When shopping for the mpcnc kit there is a note saying “I should point out the Dual Endstop kit is not beginner friendly. If you do not have some experience with this stuff but might want to try that out later. It is best to buy the series version with a full Rambo board and add a dual wiring kit to your order.” I would consider myself at a beginner level, but the dual endstop doesn’t seem all that complicated to me. One would just plug in the endstops in the ports but making sure you follow the guide to plug them in and its done right? One thing i am uncertain about the kit though is what wiring type is provided for the motors I think i would want a series connection. Do the stock wires provided give a series connection to were it is plug and play or do i have to wire up the connections myself? Also, is there anything that i might be underestimating for the dual firmware endstop kit?
Kit wiring is series, unless you order dual endstop I believe. The one gotcha that gets most folks with the dual endstop firmware is you can’t do negative numbers. So say you want to make a sign. Easiest way would be to put your zero in the center of the sign’s cutting area. Then if your wood isn’t cut perfectly, you can still just start from the center of your piece, and the cuts will still be centered. With dual, you have to take offsets into account when designing your stuff. The endmill can’t go into negative numbers, so you have to zero on a corner, and hope you have the wood cut right.
You mention series wiring and I should point out that dual endstops requires a board with 5 stepper outputs, one per motor. The wiring isn’t difficult, but there is an additional calibration step described here. You’ll also need to flash the firmware to whatever board you’re using.
I’ll leave the how difficult part to others as I haven’t finished yet.
why is the dual endstop kit wiring not in series? Doesn’t wiring in parallel just mean a bit higher speed capability (which shouldn’t matter too much with milling anyway) and increase the heat on the board drivers? Can i still use the series wiring (lets say if i buy separately) on the dual endstop firmware or does it have to be parallel?
I didn’t find it difficult. I got the Archim board and just plugged it all in. I wonder if some of the wording on the web site needs some updating or rewording. I thought I read that Ryan was trying to go over the site to clear off some of the things that are outdated.
It’s neither parallel nor series, each motor gets connected to their own driver.
Barry, is it not possible to dissable the software endstops with the dual endstop firmware? I thought that I did some cuts that went into negative coordinates a couple of months ago…
As to an earlier reply, does the patched Marlin not properly understand absolute co-ords vs workspace co-ords? You should be able to zero the workspace in the center of the piece, and still cut negative in the workspace, as long as the absolute coordinates stay positive. At least, that’s how I understood it to work. (And dang it, that’s how it should work!)
No confirmation on that one yet. Jamie just got some of the negative arcs stuff fixed in Marlin last night, but I have not updated the firmware yet (it’s kind of a big job and we are still in Alpha so you never know what bugs can pop up).
The reason I say it is not beginner friendly is it is not just plug and play. More wiring, firmware edits, paying more attention to each job from there on out. With a series kit you really just put the work down and hit go, 99% should just do this. I can say it this way, If you know know exactly why you would need it over not using it, then it is simple, but if you have to ask why, do not use it yet.
Workspace coordinates were already working, the bug was just if it did hit the soft limits (machine coordinates), with G2/G3 it would not just clip but misbehave.
Kenneth, youre right about how it works. It’s not especially difficult but its one more thing to learn or get wrong when beginners will already have a ton of new things they’re coming to understand.
