Again? 
It doesn’t really matter which board etc. you have as long as you can use external drivers. I bought this kit. There are more expensive ones but only from China, so they are really expensive then.
As I’m sure you can imagine… I have an interest in getting closed-loop LR4 X axis control via Jackpot/FluidNC, Klipper, and SKR/Marlin.
I think I’m going to pull the trigger on one of those stepper setups to play with.
You can also try to get it running with a cheapo TB6600. If that runs, the closed loops run as well. 
So… Not exactly. You’re trading the open loop accuracy of a stepper for the closed loop accuracy. It can easily be moving around a lot more on a closed loop stepper. The devil is in the details.
Stepper motors are plain dumb. Once you get ones with the right torque and electrical rating and they fit, you’re done.
Closed steppers depend a lot more on the quality of sensor, and most importantly, the software that reads and closes the loop. If it has noise or it doesn’t have the same holding torque (current), it is subject to EMI, or there is poor software involved, you can see a whole new array of errors.
I am very happy to see that work. It looks great. I just would caution you that:
- The cutting is the true test.
- There will be a lot more variance in the performance of closed loop stepper/driver combos. So I would only trust tests with the same setup.
I note that there is an app MotionStudio (Downloads tab) you can use to alter the firmware in the closed-loop stepper driver. With that, you can specify all sorts of things, such as how much angular deviation it will try to correct for before throwing an Alarm signal and powering down the motor. It connects with a serial cable.
Thanks, that’s a good find! They did send that cable cable, but I never asked what it can do. 
As long as it works now I am not going to ask questions, I don’t have the brake configured anyway, so there is no shutting down anyway.
I tried cutting with the stepper for the first time and was shocked: there were edges along a circle that should not have been there. Whyyyy?
I figured it out pretty quickly. I set X to 16000mm/min in Estlcam and Y to 8000mm/min. When doing a cut, it does the empty ways with the max speed for either X or Y. So Y went 16000mm/min as well on Y. That does not work… at all. So it lost steps on Y which in turn made the circle come out wrong because it cut above where it should have.
Long story short though: The closed loop stepper does an amazing job and is soooo quiet, it’s incredible. I am going to miss it moving at 16k though (and I only had it for 10 minutes or so… :D), it just looks so awesome to see it switch positions during a cut at blazing speed. If I had a wish for a LR4 improvement it would be that Y and Z each get 20mm more space for the stepper motors so we could run closed loop on all axis (granted, cables would not be hidden any more, too many cables). I’d gladly pay 60€ per stepper/driver combo instead of 25€ as a premium version (we did talk about a “prem” LR before, didn’t we?? :P).
This guy here is trying to wake up Ryan
Not terribly dissimilar from my hacky first attempt at this. A more nuanced review led me to ask some questions like “Do the hidden wire channels really need to be there if I can’t fit all the wiring / electronics I need for CL steppers in the plate?”
We’ll see whether or not I try something. I like to experiment, but I really don’t like to lead people astray.
80% of the benefit from CL steppers on LR4 would be in X, in my opinion, and that’s an easier mod.
Any chance you have a video of it cutting? I’m curious to see it in action 
Not yet, but it looks the same… 
I again can’t find the post but we did discuss the X axis stuttering without skipping steps. I’ve had that happen on the LR3 more than on the 4, but it did happen for cuts, especially with the 1-flute. L
I am happy to report that this doesn’t happen with the closed loop stepper (at least with the files I’ve run so far, 1800mm/min, 4mm DOC in oak).
I also just figured out that I can connect the brake of the closed loop stepper to an input of my board and configure EstlCam to stop the program if the stepper driver’s brake signal triggers when it loses its way. Guess what I am doing in 20 minutes.
/edit: it’s now connected, but I have no way of checking whether it works… time will tell…
It does not warrant its own topic yet, but I am probably going to sell the Ghostrider to make space for another CNC. It will be available around August when my new CNC arrives (hopefully). Since I can’t know exactly when it’s going to happen, there is no official sale thread (yet). So if you live in Germany or close by, shoot me a message if you are interested. It’s coming with external drivers, closed loop on X, OpenCNCShield 2 etc., basically everything but the touchplate and the spindle. You can see it all above.
I am going to keep Schneewittchen though, using it at school to teach students, so you people are not getting rid of me so easily.
Whatcha gettin
Hmmm 
I am a little emotionally attached to that machine too!
The new one better be worth it!
“Just a quick fix!!”, I am telling myself. It can’t be too bad, the family is gone, no one is going to notice. But the addiction has to be fed. There is some sound I am always hearing and it has to go… It just has to. Something is also always triggering when I’m in the middle of it. It annoys me. How can you enjoy something while always being triggered.
The quick fix turns into an hour long fever-dream. The support I’ve always had is missing because I took out too much, everything breaks apart. This thing should have been replaced a long time, the last time I tried to come clean, make all the mistakes go away…
Okay, what really happend (is the above), but I wanted to fix my endstop on X-triggering issue by replacing it and checking the cables while doing so. I always had a creaking noise when going up and down that was connected to the struts being painted and swelling a little, so they were rubbing which made an annoying sound.
So I parked the CNC at the top, like I always tell you to do to get the core off, and removed the front strut plate to file the swelling away, I also took the core off.
What I did not consider was that if you pull back the top rail and there is no support from the front strut and all the screws have been taken out (because you remove the strut), the bottom rail whill just fall down. The gantry is heavy. And what happens when the rail supporting the gantry falls out? 5mm HDF holds the whole gantry for about 20 seconds. After that it breaks…
I panicked a bit… I don’t want to cut strut plates… Argh. But as I am a lazy bum and hadn’t exchanged the bottom strut plate from the beta that didn’t have the wings but had already cut the new one (like, a year ago), I was finally forced to replace it as well.
I made sure to secure the bottom rail this time by installing the front strut plate again and fastening the bottom screws. When everything was done I wanted to clip the X belt in again. Well well well, if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions… I didn’t watch out and screwed the belt down behind the front strut…
Very wow. Much professional… Was a quick fix, but man, sometimes I am an idiot…
Long story short: The creaking is basically gone and it was also more of an annoyance than an actual problem. The winged plates are now installed and the endstop was changed (will see if that was the problem. The new, non-roller endstop also gives me 2mm more workspace. Woop. 
So the LR is now as good as it can be. I didn’t want to sell it with even minor defects (thoug I haven’t found a buyer yet). 
The old table has been dismantled. Look at all that storage below the floating table!!
It’s fixed to the wall with two 1000kg wall anchors on each side. My wall is only red brick, so each one should be able to hold around 500kg, which is still more than enough. I did hop up and down on the floating corner to test the strength, it’s working well. 