Hi all,
I’ve tried now the transistor solution with a small modification and it seem to work well now… 
I decreased the R2 to 1k, so a current of around 10mA will be driven by the circuit and at least 5.5V are needed to trigger the input.
Many thanks for your help!
Cheers,
Juergen
Hi all,
I’ve tried now the transistor solution with a small modification and it seem to works well now…
I decreased the R2 to 1k, so a current of around 10mA will be driven by the circuit and at least 5.5V are needed to trigger the input.
Many thanks for your help!
Cheers,
Juergen
Sorry for the duplicated post… Had some gateway timeout errors… 
Cheers,
Juergen
Hi,
I found the LCD-control function “goto endstops” very convenient. Is there a similar function in Estlcam USB-control?
Cheers,
Franz
Hi,
found the corresponding function in Estlcam in the meantime: “Referenzfahrt”
Have still a small problem with it. How can I deactivate the Z-movement in this function, because I have no endstop switches on the Z-Axis?
Cheers,
Franz
Try deactivating Z axis limits in Estlcam software - leave only X and Y limit switches - Might work ?
I have no Z limits but a touch plate for lower Z.
Tried what Mike suggested:
If I deactivate upper und lower Z limits I can’t stop upwards Z movement at all, only with power off.
If I activate l o w e r Z limit I can stop upwards Z movement by contacting touch plate.
Franz
Hi all,
in the meantime I installed a upper Z limit switch to get the function “reference move” (Referenzfahrt) working. Now it works and does what I want, but something is still strange: I have to connect the upper Z limit switch to the lower Z limit input on the ramps board. Doing a reference move now, first the Z axis goes up to the switch and then the X and Y axis move to their corresponding end switches.
Cheers,
Franz
Hi Azmoo,
try to unplug and re plug the USB and try again… If this doesn’t help, what Arduino Board you are having? Genuine or some 3rd manufacturer board?
By the way, today I’ve connected a solid state relay plug between the mains of my Kress router and I can now control the router direct from Estlcam… It starts automatically on program start and stops on pause or if the job is done…
Seems that everything is now working fine…
Thank you so much Christian for this grate Work!
Cheers,
Juergen
I have Chinese Arduino clone. I manage to get it working by pressing (press once) reset button (on the side of RAMPS) 2 sec after “Leaving programing mode:OK” appear. Also if you get error on activating bootloader you need to press reset button after you press “Program Arduino” button.
Franz, that might be the way it handles the Z axis. Positive movements go down, negative go up. So to get to zero from an arbitrary position it needs to move up until it finds the zero point at the top.
New version is out. Grab it while its hot
Sweet! Now if I can just fire it up without burning my fingers.
So I have a n00b question. If I want to cut out several things from one board, such as the .DXF files for the MP3DP, how do I load them and place them optimally so I can fit as many as possible in the smallest area? When I just imported them one after another they came in all stacked on top of each other, and then I couldn’t figure out how to move them.
So I have been using this Beta support for a few test runs. All seem to have been brilliant until today. For some reason Estlcam lost control/contact with the cnc. It said on the system that the movements were happening, but the stop/start button on the CNC controller stopped responding. Anyone else had this issue?
To Bill - Click select, move, then drawing layers (the bottom box). You should then be able to click on the dxf (highlighting red) and move them into your optimal position - use the layer option in the view dropdown if you add them all at once. You might find activating the grid via view useful if you are cutting from a specific size of stock material as well.
Hi Thomas,
I’ve had the same issue today. I’ve been using an older version of Estlcam on the PC connected to the MPCNC and the new beta version on my working PC. I’ve made a .nc file with the new function and run it on the older version. Somewhere in the middle, the machine stopped with an error message saying, that the input was triggered and afterwards there was an error that it could no longer connect to the controller. I thought there was an issue with my power supply of the controller, but it seems there might be some bug in the controller software or in Estlcam…
Cheers,
Juergen
Or you just lost connection over the usb.
Did your computer go to sleep? Running over USB for long jobs is asking for trouble.
I’ve recently double checked standby in my Windows settings and it is deactivated. Hm, maybe I need to check if there is any peripheral shut down configured, because I’m using a notebook to control the MPCNC…
Cheers,
Juergen
Yeah - I checked that. It has just requested a restart for an update though - I’m wondering if it was doing something in the background. Out of interest what would you recommend for running long Cnc jobs?
Each USB device has its own power management, they are not really gated by the global power settings except by sleep. Open Device Manager in Windows, expand both USB and Ports, then plug your board in. Watch to see what gets added to do list. Next right click on each of the devices, bring up Proprties; Power Management, and make sure ‘Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power’ is not checked.
