I started building the MPCNC Burly in Dec. 2019, and got it pretty much finished in early 2020, but had some problems with 1 stepper on x, and y axis not working. Also, I had to flash the firmware for dual endstops.
To make a long story short, life happened, got in the way, or whatever. Fast forward to late 2025…
Got back to 3D printing a few months ago, then decided to get the MPCNC running. Tried flashing the Rambo 1.4 board with Platformio and got messages to edit “config.h and config_adv.h”
I found a place in “config” to change X value to 600, Y value to 900, and Z value to 125mm. I don’t know if that’s all I have to change or not.
I didn’t find anything to change in “config_adv” Possibly because I have no clue what I’m looking for, and being in my 70’s I’m not as sharp as I once.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Welcome Bill.
I had a Burly with a miniRambo board. I have upgraded it to a Primo and also upgraded my control board to a Jackpot because of the ease of changing configurations. No recompiling with the Jackpot. All you have to do is edit one config file! If you don’t think you’ll use a laser or spindle you can get a Jackpot V2 on sale. If you think you might add a laser, like I did, you should get the Jackpot V3.
I am very happy with both upgrades!!!
Thanks Brit, but although the Rambo is a few years old, it’s never been used. I just want to get it flashed with the proper settings. No sense in me spending money I haven’t got.
OK, I understand. Good luck and I hope you can get it to work. Hopefully someone else can help you with the firmware to get it going.
If you change your mind here is the link to the Jackpot V2:
No need to buy a Jackpot when money is tight.
Problem is, few of us build Marlin firmware at this point and fewer still for the rambo boards.
I’d revert back to the stock firmware and see if you can build that, then move forward with modifications when you can build the released firmware.
We can help you, but it will be a slow process.
I fully agree.
I see no reason why firmware for a Primo couldn’t be used on a Burly. While having the correct bed measurement is nice, it’ isn’t actualyl necessary for an MPCNC build. The downside is that homing with dual endstops will fail if it has to move further than the expected 600mm, so as long as your machine isn’t further than that from the endstops when you start homing, it will be fine. I had mu machine at 990mm Y and ran on the pre-built Marlin firmware for a while before I switched electronics to something else. It worked fine.
Unfortunately I no longer have the original which was not dual endstops either.
Can you not set bed size in the Primo firmware? I suppose I could home it by hand if I had to before startup when steppers are disengaged
That’s OK, you can still try the V1 firmware for the boards. Look here:
I THINK the ones that might work for you on a Rambo would be:
V1CNC_Rambo would be an original MPCNC without dual endstops
V1CNC_Rambo_Dual would be an MPCNC with dual endstops
Depending on whether you want to try and set up dual endstops these would be where I’d start with firmware.
Primo and Burly aren’t different enough to need different firmware as far as I know.
If you want to compile Marlin, sure.
But, this is mainly used for homing. If you have the size set wrong, you’ll get an error when you home if the machine is beyond the bed size defined in the firmware.
There aren’t soft limits in that firmware as far as I know, so even if the bed size is “wrong”, it generally will still work for you other than the homing thing.
I do have the latest firmware for dual endstop … Version 2.1.1 however when I ran it thru Platformio as per Ryans instruction page, it came up with “edit config.h and config_adv.h, but didn’t give any indication of what in particular I should edit. I did change the X, Y, and Z values in config.h to match my MPCNC size, but did nothing in config_adv.h because I had no idea what I was to edit.
Once saved,it did proceed with the build, and upload, but I have no idea if everything is really correct.
I’m going to wire the board back into the MPCNC and see what happens. I,m just totally frustrated.
We can get you there if you’re patient.
Let’s see what happens when you get everything wired back up.
Thanks Jim ….. I’ll let you know.
As I recall, the big differentiator between those firmware versions was whether you had the X and Y axis wired to independent stepper drivers (possilble on the “full” Rambo board) or had them grouped together so a singe driver drove both X motors, and another drove both Y motors (required if using the mini rambo). it didn’t really matter if you had end stops or not, it was how the firmware mapped the motors to the drivers.
You can but you don’t have to. The default size (IIRC) is 600mmx600mm. If the core is within 600mm of the home position for X and Y, everything works just fine exactly as is. It is only if the core is too far away from the home position, and you just hit “home” assuming that it will work that there might be a problem.
FWIW, I used my 625x930mm machine for almost a year, and had it fail to home exactly once, when I was testing homing from the corners. I got a message on the LCD that said “homing fail” and had to reset the board. Of course as soon as I reset the board and hit “home” again, it completed the remaining 330mm and worked perfectly. The firmware was perfectly happy to jog/cut to the extremes of the machine, even though this was outside of what it thought the bed coordinates were.
The exact messages would be helpful. I haven’t compiled Marlin for quite a while, I think the last time was for the MP3DPv3, which was the only time I’ve ever used Platformio.
I have the full size Rambo 1.4. Unfortunately I have no idea about mapping. I’ve lost so much memory wise in the last few years, its unbelievable. I wish I could remember.
Those were the messages. The biggest problem for me, is it didn’t say what in particular to edit. I did set the work area size (X, Y and Z) to the correct size in Config.h and it seemed to acceot it. I]m going to wire up the board again and see what happens. I’ll know whether I’m over thinking it after that’s done and I run a test.
Do you have each stepper plugged into a separate driver on the Rambo?
Yes, each has it’s own driver, so no additioal wiring required.
Your axis to motor mappings should be correct with the dual firmware.
As I recall, you have the option of compiling appropriate default values in the Marlin firmware, once you know what they are. To know what to set them to, you often need to experiment. I believe the auto-squaring pull-off distances went into config_adv.h, but since you can also store them in the eeprom there’s no need to recompile just to set those in the firmware.
I believe this is correct. It’s a huge benefit to not need to build the firmware and just use-as-is.