and i thought usb would be a piece of cake.i cant get steppers running!!

Using Arduino Project Guidance
#1 
i hate asking for help i usually like to try to figure things out myself they tend to stay in memory better that way but im new to using a usb port i built a small cnc mill about 8 years ago using lpt port and mach 3. i thought after that usb would be a walk in the park i have spent the last 72 hours trying everything i could find online trying to get a handle on this. i did the tx-rx loop program   no audio no serialresponse.without the jumpers the rx led blinks constantly. a bar forms at the bottom of the serial port like there is a text line to long to fit on the screen.here is the response i get when i query for board info in the ide.

undid jumper on reset to gnd and rx led quit flashing. uploaded digital read serial opened serial mon window one tiny square in top left nothing else. but all this is of small value just want steppers running i will post all this now and see what comes of it.

[codeBN: Unknown board
VID: 1A86
PID: 7523
SN: Upload any sketch to obtain it
]

even when i have the blink program running this is all the info i get. i have no motors and thats what i am after at this point.i dont want lpt i want usb.i tried the 1.x version of hex but it was even more unstable and often couldnt connect to the com port.currently running 0.9i if you could call it running. also not in the ide but in the arduino exe when it is running i can query with $$ and get the list so i know at least the bootloader is loading it and it isnt because it isnt there that my motors wont run. i realy would appreciate any ideas anyone has im totally lost and at this point out of my league. here is a link to exactly what i have.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07P8R66F9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

im running 64 bit win 7

i am in the usa. one more thing the driver chips dont even get warm its like they are doing nothing. and if i measure from the current pot to ground i do measure voltage soooo .... sorry to be so long winded but to much info is better than not enough mabey i got lucky and said something that will crack this puzzle right open and if not then my most sincere thanks to everyone anyway.

#2

not sure if its related but nothing i load sends anything to my serial monitor.
i loaded the fade sketch in examples/basic and though nothing appeared on serial monitor i
checked for voltage on pin 9 and ground and just as the code in the sketch says
i got a constantly changing voltage no idea why i have no serial monitor.

#3

Well there's so much you have packed into your post, it is a bit overwhelming. Let's start simple. The fade sketch does not have any communication that happens between the computer and the Arduino. It just fades the LED. So you wouldn't have anything in the serial monitor for that. The ASCIITable sketch does have some communication in it. Notice it has Serial.begin(9600); in it. That means you need to set the serial monitor for 9600 baud, and then you'll see the table transmitted from the Uno. Go ahead and set the serial monitor for other baud rates, and you'll notice it outputs garbage, and returns to normal only when you set the baud rate of the serial monitor back to 9600, showing output like this:

ASCII Table ~ Character Map
!, dec: 33, hex: 21, oct: 41, bin: 100001
", dec: 34, hex: 22, oct: 42, bin: 100010
#, dec: 35, hex: 23, oct: 43, bin: 100011
$, dec: 36, hex: 24, oct: 44, bin: 100100
%, dec: 37, hex: 25, oct: 45, bin: 100101
&, dec: 38, hex: 26, oct: 46, bin: 100110
', dec: 39, hex: 27, oct: 47, bin: 100111
(, dec: 40, hex: 28, oct: 50, bin: 101000
), dec: 41, hex: 29, oct: 51, bin: 101001
*, dec: 42, hex: 2A, oct: 52, bin: 101010
+, dec: 43, hex: 2B, oct: 53, bin: 101011
,, dec: 44, hex: 2C, oct: 54, bin: 101100
-, dec: 45, hex: 2D, oct: 55, bin: 101101
., dec: 46, hex: 2E, oct: 56, bin: 101110
...and so on...

It often best to upload to the Uno when it has nothing attached to it other than the USB cable. After you become thoroughly familiar with the uploading and communication and the electronics in your project, you will know when it is OK to upload new updates to the Uno while components are connected to it. I don't know if that shield you bought connects anything to pins 0 and 1, which are the RX and TX pins of the Arduino. Having anything connected to those may interfere with the upload process. This is because the Uno has a USB-to-serial converter chip (probably a CH340G) that takes communication from the USB port and presents it to the ATmega328P microcontroller on pins 0 and 1.

#4

upon changing it to 9600 as you suggested i output nothing but a stream of 0's and if i set it to anything else it is garbage as you say. it looks nothing like your output. also i failed to mention that although i was able to measure a volotage difference on the fade program the led dosent fade.also at least once a day and sometimes more i have to reflash or i cannot connect.seems to happen most when i upload sketches.i think both of my boards are junk i am returning them and they are sending me new ones for free but i think as soon as i can afford it i am going to get an original the heck with clones lol.as far as the 340 chip i found the chinease site and installed the driver no change. that chip you spoke of would that be a 16u2? just curious anyway sorry to be so long winded i do hope i can get this fixed somehow. i do have an unrelated question though, in the end i would like to be able to run my machine without using a pc from flash i have seen some addon's that do it but they aree out of my price range and at my age i wont be writing any operating systems anytime soon any ideas you could point me in the direction of im willing to try to learn whatever is needed.

