Hi all, have been lurking on the site for a couple of months and recently kicked off my LR2 build.
Nearly completed 3D printing the plastic pieces (Ryan, these are a true work of art and engineering…amazing!)
I have a plan in mind for my table, and a lead on where to source my tubing in NJ. What I need help the most with is the control system.
I plan on buying the LR2 Kit from this site, but, I’m intrigued by the OpenBuilds Black Box having read through a lot of posts here and elsewhere that mention it.
Here’s what I think I want to have in this build, and why.
- Auto-squaring. I just got into 3D printing back in December, and while I was researching I determined that auto-bed-leveling was very important to me. I’m not a super precise person, so it seemed smart to be able to compensate for my sloppiness using technology wherever possible. That’s why I wanted an affordable 3D printer with a BL Touch and a larger build area and why I landed on a CR-10 v2. The BL-Touch install was a piece of cake (once I flashed to a Marlin firmware). I assume that I’ll want to have dual end-stops on the Z axis and at least one end-stop on X and Y for this?
- Z Probing. (Possibly X and Y probing too) This just makes sense to me for both one-off jobs and repeat jobs. Tool change or not, having the ability to accurately set the Z0 at the end of the cutting tool just seems like something you’d want to do.
- Raspberry Pi with a Touch Screen. After setting up the BL Touch, the first thing I did on my 3D printer was set up Octoprint on a Raspberry Pi and use that to control every print. I’ve never looked back, and can’t imagine having to load gcode to an SD Card every time I want to print. I want the same workflow for my CNC - design on PC, export code, send to a server and then go cut at the machine. CNC.js looks like the right thing for this.
- GRBL. Here’s one where I’m not super confident why I want it, it just appears to be more standardized and CNC focused. I don’t doubt that you all have done great things with Marlin, but it seems like a force-fit. (Having to fake having an extruder, etc.) I get that 3D printing and CNC are very similar, but having to do a bunch of Marlin / firmware editing to get the desired hardware capabilities is not part of the hobby I think I’ll particularly care for. Happy to be proven wrong.
Based on that, should I go with a full Rambo board or the OpenBuilds Black Box?