I only recall it being mentioned as like you say an acceptable controller. I'm not sure that it became a discussion.

This compatability statement ultimatly comes from the manufacturer where they state suitable for nema 23, what they don't state is which nema 23's.

They are rated at 2.5a peak. So they are compatible with motors rated upto 2.5a putting most of the nema 23 models out of compatible range of the xpro.

I think this rule is something that does need more publicity. Stepper motors need to be rated at equal or less amps than the driver. (providing they are adjustable). And run at the rated current.

 

Irritating! Yeah, my steppers 23's are rated 2.8A...gotta say I'm kinda pissed off about this. Although, it seems that there are a lot of folks who have the exact same setup that I have, yet no discussion on low speed chatter or lack of amps. Have they been able to get past any issues due to low amps? Maybe there is a solution that hasn't been posted?
Maybe, I'm just delaying the inevitable and I need to get a more suitable controller!

FOR SALE: XPro V2 Controller...cheap.

WANTED:___________ Controller

 

Really that's not far from the peak current. I would expect to see issues if it were 1 amp or more. But as a rule matching amps is best.

Are you having thermal cutout issues at full power?

 

Once, on the "Y" axis during my initial setup. Backed the pots down to around 75% for all axes and installed heat sinks. Haven't really ran it hard since, had to replace the motherboard in my laptop and now this.

 

Have you had it running ok and this issue is new? I recall a thread where a guy had similar issue and he swapped out his psu and that fixed it. as you motors arn't actually as far off the rated current as expected, you should be able so see if thats the issue just by uping those pots back to 100%.

the mother board wasnt damaged by the xpro?

another thing you could try is removing any ground connections just running +/-

 

Machine is all set up and all axis are moving. It was a nightmare trying to set up the TinyG with Quiet Spindle (PWM controls) using ChiliPeppr. I had to fight every single step of the way. My friend bought a OX kit from SMW3D.com with all the upgrades. They sent a manual to build the rails and install the motors, but when it came to the electronics not a single stitch of information. Complete Fail IMO. I spent 11 hours yesterday plus two 45min driving sessions (to and from my friends house to help him). To get it wired up, stepper motor wire colors in the tinyG github are wrong. I had to find the pairs by shorting pairs of wires until active braking on the motor is observed.

The quiet spindle upgrade (from smw3d.com) comes with a motor controller and there's a jumper for PWM control vs a built in Pot controller, but the actual controller is differnt than the one shown on the inventables website. https://www.inventables.com/projects/quiet-cut-spindle-upgrade-tinyg. So I dont know if the jumper position is its right or not. Jumper on one way I get no spindle movement, on the other its always on with limited code control. When I power the machine the spindle starts to turn, and I can't use M code to shut it down completely. M3 is supposed to turn it on (but its always on), M03 it actually speeds up the spindle. M05 Is supposed to shut it down, but it slows it to the slowest speed of all I have observed, but not off. S2000 should offer up a slow spindle speed, but it does not. However S8000 does ramp the speed up to the highest rpm observed.

As far as ChiliPeppr, its a neat interface. Setting up the Json server want not that hard, but was a little tricky. I can Jog through each axis (see video above), but I know the config settings are not right. 1mm in the jog interface is not 1mm of travel on the machine. Also I dont have the endstops mounted yet because I dont know where zero for X,Y,Z is supposed to live.

I am from the 3D printer world where 0,0,0 is back left of the machine, and limit switches stop the head at the home position of 0,0,0 using the min endstops of the control board, and the max travel is defined by the config in the FW. ex. if you have a table thats 1000mm x 500mm you set that in the Y and X config settings of the FW (so you dont crash the max end of a given axis), in this case it's ChiliPeppr. Do I use the Z max on the TinyG for the limit switch? Because the Zaxis zero changes based on the thickness of materials you are trying to cut (right?).

Lastly, in ChiliPeppr there is no Spindle controls at all. So I assume you are supposed to control it via Gcode or M and S commands. Since the M and S controls dont work as they should, I think I must have not config'd the PWM spindle correctly. In the Inventables blog post, they say you need to input some code to the tinyG via the Gcode console. In ChiliPeppr, I don't have a Gcode console (see here for what I have http://gyazo.com/9f18533aa9a5dbdbad728441e70efc61 ). I have a Serial Port Console to enter code. Inventables says to put $p1frq=5000 $p1csl=0 $p1csh=10000 $p1cpl=0 $p1cph=1 $p1pof=0 each one at a time to set the TinyG up for the proper spindle control. Maybe I did that wrong and this is why my M and S codes arent working correctly.

So much to figure out, so much conflicting or wrong information, so much information randomly placed over the net. I promise to do a complete video tutorial on how to setup an OX with a tinyG and wireless Raspberry Pi 2 running via ChiliPeppr. Ill do it just as soon as I figure it out myself.