#5

I am out of ideas why at 9600 the ASCIITable sketch outputs a stream of 0’s. I just don’t know.

With the fade sketch, you need to have a resistor and LED connected to pin 9 of the Arduino.

The USB-to-serial chip on a board such as an Uno can be a CH340G, an FTDI FT232RL, or an ATmega16U2. The board sold by Arduino uses ATmega16U2. Chinese knock offs often use CH340G, but some have ATmega16U2. It is common (in my experience) to see ads that clearly show an Uno with a square ATmega16U2 but in the ad description or title CH340G is mentioned, or additional photos of the “same” board in the same ad show different boards. I also see ads where the description clearly says the board as an ATmega16U2 but the pictures of the board show a CH340G as evident by the rectangular shape of the chip. Chinese sellers that sell bras, makeup, underwear, sunglasses, and other crud, and just happen to be selling some electronics stuff also, are the worst for accuracy. So, although they may be cheap, you can’t really know what you’ll get until you get it and look at it. Some sellers are competent and do not try to deceive and post accurate pictures and descriptions of what they are selling, and when you message them they respond and give accurate answers.

I tend to just avoid CH340G because the driver for it would make my Mac reset at random, such as when unplugging my Nano. So, when I want to program that Nano I use ICSP programming. Other people have found that CH340G is just great.

Overall, I have found cheap Chinese boards work fine. Getting a board with some chip like CH340G that requires a driver other than the default Arduino drivers is fine, but you need to be aware of the additional steps to get it working that are not documented by Arduino. I have one genuine Arduino brand board, it is the now discontinued Arduino Duemilanove.

I don’t have experience with running something like a 3D printer without a connected PC.

I am not suggesting you write an OS. I am saying you need to be aware the Arduino IDE may be run on any of a variety of computers with different OS’s. I don’t know if you have a Windows PC, a Mac, Linux computer, or something else. Some computers, when connecting some Arduino boards, may require that you connect the USB through a USB hub, and not directly to the computer USB port.

#6

i am sorry i thought with all my rambling i mentioned my os i run win 7 ult. i ran a loop and cleared my eeprom and now it seems my serial is al least in part working. i ran the ASCIITable sketch and now am seeing the correct output to serial monitor. still nothing on my shield output.

#7

Now if BOTH of you would have bothered to use proper paragraphing and other simple ways of making your text readable (and maybe even intelligible that way) I'm sure there would be more people jumping in to help.

As it stands, too unreadable.

#8

i really did try i just dont understand how to use the formating tools. my apologies. since i now have my serial monitor working and with grbl open i can see all my settings listed am i safe to assume my uno board is good and operating properly leaving the problem to be a bad stepper shield board?

#9

The two main text formatting tools are the enter key and the shift key.

Use them. It makes your text readable.

#10

rogerreed2003:
i really did try
i just dont understand how to use the formating tools.
my apologies. since i now have my serial monitor working and with grbl open i can see all my settings listed
am i safe to assume my uno board is good and operating properly leaving the problem to be a bad stepper shield board?

Hi,
Welcome to the forum.
Sorry but can you spread your post text out a little, it reads easier if you put a new sentence on a new line or try to put your discussion in point from.
Running it all together makes it hard to read and difficult to pick out any relevant points to your post.
Thanks… Tom… :slight_smile:
PS I have given you a karma for at least trying to get the code formatting working. :slight_smile:

#11

This seems to be the part of the text from the Original Post that is formatted as code. I have added some paragraph breaks to make it more readable.

i hate asking for help i usually like to try to figure things out myself

they tend to stay in memory better that way but im new to using a usb port i built a small cnc mill about 8 years ago using lpt port and mach 3.

i thought after that usb would be a walk in the park i have spent the last 72 hours trying everything i could find online trying to get a handle on this.

i did the tx-rx loop program no audio no serialresponse. without the jumpers the rx led blinks constantly. a bar forms at the bottom of the serial port like there is a text line to long to fit on the screen. here is the response i get when i query for board info in the ide.

undid jumper on reset to gnd and rx led quit flashing.
uploaded digital read serial
opened serial mon window one tiny square in top left nothing else.
but all this is of small value just want steppers running i will post all this now and see what comes of it.

