Unfortunately you bought a machine that was all completely self sourced, you are having to do a lot of extra work. The kits come with everything that you need that all fits together. The original owner might have saved $20 self sourcing or maybe they reused some stuff they had but that is in trade of time to make it all work together.
That spindle you have is also very questionable, waiting to see how it works. Some of those are trash and others are actually very nice.
Agreed. Might be one of the good ones, but not holding out for that. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it’s one of the good ones.
It is great that Ryan has sourced all the materials needed for a YBR (“Yellow Brick Road”) build, AKA as-designed. Those parts are really affordable and known to work.
Having said that, I’m disappointed that there aren’t good recommendations for the off-the-path version of a build. For example, LOTS of builders are absolutely terrible at soldering and crimping. There’s a really good alternative to that- clamp terminal blocks. It’s how industrial machines are wired, and you can find really good options for this that won’t have the reliability problems that come with poor workmanship.
I’m not talking about good enough to fly in deep space here, I’m talking about needing it to be better than trash so you don’t end up blowing stepper drivers or ruining work pieces because you have intermittent wiring.
Scroll up a bit, I did runout tests and it seems pretty good. Or do you mean in other ways?
I agree that this build would have been ‘easier’ if everything was sourced from the V1E web site, but isn’t that the point of open-sourced builds? They should support (and even encourage) building out a basic design using various paths (components), as long a they are compatible.
The stepper motors on this machine have what I’m used to seeing as the ‘standard’ connector. They’re the same as my 3D printers, and all the other steppers I’ve bought for other projects. What connectors would the motors have if I bought them from the site?
@MakerJim, I like that terminal block idea. Do you have examples? That might be an option here, since I have to rewire anyway…
Or these little guys. Don’t need to buy them from me but they are dead simple. Solder Seal Heat Shrink Waterproof Butt Wire Connectors AWG 26-24 – V1 Engineering Inc
Yes, those are way better when solder skills are poor.
I have a bunch of those solder sleeves, but I don’t really see a good way to utilize them for this application.
I decided to just order the ‘right’ parts from Ryan, partly because it’s the path of lease resistance, and partly as a ‘thank you’ for his help (along with everyone else!) with getting this going, and for maintaining this forum.
I got the endstops and a touchplate as well. Hopefully, that will get me up and running, with a bit of wiring and some control box cleanup. We’ll see! USPS was crazy slow getting this all to me last time.
In a teardown video a long time ago, I saw the bushings in a spindle like that had rubber bushings. So it would show low runout under no load, but turn to peanut butter at speed.
Yikes. I’ll keep an eye on it for sure. It’ll be interesting to see how it does with a little side loading. 
I’m not opposed to getting a proper spindle (or trim router) if the machine turns out to be usable otherwise. I’m trying to contain myself, and only spend on what needs it for now. Otherwise, it would be better to just build one from scratch. lol
My ultimate goal is a PrintNC v4 in about a 50"x50" size, with a 2kW spindle. This machine is to get me familiar with CNC, and learn what works and what doesn’t, without spending a mini-fortune.
Well…I made some progress…kinda. 
I received the cables from V1E, but it appears that I didn’t look closely enough at them. They won’t plug into my stepper motors, and aren’t really long enough anyway. The site said that the MPCNC needed 5’ cables, but mine clearly need to be quite a bit longer.
I think I’ll be able to keep my existing stepper cables on the motor end, and use these new ones just as extensions, but that’s a bummer, since I was hoping to have a nice clean installation without it switching colors halfway through. My fault for not looking close enough.
I will also need to get longer cables for the 2-wire end stop cables. There’s no way these will reach.
In the meantime, I’ve taken out the old Mach3 controller, and the 3 stepper drivers to make room in the box for the new Jackpot board.
Slowly but (semi-)surely…
More progress, and a problem.
I finished wiring everything up, and was able to do a few test movements from the web GUI on my phone. It looks like it’s mostly okay, except one stepper motor (X1) isn’t responding. I think it may be a faulty driver module, since I can swap the cables and X1 works fine, but X0 is now dead.
I didn’t think of it at the time, but I guess I can physically swap the driver modules on the board to confirm, but it sure looks to me like a dead driver.
Can anyone think of anything else it could be?
Otherwise, I’m just about ready to do a test cut!
That being said, what program should I be using to create and/or send jobs to the CNC?
I haven’t seen much in the documentation about actually using the machine.
This is with a jackpot…
Show us the terminal response to the
$SS
Command.
Correct! I’m one of the cool kids now!
