I built the Lowrider CNC a year ago and use it most days for a few hours to run an airbrush. Over the year I’ve had very few problems, though I did fry a RAMPs board once.
I have had some issues of late very similar to this article:
When i have been troubleshooting the problem I found the x-axis dupont pin has melted slightly. the y-axis has also slightly melted though as yet their is no problem with movement here. I was just wondering if anyone has suggestions for why this would happen and if there are steps I can take to prevent this in future.
OFF TOPIC - Can you post any further details of the airbrush setup and results?
I’m completely inexpert in electronics, but since I’ve seen this in another situation:-
A loose crimp or connector from my experience will cause a cumulative problem - it can cause sufficient heat buildup over time that it continues to loosen (heat= softened plastic and expansion in the crimp or terminal connection) until you experience the sort of result you have. Just one connection if it fails in the right way, will do that! It’s the same thing that allows loose screws to “work” looser and overheat if screw connections aren’t checked from time to time.
I set the current to the drivers to the appropriate value when i set up the new board in January. So it has been working hard the full year without problem…
when investigating further yesterday i found a loose dupont pin in the wiring of the x-axis stepper. It broke with a little manipulation.
I also found out my usb cable into the board may be damaged. It was preventing the lcd to power on, or if plugged in once on, corrupting the graphics on the screen. Really weird. When i swapped it for an alternative cable, the LCD worked fine.
I have bought a replacement RAMPS board just incase there is something wrong with the board.
Thanks for the suggestion. I think that this loose pin might have been the problem, or at least one of the problems.
The airbrush cnc started last year when we found the following:
using this controller on the lowrider cnc, we put jpgs and svgs into Laserweb to create GCODES for painting https://laserweb.github.io/LaserWeb4/
jpgs paint a bit more like an ordinary printer, with svgs painting like a plotter
The problem is there are so many variables. We have been working with the machine everyday for almost a year and only recently began to feel we are starting to paint the images as they appear on screen.
Here are some of the outcomes from a year of learning.
I will post some images of my machine on Monday when back in the studio. If you are interested of trying this we have a Discord community for airbrush cnc
Thanks for the reply, you have a whole catalogue of lovely stuff - I’ve been checking your website all day!
I’d love a link to the discord community, but as Jeff said - at least a thread here to do your work justice! Cheers!
