I think I may have said this before on Thingiverse but it can’t be said enough. Great design Ryan! Thanks!
I am putting together a 4’x3’x10" CNC/Laser Etcher and I have all the parts printed(beautifully I might add), unfortunately I printed all my parts before any of the updates to the Z came out. I will stick with these to start though and upgrade it later.
As for electronics, I decided to go with an Azteeg X3 Pro board, mostly for all the stepper motors it can drive. So with that said, I am going to be using the RC8 version of Marlin with it’s new support for duel steppers. I am looking around for Laser upgrades to Marlin but none I have found will work with version RC8 and until I can wrap my head around the new code I can’t get it to compile properly.
I haven’t purchased the laser unit yet and will almost definately be going with the Jtech unit, either 2.8W or 3.8W. Haven’t decided yet. I do have a Dewalt 660 ready to go for the milling part.
The only assembly so far is the X and Y motor ends and the Z-Middle. I’ve cut most of my conduit and given it a nice polish. Once I get the firmware squared away I will start to actually put it all together.
I also have a Raspberry Pi which I was going to run as a sort of main controller to talk to the Azteeg.
Any suggestions, concerns, questions would be greatly appreciated.
Steve, welcome to the club. I’m using an Azteeg X3 (non-pro model) from a previous 3d printer build I caniballized for the MPCNC build and it works great so you shouldn’t have issues because of that.
I’m using Ryan’s Marlin build and only had to edit some steps per mm settings for my Z (I’m using an 8mm lead screw instead of the imperial sized one) and had to invert a couple of axis direction as is normal when you wire the motors quick and then figure out they’re not turning the direction you wanted…
I haven’t tried playing with any lasers yet so I can’t offer any advice there but I know a lot of the guys on this board have and any advice they give would translate directly to the Azteeg board (it’s really just a suped up/cleaned up ramps/arduino combo).
Steve, if your “arduino-foo” is strong, then you can try configuring Marlin yourself. The RC8 has had a problem, not exactly sure where, but it has to do with the configration of the MPCNC, and the specific RC8 version. RC8Bugfix seemed to fix the issue, as did RC7.
If your “arduino-foo” is not strong, or you maybe want to make sure everything else works first, start with the configured version of RC7, at least until you get a test project done. It would suck to have to determine if it’s an RC8 issue, or somethings binding, etc. The RC7 has a lot of hours logged so far.
Thx guys. I don’t see any issues yet but it’s early in the build. I am well versed in the “arduino foo” as I used the ramps set up for my printer. The RC8 bugfix does at least compile for me, next is hooking it up and testing. I guess I will use two setups and just reflash on the fly for the laser to a 3D printer for now.
I wasn’t planning on using a LCD if I can help it, I would rather figure out a way to send the data back to the Pi and view it on a monitor but not sure if the SPI or I2C or the Tx/Rx will be used yet.
The basic stuff like getting it to move and function I’m familiar with but the more advanced things is the learning curve for me.
Ryan mentioned somewhere not to use RC8 even with the bugfix. Something in it is still not fix apparently. Unless that has changed in the last couple days.
If you download the vicious1 RC7, Ryan did a good job of putting a // MPCNC anywhere that he had to change it.
Why not connect the Pi to the board via USB? (I know nothing about this board, I haven’t even googled it).
You should be able to use octoprint with Marlin firmware. There are some posts around here somewhere for that.
I have been using a raspberry pi, with the piCNC board, which runs grbl, and I’ve been running CNC.js, which hosts a web page to do the gcode loading, setup, etc. If you loaded grbl on your X3 somehow, then you could try bCNC or CNC.js.
The most recent bugfix looks like it might be good now. I will be testing it for much longer before I go through that mess again of bad firmware. Maybe they will do a rc9 soon?
Steve, I agree with Jeff. The easiest solution is grabbing the OctoPi image from OctoPrint and load it. Then connect the Pi to the X3 via USB (this is how I’m set up now). There are very few things to configure and you’re up and running.
Then you can use any web browser on the network to load and monitor printing. I just added a R-pi camera so I can remotely watch the job. That was literally plug-n-play with OctoPi.
So far so good with RC8-bugfx. Just going through some pin setups now and found some spares I can use. I have a copy of Octopi, Pronterface, Repetier setup to see what better features I can get out of them and then try Python but that’s way down line from here. I have a Pi Camera to add in also. I’m looking forward to being able to film my work.
I might try RC7 for the 3D Printing side. I’ll look into the bCNC and CNC.js
Laser is on the way! Busy making Power Supplies now.
I read somewhere that you shouldn’t install your stepper drivers until after you set the current limit. This is new information for me as I did install them first when I set up my printer and didn’t seem to have any problems. I know not to hook the steppers up to them until they are set although I did re-adjust the limits later on with the steppers connected and everything ran cooler and much better with no problems. So I am wondering if this new information is not just an extra precaution or what?
I have a Pi Camera to add in also. I’m looking forward to being able to film my work.