Well fella’s and fellete’s, I just finished whittling out and painting my x axis strut plates (new build) and I’m about to embark on final install of the controller and cleaning up the wiring, adding cable chains, vacuum hose and maybe some under gantry lighting.
My question here is simply this … does the controller really need to be installed on the gantry? I’m planning on using cable chains on both axis (xy) and would really prefer to install the power supply(s) and controller along with fuses and relays (vacuum? and router!) under the table out of harms way.
I’ve spent a bit of time searching and don’t find any mention of pros/cons anywhere on the topic and specifically to ESP32 based CNCs. (thinking there was maybe a noise issue there).
I know that it’s not uncommon among the CNC’s out there running external dedicated stepper drivers to run everything out of a control box away from moving parts of the machine.
For Wi-Fi access, you want the Jackpot positioned with decent proximity and ideally a decent path to the Wi-Fi router, but walls and the table are not as big a problem as wiring and electronics. The wiring for the steppers should go on the underside of the Jackpot, so that the wires and electronics don’t interfere with the Wi-Fi antenna. If you position everything under the table except for the Jackpot itself… maybe have it on the edge of the table sticking out a little bit so that nothing electronic or magnetic is interfering with the ESP32 antenna. You should be OK.
Nothing else speaks against it. It’s harder to detach the LR if you ever want to take it off the table. I’ve never done it either though and have been thinking of moving my control board off the gantry.