was playing around with everything. somehow the board jumped off the workbench and landed on the floor. Ooops. Reloaded the grbl onto the uno. placed on the shield, with 1 stepper motor and it worked. slowly added things to shield. funny thing, it went cactus when connected the e-stop
gratz, shield is not dead.
on underside i have seen many lead balls. you can try to clean them away.
thank you all for your input. it was greatly needed. cheers