Hello one and all. I have been lurking here for many months now. I have been reading and doing my best to learn. I am supper pumped to start working on this and have to say thank you Ryan for your great work on this project. A second big thanks goes out to this community. I think something really cool is being made here and hope to see it grow even more.
I recently picked up 3d printer and after a few months of setting it up and tuning it in I feel ready to do the MPCNC. I have started the printing of the parts. I am doing most of it in PETG as that is what I have the most of. I am in the process of getting the rest of the odds and ends. I was given an MKS Gen L board and saw that someone got it to setup and work. I have been reading through the forms and I have seen how some people have been able to get it to work.
My question is should I go with a different board or could I make this one work and work well? If it can work what pit falls should I be aware of. I have seen a lot of talk about the MKS Gen L but I have not seen any clear conversation about how to set it up and get it up and running. I would appreciate any help anyone is will to give and I am excited to learn more about this new endeavor. Thank you.
I’m still waiting for a few parts and haven’t finished assembling my MPCNC, but I’m going to be using the MKS Gen L V1.0 board for my build, with DRV8825 drivers.
I do have all the electronics parts and I flashed the board with Marlin and hooked up the steppers and the LCD to test. As far as I can tell with limited testing everything seems to work correctly.
I used the MPCNC firmware for the Ramps 1.4 (after changing the Motherboard definition in Configuration.h to BOARD_MKS_GEN_L) and followed the “How to Flash Firmware on the Ramps 1.4” instructions on this site to flash it without any issue.
On some (or maybe all) MKS boards the plugs for the LCD have the slot on the wrong side, and the plug needs to be rotated 180 degrees for the LCD to work. One option is to cut the tabs off the connector cable so you can reverse the cable. Another option, which is what I did, is to GENTLY pry the plastic female plugs off the LCD board, and rotate them. (saw this option on youtube)
That’s the limit of my firsthand experience, but I’m pretty confident that it will work fine on my MPCNC.
Thank you guys for the response. I will more than likely start with this as I already have the board. They had some drivers with them already they are the TMC2130. I have not used these before and not sure if they would be good for this application however. At 10 bucks the drv8825s are not to much to order.
I am super excited about this and I have to say this is one of the most open and welcoming communities I have seen in a long time. Not often you get the guy who made something like this being one of the first people to respond to a question like mine. Thank you so much!!! I will post back later with how things have gone. Still got a long ways to go with the prints =)
As stated here and a couple of other places, the MKS Gen L board works fine. Mine been up and running for several months on my MPCNC. A few quick things.
Just use the Marlin version from here that is set up for the RAMPS. You’ll need to change the MB name as mentioned above.
You will need to get a specific serial driver for this board in order upload your marlin. I don’t have it handy, but it’s mentioned elsewhere in this forum. If you have Windows 10, it may not want to install because it’s not registered or something. There are instructions on line to temporarily override that.
I use the DRV8825 drivers, but the 2130s should work, I imagine. There are YouTube videos about using them with the MKS Gen L for 3d printers. Same exact process. I did note that one of those TMC drivers gets quite hot so make sure you have adequate cooling. Don’t be tempted to get fancy. Just use them in legacy mode or whatever is simplest. Vref will be set differently than for the DRV8825. You don’t have to worry about the types of printing artifacts that you do with 3D printing. And, you won’t know they are quiet because you are running a router!!
You connect the dupont connectors from the stepper motors directly into the MKS. Main power is obvious. USB is obvious. Only other thing is the end stops. For z-only, it’s obvious . I think the firmware is slightly different if you are using dual endstop for x and y, but someone else will know.
If you use the Reprap Discount Full Graphics display (or whatever its called) you will need to reverse the ribbon cable connectors. Info on YouTube and above.
You can also use the MKS TFT displays. They don’t require any firmware settings, but you’ll need to customize separately. I’m about to try this, as I have the Tft24, but I’m not sure if there is any value to doing it.
Bottom line: MKS Gen L implements easily and works just fine in the MPCNC application.
I’m new here, recently I transformed my old 3D printer to a CNC…but can’t get the firmware to work at all.
Will you share your working firmware with me? I also have MKS Gen L 1.0 board.
Sorry to be so slow. Lot’s of distractions. You have probably sorted this out by now, but I’ll comment anyway. I don’t use the dual endstops so I have no idea about that.
However, I have never had any issues with the Gen L board being seen by the PC. Lots of times, folks point to the USB cable quality as being the issue. That’s all I can suggest.
Again, sorry for being non-responsive.
