Burly, primo, lowrider

Mostly Printed CNC - MPCNC Advice
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So, last year i started to print the parts needed for a mpcnc… however, due to covid19, and since im a medical and areospace engineer(almost done with degree) i ended up doing alot of printimg for masks amd face shields i designed with other engineers and doctors. So i had no time or filament haha

Now, i have some time and filament. But i have no idea what version i was printing. Can i assume it was the burly? Can any of my parts from last year work with the primo?

I have all the conduit all ready.

Next question. I have the dewal 660 i got for Christmas last year, can i still use that? I also want to eventually add a laser, a vinyl knife, and plasma cutter.

Would a low rider be better for plasma cutter?

I might have to make both…

Mostly, right now i want to finish what i started. I dont mind having to start over on primo parts if i have to.

Tha ks

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If you share a photo, we will know immediately. But probably burly.

Do you have the hardware parts yet? They are slightly different. There was an upgrade pack (I assume there still is). There’s nothing wrong with the Burly though. It is still a great machine, especially for learning the quirks of CNC.

The dw660 works on either form of mpcnc. Not the low rider. There are a few plasma cutters here, they are most often low riders, mostly because the dimensions lend themselves well to huge sheets, with low heights.

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Its burley haha. Just found out a few minutes ago.

Ok, so what does the low rider use for its cutting device?

Also, whats less expensive, the new low rider 2 or primo?

Thanks

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The low rider has a flat plate that the router rides on, so it uses the DW611, which comes with a flat router plate. You could print something to hold an upright router like the dw660, probably. I think it has been done.

The low rider needs to have flat parts cut as well. So those add to the cost. It has very similar costs in terms of hardware, electronics, and mechanical stuff (like belts). The MPCNC needs more length of tubing, so it can definitely get pricey, but in general the MPCNC is cheaper. The primo is close to the same cost as the burley was.

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Awesome, thanks. Probably going to go the primo route, then later make the low rider.

Do you know if the mks sgen L v1.0 32bit board work for the mpcnc

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It works. Any printer has the same amount of stuff a CNC has, and 100% more. So pretty much any board will work.

But we don’t have a preconfigured version for that board, so you’ll have to go through configuring it yourself. If you have trouble you can ask, but there aren’t many of those board users here (but there are a few smart ones).

Are you buying it new? An skr board would be a better option. The shop sells them with the software already installed. The skr pro with 2209 drivers is the configuration Ryan is working on making somewhat more common.

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I have not purchased yet, but i have one on my prusa i3. I only like it because its not expensive. But if i have to buy the skr, i will try to find a good priced one on amazon.

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You don’t have to buy the skr. There are many choices. Here’s the long(er) story:

Marlin is very popular here because they support a bunch of boards, and since a lot of the users here know 3D printing, they already know Marlin.

In the Marlin boards, the old standby is the RAMPS. The biggest trouble is that they are such a commodity they end up being of poor quality.

The Ultimachine boards (namely, the mini rambo and rambo) are built very tough, well engineered, and high quality. Ryan sells these in the shop preflashed.

Recently, Ryan has been trying the skr pro boards, and in the skr boards there are a bazillion choices. He settled on a skr pro 1.2 and chose the TMC 2209 drivers. It’s a full featured stack, for sure. The ones in Ryan’s shop come with the firmware flashed, but on this board, it will be as easy as putting the new firmware file on the sd card and resetting the board to flash it.

We are in the middle of creating a more robust way of creating preconfigured files for a few boards. Those are held at MarlinBuilder releases. (Ryan literally kicked off the builds for 506 a few minutes ago). In those config files, we do have a RAMPS, mini rambo, rambo, skr pro and a skr not pro with drv8825 drivers. These are the easiest way to get the code for the CNC set right.

If you were doing a different board, like an skr turbo, or a mks board, you would still save some time by starting with one of these configs, and just changing the board and driver specific stuff.

But that still isn’t all of it.

grbl is a different firmware, focused on CNC. You can get a generic grbl board, wire the double axis in serial and do great work. Those are easy to configure and there are some very cheap options.

There is also a grbl_esp32 firmware, with a board specifically made for the MPCNC. These are made in small batches and you can find them on tindie, but don’t include the drivers or the ESP32. They are a little harder to flash, but once they are, they aren’t hard to configure.

There are also some folks that think a whole computer needs to be involved (and the plasma guys especially). They want to use LinuxCNC or mach3. Those options are going to be much more expensive because they include a whole computer.

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When its not 3am and not tired from work, ill reply… tha ks for the awesome info.

My mks sgen board flashed via sdcard as well. Super easy

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I just recently installed an SKR 1.4 non-turbo on one of my 3d printers to go with some TMC2209s. Just to get the feel for software current management and 32bit processing speed. I’ve also been looking into getting an MKS SGen_L board for my other printer. Now from the cursory research I’ve done it looks like the SKR 1.3, 1.4, and MKS SGen_L boards are all pretty much the same, save some extra convenience options on the SKR1.4 like dual Z-motor headers and extra constant-voltage fans headers. All have the NXP 1768 processors, and even the same form-factor. My guess is that the firmware build for the SKR non-pro boards should work on any of them. Also if you’re bargain shopping, for what seems an apples-to-apples comparison, the MKS SGen_L board can be had for about $10 cheaper then the SKR1.3 board, depending on where you look. Now like Jeff said, RAMPS can get pretty sketchy depending on the vendor, so I’m not quite sure how TwoTrees or MakerBase stacks up to BigTreeTech, so YMMV. I’d be interested to know how your MKS board fares.

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Makerbase is the obly other one ill trust compared to btk.

I buy all my stuff on amazon and if i can find an skr with in reason, qnd can accept a 12864 lcd screen like my mks sgen, ill do it haha.

Mks sgen is a great board. I used it as my first upgrade on my prusa i3 reprap build.