That makes a lot more sense. I read this right when I woke up, and thought you were trying to power the motors through the arduino.
I had a few minutes so I was trying to test Vref on the driver boards. I accidentally slipped with the negative terminal and I shorted it to the first pin on the Y driver board. Small spark, slight smell and now it won’t power up when I use the 12v supply. I think it affected something in the power regulation on the board. It’s overpowered, driving the screen white but I can adjust the contrast back to normal. If I try and plug in USB my computer shuts down. I tested the voltage and it’s putting out 6v on the USB. Not good. I think I let out the magic smoke.
The Arduino still powers over USB so I think it survived. Oh well… I’ll have to order another ramps board.
Bummer.
@Ryan will know better, but it might be the voltage regulator on the Arduino, not the ramps. I can’t remember.
Thanks guys those were all amazingly informative posts.
Peter sometimes it isn’t easy but stick with it and we will turn you into a pro. There is a possibility of just taking that driver off and the rest will still work. What went wrong totally depends on what pin was actually hit. If you put up a nice closeup of the arduino we can see if the Vreg is popped for you.
[attachment file=33316]
[attachment file=33317]
No damage that is obvious to me, but obviously something isn’t right!
I’ll order a new set of boards. I received these as a trade (a bad trade, mind you) for another project I had completed but didn’t ever use. I had built a 3d scanner which seemed like a fun idea but it’s practicality did not live up to the hype. I traded for these boards and some misc printer parts that all turned out to be junk. That leads me to think their past use is also questionable. Probably a good idea to start with new. I’m just out of project money at the moment so it’ll have to wait awhile.
To be continued…
Oh, wait! I still have a working printer and filament left! I printed the cool Ramps case and two of the LCD enclosure parts. My only issue is that I don’t think all my wiring will reach down to the bottom of the case then back up to the board. This is especially true of the LCD cable since it’s only about a foot long and the case itself is 7" to the bottom. I’m going to find some longer cables so I can have the LCD on top of the work surface.
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I totally missed this part. If the steppers are disabled, then it won’t capture any of the movement you are making by hand. So the arduino thinks it’s 0,0,0 until the motors move under control of the arduino. If you are manually moving it, then it doesn’t know about that, so it still thinks it’s 0,0,0. So no fancy gcode needed to do what you said. Sorry for the confusion.
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Nah, just a shadow or reflection.
[attachment file=33334]
[attachment file=33335]
Something’s wrong somewhere, though.
Back up and running. Will have some questions when I have more time to write them out. Here’s a pic of the logo being drawn.
[attachment file=33784]
I was originally going to make a drawing machine so I’d like to learn more about making art using my MPCNC.
If you find any neat resources for making traces for art, I would be very interested. I saw something that looked like someone took a projector of Jimmy Hendrix playing guitar, and just traced enough lines to make it show, it was very cool. But I’m no artist, and I’d prefer if it was done with math, so I’d love to see some software that would do something like that. Not just edge detection, like actually planning out which parts should be joined together as a continuous line.
I’ve done some more pen plotting, trying to learn the ESTLCam software so I don’t waste too much wood. I need to work more on tool changes. I was able to change the pen colors but I’m not happy with the current script. I changed it, but for some reason the new script I put in seems to be getting ignored. I’m continuing to work on that for now.
I did find some resources for pen plotting. I had been interested in building a drawing bot. One I had looked at was the Axidraw. They have some good insight and some software that can be used here: http://wiki.evilmadscientist.com/AxiDraw
They have a stipple generator where you can take a picture and turn it into a stipple drawing. I’ve played around with it but haven’t plotted anything from it yet.
I made my first cut tonight! I found a relatively simple item to try and build:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1673366/
It’s a 6-Pack holder that is cut and then assembled.
Here’s the video:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/FO9xjMv7fEo[/youtube]
It was not successful for 2 reasons. First, I needed almost all of my X axis and I didn’t set 0 far enough to my left side. That messed everything up. Also, you’ll notice the slot in the middle is not straight. That’s a problem in ESTLCam that I need to fix. I thought I had 1/8 bits but they are really 1/4. I changed the bit size but the hole isn’t big enough to work correctly (I guess) as it shows incorrectly but I didn’t notice it. I’ve ordered some 1/8 bits which should help. Hopefully I’ll have a successful print when I get up and running with the new end mill.
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Well I feel a little sense of pride every time someone gets there machine dirty for the first time! Mistakes like that are no big deal, you understood what happened and like the rest of us two or three more times and you’ll learn from it. Seriously though, little mistakes happen all the time. The rest looks pretty good, solid machine good cuts.
Congrats!
Any idea where to source a 1/8 end mill locally?
Will these work?
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Rotozip-1-8-in-Saber-Cut-Wood-Bits-4-Pack-SC4/202502532
That is a down cut two flute style cutter the issue is it is really long and designed for through cuts. Being so long it will probably flex and wander and not sure how the tip will cut. As of right now I have not found a company local to me that sells endmills, some router plunge bits might work but they are really really expensive and usually start at 1/4".
Look and see if you have any machine tool shops near you. Local to me there are a couple I need to go check with. CW Rod is one and Bass Tool being the other. Thats where the machine shops I worked for bought there cnc tooling and inserts.
Found this at Home Depot. 1/4 shank 1/8" x 3/8. It was $18 but that’s the price I pay for not having patience.
[attachment file=34429]
I have another question for the hive mind. Is there an easier way to resize both drawing layers and objects at the same time in ESTLcam? I’ve needed to tweak both and it’s a bit of a pain. Also, the resize seems glitchy (unless I’m doing it wrong) where the scale doesn’t reset between scaling objects then going to scale the drawing layer. For example, it’ll go from 100% to %150 then you select the drawing layers and it stays at 150% and scales up, but the size isn’t correlated.
I’m hoping there’s an easier way to manipulate! I found myself resizing to make sure objects are appropriate for the correct thickness wood I’m using.
Also, I finished my first project successfully! It’s a collapsible wooden 6-pack holder. I’ll have to hone my sanding/finishing skills, but I’m happy with it. The fact that it took about an hour to get into ESTLcam and another hour to cut (disregarding my few false starts) is not lost on me. But I made it myself (with everyone’s help… Thank you)!!!
[attachment file=34468]
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This bit was made of “solid cabide”
Recycling, maybe. ^^
Congrats! That looks awesome. You should let the designer know, I’m sure he would appreciate it.
EstlCAM is a pretty simple program. It’s pretty easy to learn, and you can do almost anything, but it doesn’t do everything. It’s a compromise. I certainly wouldn’t mind an undo button though… I think the resize works ok, but anything complicated, you’ve got to go back to the cad. It’s pretty useful to learn how to cam fast (like clicking a bunch of holes, then select them all and select the options you want).
I think it could be argued that if you’ve already done the cam, then resizing the sketch isn’t usually needed, and if you haven’t done much cam, then resizing the toolpaths isn’t that needed either.
I might just be defending a bug though 
.