MPCNC to LR4 Upgrade

LowRider CNC Your Builds
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I have had an MPCNC since January 2021 - used it quite a bit. However I never got around to doing any wire managed or dust control, and its showing its age:

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I would like to upgrade to an LR4 to address those issues and to get a little bigger work area. I have room for a 3’x5’ table so am planning a 24"x48" work area.

I have my parts all printed and ready to go:

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I also picked up the Harbor Freight Hercules clone of the Makita router on sale a couple weeks ago.

I am hoping to reuse as much as possible from the MPCNC and have come up with the following shopping list based on comparing the build kits for the 2 machines:

  • 8m of belt
  • 3 stepper wiring extensions
  • 5 end stops and wiring (I didn’t use any end stops on my MPCNC)
  • 1 set of 2 lead screws
  • 1 5mm to 8mm coupler
  • 1 set of 4 Linear Rails
  • 61 M3x10
  • 2 M2.5x12

Does this look accurate? I would like to get my order in to the V1 shop in the next day or so.

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Pretty sure you need a lot of M5 screws and nuts.

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The build kit descriptions both show 60 of each, but I have a bunch of on hand already in case I need more. Thanks for the tip!

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I got a set of strut plates cut on the old machine tonight!

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I made some good progress today! I tore down the MPCNC and built the core and side plate assemblies

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More progress today. I got the machine together and a table built for it. Hopefully tomorrow I can get through the wiring.

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Nice!

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wow!!! 14 days from mpcnc to LR4, I think you are ready for a Triathlon!

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During my wiring today I noticed I have a 12v power supply - is there a good reason I should switch to a new 24v?

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12 and 24 are mostly the same. If it is working, don’t change it. Where it matters is jmin a specific situation where your motors are spinning so fast that the motor current can’t be reached with 12V and 24V will give you a higher top speed. But the speed is pretty high already with 12V.

Factors like wire length and guage will determine what speed the 12V point is. Up to that point, there isn’t any difference.

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Thank you for the explanation!

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I have the machine wired up, but am having trouble with homing. The machine moves manually as it should but when I home y or z then only one side activated. I am using the SKR Pro 1.2 control board and tft35 from my MPCNC with the latest version of the firmware as far as I can tell. Any tips?

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Here is a shot of the system info if that helps

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Scratch that, homing is working! A couple of my endstop plugs had come loose when I was putting the lid on the electronics box.

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Next question - how do I use the touch plate in this interface? On the MPCNC it was the Z homing but not here. Is it built in or do I have to set up a custom macro or something?

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Most people add the macro to their program start. Should be in the docs somewhere. :sweat_smile:

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The docs are here for the starting gcode if you want it to probe automatically:
https://docs.v1e.com/tools/milling-basics/#starting-gcode

Not sure how to setup a macro on the SKR since I haven’t fiddled with marlin on my MPCNC in about 7 years and switched to a Jackpot for my LR4.

But - you should be able to use the relevant parts from the startup code to create a macro as well.

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Thanks! I don’t think i would want it to probe on job start because I tend to use my machine for batching out parts. The parts are all of the same material and I don’t want to bother with a probe at the beginning of each part. I will do some study on setting up a macro.

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  • Home Z (sets Z=200)
  • Move X & Y (use “Move” commands) so that endmill is directly above stock
  • Attach probe alligator clip to endmill, place probe plate on stock directly under endmill
  • Use Terminal command “G38.2 Z0” (moves Z axis lower until it reaches 0 or completes the probe circuit
  • Use Terminal command “G92 Zx” where x=thickness of probe plate (0.5 for TinyTouch Plate)
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Well I succeeded in getting it to draw a crown!

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