Im back at it again, building the Primo as we speak
Now this time around I would like to implement Dual Endstops onto the machine, and I figured that there should be no difference between using a RAMBO Board and my MKS GEN L which I have laying around from an old printer.
I flashed the Firmware from here, tho I cant find the link anymore, it said “Community tested” or so and its 2.0.7.2.
How does it have to wired up?
The 4 Motors for X and Y are still in parallel, so 1 Stepper Driver for 2 Motors, right?
Then I need 2 Switches for each Axis as min/max Endstop? Can I not use the Z Touchplate thing, and set my Z- height manually to zero?
Did I understand this correctly? Im also not sure if the Dual Endstops still need to be activated or so, havent found that in the code, maybe Im blind?
I would like to use the RepRap Display, which works tested with the Firmware, can I later just copy the machine instructions onto an SD Card, home my Axis and start the program from the Display?
I would also like to have the China Spindle PWM controlled… but after 1h of Google, including this Forum I think I should maybe just not do this, at least not for now, seems rather complicated.
The preconfigured firmware is at MarlinBuilder releases.
Did you mean to say Rambo or Ramps?
Never parallel. The two ways are “Dual”, which is one motor per driver. Or “series” where the 2 X motors share one driver, but they are wired in series.
No. Skip these at first. You really don’t need them. There only recommended endstops are when using the dual, then there is one for each motor. Not one min and one max. The machine isn’t doing enough to break anything at min or max.
You can manually set zero anytime. Or all of these configs can use a touch plate.
Yeah thats exactly the Firmware I used, the very top one that says RAMPS.
I am under the impression that the MKS GEN L Boards = RAMPS but 1 board instead of the sandwich construction, correct me if Im wrong.
Yeah my bad, I meant series wiring for the Motors, like you would with an CNC Shield for the Arduino.
The MKS Gen L Board does have X, Y, Z and E0 as well as E1 for Motors, so I guess 5 Motor drivers, 3 of which are used easily and I think the E0/1 could be used by changing the Firmware ?!
Then it also does have Xmin/max, Ymin/max and Zmin/max Pins for Endstopps, which I would have assumed I can just connect to my switches (no + and only neg and signal iirc from the docs).
Other than that I would only connect the RepRap Display (whatever thats actually called), which I did and works.
I am however not sure if I need to disable Z-min (?) in the Firmware without a Touchplate? And enable the max endstopps?
If you want to use all 5 motor drivers, you can with the V1CNC_Ramps_Dual version. Then you would attach the motors 1:1 with drivers, attach the Xmin to the min side of the X1 motor, the Xmax to the min side of the X2 motor and the same with Y. Then the Zmin is the touch plate. This has the advantage of moving each motor independently when homing to make sure the machine is square.
I am using that exact board for my MPCNC Primo. No complaints.
I am using the dual endstop wiring, that is each motor is wired to its own driver. Yes, the MKS Gen L v1.0 is effectively an Arduino Mega 2560 with a RAMPS 1.4, all on one board. Added advantage is that it can tolerate 24V power, whereas the sandwich version can only take 12V because of the polyfuses, but that’s not really relevant for most of this.
I don’t think there’s a reason that the dual endstop firmware wouldn’t work with series wiring.
You can operate it without the touchplate, but then you need to manually home Z every time, and it’s really difficult to do so when you change tools with EstlCAM. Much easier if you can just pop in G28 Z into your toolchange routine to re-home the Z axis. FWIW, there’s nothing really special about the touchplate, you can DIY one yourself easily, probably get a working version with 2 conductor wire, a duPont end for the board side, and maybe an alligator clip for the tool side. Even just tinning the other wire tip would be enough to get a contact if you don’t have anything flat and conductive for the plate side, then you just need to measure the distance that it registers.
Doing without the endstops is easy, but I’d really miss the touch plate.
Thanks @SupraGuy Thats what I wanted to do as well! I just had no idea how to connect the additional Motors, for E1/E0.
Anyway I spent 6h trying to flash the Firmware again and couldnt get a com port open at all on 2 entirely different systems, and in the End I put a Stepper Driver in the wrong way, now the Board is certainly fried even tho I suspect it was before bc I couldnt connect to it anymore…
I am now looking for a new Board The 1 Board solution from Makerbase is nice I think, obviously if 1 thing is dead then I wont be able to replace it but I doubt that Sandwich constructions with a RAMPS is any better…
Do you have any recommendations what I should get? I think 32 bit doesnt really help here but might as well go for it, if I ever decide to use it for something different? And would sensorless homing work here? I dont see a problem if you crank the speed down…?