And this is the rest of the Original Post with some paragraph breaks inserted

even when i have the blink program running this is all the info i get.

i have no motors and thats what i am after at this point.

i dont want lpt i want usb.

i tried the 1.x version of hex but it was even more unstable and often couldnt connect to the com port.

currently running 0.9i if you could call it running.

also not in the ide but in the arduino exe

when it is running i can query with $$ and get the list so i know at least the bootloader is loading it and it isnt because it isnt there that my motors wont run.

i realy would appreciate any ideas anyone has im totally lost and at this point out of my league. here is a link to exactly what i have.

Amazon.com: 3D Printer CNC Shield V3.0 Expansion Board Engraving Machine 3D Printe+ 4PCS DRV8825 Stepper Motor Driver with Heatsink+ UNO R3 Board with USB Cable for Arduino UNO R3 3D Printer Parts Stepstick Kit: Industrial & Scientific

im running 64 bit win 7

i am in the usa.

one more thing the driver chips dont even get warm its like they are doing nothing. and if i measure from the current pot to ground i do measure voltage soooo ....

sorry to be so long winded but to much info is better than not enough

mabey i got lucky and said something that will crack this puzzle right open and if not then my most sincere thanks to everyone anyway.

...R

#12

Even after making the Original Post more readable I can't make much sense of it.

I get the impression (but I may be wrong) that you have been running Mach3 on a PC with a parallel printer port connected to the stepper drivers.

And I assume this Thread is about finding a USB alternative to the use of the parallel port.

However what I can't figure out is what hardware and software you are referring to in your various comments about your USB problems.

A simple description along the lines of

I have X program on my PC and it is connected to Y hardware and it is intended to do Z would a long way to clarifying things.

...R

#13

ok seperated out here are the basics

i have arduino uno r3 clone

i have a stepper shield breakout board clone

i have 4 drv8825 driver chips

i have 3 nema 23 stepper motors known good with pairs seperated

i have grbl 3.6.1 installed also latest version of universal g code sender

i have x-loader ver 1.4 installed

i have version 0.98i of grbl as a hex uploaded to uno

upon getting improper readout of the ASCIITable sketch on my serial monitor
i did a clear of my eeprom and re-flashed it
this cleared it up and now seems to be running properly

i loaded file/examples/stepper_one revoloution sketch
i observed th rx led flashing and decided to make some changes to observe results

#include <Stepper.h>

const int stepsPerRevolution = 200; // change this to fit the number of steps per revolution
// for your motor

// initialize the stepper library on pins 8 through 11:
Stepper myStepper(stepsPerRevolution, 8, 9, 10, 11);

void setup() {
// set the speed at 60 rpm:
myStepper.setSpeed(60);
// initialize the serial port:
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
// step one revolution in one direction:
Serial.println(“clockwise”);
myStepper.step(stepsPerRevolution);
delay(500);

// step one revolution in the other direction:
Serial.println(“counterclockwise”);
myStepper.step(-stepsPerRevolution);
delay(500);
}

i changed delay to 2500 and setspeed to11
the rx light speed slowed way down as i predicted i measured the voltage of pins
8 9 10 11 to ground and observed that voltage would be 5 volts

the rx led would flash

the volts would drop to 2.5 volts

it continued douing this till shutdown so i assume my uno board is good and my
breakout board driver chips are bad.

my immidiate desire is to get my steppers to run gcode
at preasent none do and i have spent seriously countless hours googeling and trying every remedy
48 nonstop before finding this forum and posting so yes i am trying to understand what the
problem is and how to fix it. i do not just want someone to say oh i have had that problem
do this and it is fixed. i neede to understand how it all works so in the future i can understand
and fix my own troubles.

my more distant goal is to be able to load gcode on an micro sd card or a flash drive and
run it from my machine without a pc. i have seen it done using a rasberry pi 3b+ wirlessly
would really rather just use the flash or sd.

well i hope this is better looking and not overboard and thank you all for your time and trouble.

ps :: still cant get that dadburn code to do what everyone else does but i tried

#14

ificouldreadyourpostiwouldtrytohelpbutitisjusttoomuchtrouble to read

Sorry!

#15

Referring to Reply #12 ...

The standard Stepper library is not suitable for drivers that take step and direction signals. You should be able to test your motors with this Simple Stepper Code

Please post a link to the datasheet for your stepper motors. I would be surprised if a DRV8825 is capable of controlling a Nema 23 motor.

If you want to use Gcode then GRBL does the job nicely.

None of the issues in Reply #12 has anything particular to do with a USB connection.

...R

PS ... When posting code please use the code button </>
codeButton.png

so your code 
looks like this

and is easy to copy to a text editor See How to use the Forum

#16