 pm
by 762x51
cnckeith,
I cannot do this because the ACORN has been sent to Centroid and they have received it this afternoon.
It was sent there so they can check to see if there was any problem with the ACORN I received.