I’d like Dual Endstops hor homing/squaring and maybe a PWM controlled China Spindle…
Like if I’d get the MKS SGenL 32 Board, that supports up to 5 Motor outputs, 6 Endstops and can run Smoothieware, which also comes with a CNC flavour if you want. Wouldnt that tick all my Boxes?
Its probably way overkill for my simple Primo, but its only 25$ ish.
If you’re going to buy a different board, then I’d strongly suggest that you go with one of the ones that V1 sells.
As for 32 bit…
On my machine, when cutting arcs, the electronics often stutter. I suspect that it is only barely capable of handling the floating point math for calculating an arc at an acceptable speed for 200 steps/mm. Because of this, I’m giving serious consideration to changing my GEN L v1.0 out for a 32bit board. I have a Duet board, which makes it kind of attractive to do this with, but if I get my stuff together to get started on a LR2, I’ll probably order an extra SKR Pro for the Primo with the LR2 kit from V1 in order to have the known support.
Now it might be that my GEN L just has problems with those arcs, and another one might not. It might be that different CAM software (I’m using EstlCAM) would create gcode that doesn’t cause problems. As is, my cuts end up OK, but the machine jerks to a stop sometimes along the path of an arc before continuing.
The RAMBo is also 8 bit, and people don’'t seem to have the same problems with it.
Buying from Ryan directly is not really an option I fear, apart from everything being sold out Im from Europe and the shipping times and costs are just too high to justify, I can buy 2 boards here or 3-4 from China for the same price
The 32 bit MKS sGenL Board I can buy for 25$…
And for 32 bit over 8 bit, I dont really know but Im suspecting that right now they are actually equal and 32bit does not have any advantage, that might however change with firmware improvements (might still not make it any better).
I just would like to have Dual Endstops so it does square itself, and I can change tools and have the same origin reliably
For that at least, I can say that the Gen L is fine. I get not wanting to pay for overseas shipping. I’m not in the USA, so shipping was also a thing for me. I didn’t buy all my hardware from Ryan either, but I do believe in supporting when I can.
What I was suggesting though is that you use one of the boards that Ryan supplies, not necessarily that you buy it from him. The RAMBo, Arachim, or the SKR boards should be available from other sellers (The SKR Pro 1.2 is readily available on Amazon here.)
The advantage to the same boards is that the firmware, setup and information are all readily available here.
The 32bit Gen L, the only mention I remember seeing here is someone having trouble getting it set up. I think they did manage eventually, though.
I think everyone would rather you get an skr pro and send a tip through the web than pay for shipping and import fees. You’d get the benefits and support the project.
The skr pro configuration is tested by Ryan whenever we make a change, as well as the rambos.
I am still cautious about the non-ultimachine rambos. Some of them had motors wired abab and we have had issues we just couldn’t figure out. The ones Ryan sells are bulletproof though. In the US, he is the cheapest vendor, AFAIK.
Yeah I thought about leaving a tip instead and just buying it locally, probably will do that
Also bought the parts from an licensed vendor, which I (hope) assume gives Ryan a few cent.
hmm the only downside with the SKR Pro 1.2 is the price, 70€ vs 28€ over the MKS SGen L… I’ll have to think about that because frankly its all China stuff and I hardly see a difference (for me) to justify the price.
As for the Dual Endstops, you still have to place the Switches so it does in fact end up Square when touching? Then each start is squares itself by locking the motos in place at that point?
Did I understand that correctly?
On a different note, I liked the idea of having a CNC adjusted Menu on the Display, is that possible with Marlin on 32 bit? Because the 8 bit Menu is just added some sub-menu which obviously works but is not pretty
You can also fine tune them via software. So if you get them a little wrong, you can nudge one 0.5mm to adjust for square.
I have no idea how they price stuff, but not everything from China is the same quality. Seriously, there are some huge differences (They are a big country). The big advantage for us though is that Ryan and I have done the work to configure Marlin for the skr pro (which is why supra guy recommended it, I think). If you want to configure it for any other marlin board, it’s not rocket surgery.
Not exactly. The new tft screens are a little easier to customize and the tft35_v3_e3 (or whatever it is in ryans shop) has some cnc adjustments. It is still a bit if a work in progress though.
The 1 Board solution from Makerbase is nice I think, obviously if 1 thing is dead then I wont be able to replace it but I doubt that Sandwich constructions with a RAMPS is any better…