I suspect that I have a faulty driver on my RAMBo 1.4 (various measurements have indicated this). Now, I’m wondering whether to order a new RAMBo board or take a different approach. The RAMBo boards are reportedly very robust, but ordering one from the USA to Germany takes a considerable amount of time, and handling any potential issues due to transport could be challenging. This concern might be unfounded, but what is definitely problematic is that the drivers are soldered onto the board. This means if something breaks, I have to replace the entire board, and I’m not skilled at soldering to exchange the drivers or debugging the board.
There is an alternative from the Estlcam manufacturer that is rarely mentioned: the “Klemmen Adapter” (Estlcam: 2D / 3D CAM und CNC Steuerung...) with instructions in German, presumably for a portal milling machine. This seems a bit overengineered and more powerful than needed for the MPCNC. From a quick look, I would say that this controller could work well with the MPCNC and also with NEMA 17 motors, as you can adjust the stepper drivers.
However, what I haven’t figured out yet is whether I can use the 5 drivers I would need to buy to do autosquaring (dual endstopps). This remains a mystery to me.
So, my question is: What would be more sensible – getting another RAMBo board or the Klemmen Adapter? I like that with the Klemmen Adapter, you can replace nearly everything. I need the squaring to correct my inaccurate build. It has worked well so far.
Not with the one you linked. You need another board for it, the OpenCNCShield2 or OpenCNCShield Mini. It has an ESP32 as well that does the autosquaring, Estlcam’s controller can’t do that (which is the main drawback, besides that it’s awesome).
I’ve decided to buy the jackpot board. It has everything I want, and especially, I can exchange the drivers. Additionally, it is a lot cheaper. Sadly, I have to wait a long time, and the shipping costs are almost as much as the board itself.
Yes, I am German. An Thank your for the tip with the openShield.
hey i’ve read it, but thanks for the info. I’m a bit frustrated because something is always broken, even though I follow the instructions very carefully. I just want to finally get things done.
Lookig over your other threads, it isn’t clear at all that just buying aJackpot will solve things.
Your thread about clicking Y axis shows that you’re running a Rambo, and those rarely break.
It’s more likely that there’s some detail like bad extension cable or stepper motor wiring that is involved, so it’s still worth continuing to troubleshoot those.
As an example: If it is a wiring problem, then you’ll spend money, get a new board to learn, and still have to troubleshoot.
Next steps for troubleshooting the existing setup would be to start taking resistance measurements at the stepper connector where it plugs into the Rambo.
Now that I have some time and can focus more on measuring. Thank you for the encouragement. Unfortunately, I’m not good at measuring because there are many things I simply don’t understand or more i am unsecure.
Recently, the power supply for my router broke. I did figure out through measurements that it was the psu and not the router, but that was more by luck than anything else. I will write a more detailed post about what I did in the other thread. I think we’re done here.