$ss
[MSG:INFO: FluidNC v3.9.1 https://github.com/bdring/FluidNC]
[MSG:INFO: Compiled with ESP32 SDK:v4.4.7-dirty]
[MSG:INFO: Local filesystem type is littlefs]
[MSG:INFO: Configuration file:config.yaml]
[MSG:INFO: Machine MPCNC]
[MSG:INFO: Board Jackpot TMC2209]
[MSG:INFO: UART1 Tx:gpio.0 Rx:gpio.4 RTS:NO_PIN Baud:115200]
[MSG:INFO: I2SO BCK:gpio.22 WS:gpio.17 DATA:gpio.21]
[MSG:INFO: SPI SCK:gpio.18 MOSI:gpio.23 MISO:gpio.19]
[MSG:INFO: SD Card cs_pin:gpio.5 detect:NO_PIN freq:20000000]
[MSG:INFO: Stepping:I2S_STATIC Pulse:2us Dsbl Delay:0us Dir Delay:1us Idle Delay:255ms]
[MSG:INFO: User Digital Output: 0 on Pin:gpio.26]
[MSG:INFO: User Digital Output: 1 on Pin:gpio.27]
[MSG:INFO: Axis count 3]
[MSG:INFO: Axis X (3.000,1223.000)]
[MSG:INFO: Motor0]
[MSG:INFO: tmc_2209 UART1 Addr:0 CS:NO_PIN Step:I2SO.2 Dir:I2SO.1 Disable:I2SO.0 R:0.110]
[MSG:INFO: X Neg Limit gpio.25]
[MSG:INFO: Motor1]
[MSG:INFO: tmc_2209 UART1 Addr:3 CS:I2SO.14 Step:I2SO.13 Dir:I2SO.12 Disable:I2SO.15 R:0.110]
[MSG:INFO: X2 Neg Limit gpio.35]
[MSG:INFO: Axis Y (3.000,2443.000)]
[MSG:INFO: Motor0]
[MSG:INFO: tmc_2209 UART1 Addr:1 CS:NO_PIN Step:I2SO.5 Dir:I2SO.4 Disable:I2SO.7 R:0.110]
[MSG:INFO: Y Neg Limit gpio.33]
[MSG:INFO: Motor1]
[MSG:INFO: tmc_2209 UART1 Addr:3 CS:I2SO.19 Step:I2SO.18 Dir:I2SO.17 Disable:I2SO.16 R:0.110]
[MSG:INFO: Y2 Neg Limit gpio.34]
[MSG:INFO: Axis Z (-100.000,200.000)]
[MSG:INFO: Motor0]
[MSG:INFO: tmc_2209 UART1 Addr:2 CS:NO_PIN Step:I2SO.10 Dir:I2SO.9 Disable:I2SO.8 R:0.110]
[MSG:INFO: Z Neg Limit gpio.32:low]
[MSG:INFO: X Axis driver test passed]
[MSG:INFO: X2 Axis driver test passed]
[MSG:INFO: Y Axis driver test passed]
[MSG:INFO: Y2 Axis driver test passed]
[MSG:INFO: Z Axis driver test passed]
[MSG:INFO: Kinematic system: Cartesian]
[MSG:INFO: STA SSID is not set]
[MSG:INFO: AP SSID FluidNC IP 192.168.0.1 mask 255.255.255.0 channel 1]
[MSG:INFO: AP started]
[MSG:INFO: WiFi on]
[MSG:INFO: Captive Portal Started]
[MSG:INFO: HTTP started on port 80]
[MSG:INFO: Telnet started on port 23]
[MSG:INFO: Flood coolant gpio.2]
[MSG:INFO: Mist coolant gpio.16]
[MSG:INFO: Probe gpio.36:low]
ok
I physically swapped the X1 and Y1 driver modules, and have confirmed that the issue is NOT a faulty stepper driver. Shows what I know.
What version of FluidNC are you running? There have been cases where an unstable version and/or incorrect configuration file have resulted in one stepper not moving?
They’re on 3.9.1
$SS looks good.
Config looks like the correct MPCNC configuration.
What do you get if you check each end stop one at a time while running $Limits ?
If you don’t find an endstop issue then the stepper that isn’t working may have a wiring issue.
To look into that, measure both coil resistance for that stepper at the harness plug going to the jackpot.
#METOO ( I see I’m a little late with this reaction)
I don’t have end stops installed.
All steppers are working, just not all at the same time!
If I swap the cables on the Jackpot for X1 and X0, then the stepper on one side stops working, and the other one starts. So I know both motors are physically okay.
This is what made me think initially that the problem was a bad stepper driver module.
Sorry, I thought I mentioned that earlier.
This has to be some kind of wiring issue.
Measure both coils of both stepper motors at the connector where it plugs into the jackpot.
Post high res pictures of your x motor wiring anywhere there is a plug , connector, splice, or extension connection.
You may want to consider adding endstop mounts and endstops. The MPCNC is a much better machine in my opinion with auto squaring.
By chance do you have the motors wired in series?
No, each motor is wired directly to the Jackpot on a separate channel.
I guess. This is why I was hoping to use the custom wiring I got from V1E, but they aren’t long enough, so I had to keep some of the old wiring. I have new extensions coming. I will swap them out when they arrive (tomorrow I think) and try again. Maybe it’s just a short somewhere. Frustrating.
No clue how to do that…
I plan to. I already bought the endstop switches and wires from Ryan. The cables aren’t long enough (sense a theme?) so I have to find some way to extend those also. Plus, I need to find the model for the mounts. If you have a link, I’d be grateful…
I was just trying to get basic movement working first. You know, one step at a time.