I’m planning on building one of these awesome looking ZenXY tables y’all are showing off here, but I haven’t decided too much on form and size so far. I can’t afford buying too much of the components and was wondering if any of the users here know, if I can get the ZenXY to draw into sand using an Arduino UNO and the Arduino CNC Shield I already have lying around from an electronics box I picked up on ebay some months ago. If the specifications work, what would be the general direction to go in?
From what I learned the Arduino CNC Shield is a GRBL-compatible board and I need to change the homing sequence. Anything else I should look out for?
I also have an older raspberry pi 3 lying around. If I use this, how would I go about connecting the stepper motors to it?
Have a nice day/evening/night and I’m really pumped by the cool designs around here.
I forgot to attach a picture of the components I do have, yet I can’t edit the post above, probably because I’m a new user. So please excuse me for replying directly to my own topic.
That would work well. I would use the uno with grbl and you won’t even need that third axis. Once you have it running, you can add in that pi with octoprint or maybe sandypi and then control it wirelessly.
The gcode sandify creates is generic enough to work in grbl as well as marlin.
I forgot to mention that since it is a corexy and you have a specific homing sequence, you will need to edit the config.h file in grbl to work with the zen. But it totally worls.
Thank you so much for your fast reply @jeffeb3.
I did indeed pull out that 3rd axis board and put it back in the box after taking the picture. I took out the one with the cooler since I don’t think they are neccessary at such low currents, or do you have other experiences?
So the pi connects to the arduino via USB to drive the motors via the shield and I get the designs wirelessly to it using the pi. Now I get it Thank you very much, will be back when the build is done.
Hi, did you have any luck with the Uno + CNC Shield? I’m trying to figure out what parts I should gather to start working on a build. (The oft-recommended bdring plotter board hasn’t been in stock in a while, but I can get an Uno+Shield cheaply locally.)
Hi,
I’m in a similar situation. I’m also just starting but after reading pretty much all the threads here and other places - I’ve decided to try a hybrid of the diymachines instructions for the table since it uses the arduino uno and CnC shield. The main difference being that the arduino doesn’t seem to be able to handle Marlin so you have to use GRBL natively on it. I’ve done basic tests with the arduino the motors and the shield using a Pc and octoshield it seems like it should work for a basic table. With that version they recommend a raspberry pi for octoprint but I have an old laptop I may use until the raspberry pi is cheaper/avail. Right now I’m about 3 weeks away from some parts from China to continue the build and still trying to figure out if I should buy a 3d printer or just buy the 3d printer parts online. Hope this helps a little. If you haven’t checked out the diymachines video you definitely should as it should answer you question in detail.
Hi y’all. It worked awesome. Since I gave it away a few weeks ago to a dear friend whose children are absolutely mesmerized by the table (it was a cheap IKEA Lack I cutout in the middle and botched some acrylic on top), I can’t serve you with any pictures. It works absolutely fine, the config was not hard as far as I remember and I got it working pretty much on the first try.
Can recommend
I’m leaning towards something more like the diymachines version now, only because I don’t know what I’m doing at all, Lewis’s videos are very explicit and hand-hold-y. I really like the idea of conduit-for-rails though, especially for a larger build.
The combo of grbl and cnc shield are a very low barrier to entry from a cost and a complexity standpoint in my experience. Having used Marlin fairly extensively for 3D printers before getting using grbl on a cnc shield/arduino uno stack for a “brain transplant” on a K40 laser engraver, I was pleasantly surprised at how simple it was to adjust grbl $ settings (like machine limits, steps per mm, velocity, and acceleration) without having to re-flash the firmware and having them automatically persist after restarting the controller.
If it helps - he also has an instructables page with more details written. You may want to join his discord as there is some helpful info on there also. Btw in the video I think some of the limit switch wiring is off… so look at his schematic instead of the video if you run into alarm errors or issues with the limit switch wiring. I’m looking forward to trying this out once my parts come in. I’m also simplifying his setup without the Lights and stuff integrated. I figured I can add the lights and nano later if needed. I’m trying to keep my costs down for this project as much as possible.
Thank you very much, will be back when the build is done. 