 

I did have it running decently, ran a few jobs cutting wing ribs out of 1/8" balsa...I don't recall the low speed chatter on those jobs. It seems to have showed up after my laptop crash. I'll adjust the pots to 100% tonight, which makes sense, shouldn't I be able to run all of the 2.8A Nema 23 pots at 100% or 2.5A? And, I better test the output on my PSU, think I might have another one laying around, might give that a go as well.
Not sure what caused the motherboard issue, I was connected the the XPro when the screen went black. But, I really have no way of knowing if the XPro caused it. The good thing is that the MOBO was cheap ($70 compared to a new laptop) and the swap only took 1.5 hours to swap...shipping the new MOBO took 2 weeks.
Thanks for your help Jonny.

 

Cant promise i've been of a great deal of help, fingers crossed for you. I am guilty of liking a good rant about these manufacturers that hide important details and the responses i have had when i have confronted them about it has been nothing less than a guilty plea with clear cases of ignorance and empty claims in most cases.

That m/b issue raises alarms, but in replacing it, did it require a software reinstall? could some of your settings been changed?

Yes 2.5a should run 2.8a motors at 90% efficient. any less and i would be concerned.

 

Nope, found a way around having to reinstall anything. First thing I did was check my settings and everything looked unchanged. No luck on my end, adjusted pots, tested PSU, readjusted pots, ran tests...nothing got rid of the low speed chatter. I'm at a loss......

 

And the plot thickens! Created a cut file in CamBam at a 1000mm/min speed and my machine started cutting (in the air) at like 50 times smaller in size? Checked the cut file in OpenSCAM and everything looked good as far as dimensions, speeds and tooling. I'm wondering if I need to re-flash my XPro and reinstall GRBL controller. Already had to reinstall Sketchup. Wonder if the whole mobo issue messed up more than I thought?

 

Its like I didn't even make a post here. Wonderful place!

 

When you put two components in parallel they split the voltage i.e. 120v / 2 = 60v each, two components in series split the current i.e. 15A circuit / 2 = 7.5A each. If the two components require more than a total of 15A it will overload the breaker. My example assumes both components are equal otherwise it would be proportionate to the load of each.

 

Donald. Thanks for taking time to reply. I figured out the PSU issue some time ago.. I was speaking to the post I made that's five or so above this one.

Anyway I think I figured out my problems on my own.. Again thanks

 

. Could it be the Usb driver?

 

I'll check it out tonight, I'm just going to start over on the software/firmware side. I'll post my results.

 

Hey Akfreak, I think GCode console is the same as Serial Port console: Chilipeppr sends GCode over the serial port. If you type GCode into the console and press enter, it will be sent to your controller and executed...
I am not sure about the TinyG, as I am using an xPro controller, but I think you can type any GCode command at the console. When I type x0, my machine moves to x position zero.

If there is an error with your command, the controller will respond that via the console as well

 

Hey Strooom, sorry to break in on your conversation. I see your using an XPro controller, are you by chance running Nema 23's? If so, what is the output of your PSU? Have you had any difficulties running at low speed, like around 75-100mm/min? Just curious.

 

Yes I'm using NEMA 23HS22-2804S on the X and two of them on Y
So far I only tested with X and Z.
It is taking a lot of testing, measuring, trial and error to get the motors run fast, smooth and with sufficient torque.
I've been tweaking the GRBL settings, microstepping, and motor current for about 2 days..
Let me test slow speeds tomorrow and I"ll report back my results.

 

Hey guys...I'm new to all this. I have a question...and it may sound stupid to most of you...I apologize in advance! I am going to use the CNC xPRO Controller V2. It was recommended to me to use the Universal G-Code Sender. With regard to software, are UGCS and Mach3 basically the same thing? I understand that they are different, but do the accomplish the same thing? Can I just use one or the other to send G-Code to the machine? Or are they completely different TYPES of software? Please help me understand the difference between the two. Thanks.

 

Hey Justin,

They are the same kind of software. If I would list all the SW you need to do CNC milling, it would look like this

1. Make a design in Computer Aided Design (CAD). You create a 2D or 3D computer model of the thing you are building
2. Turn the CAD model into a Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) file. This derives from the 2D/3D model, a list of machine operations.. A de-facto standard language for the CAM file is G-Code
3. Send the G-Code to a machine. Moving the machine to the right starting position, pausing, calibrating etc. is the kind of things that this SW does.
4. On the machine itself, there is a software (called firmware) which interpretes the G-Code, and makes the stepper-motors (a.o) move and send back some monitoring info to the G-Code sender in step 3

Some examples :

1. CAD : Autocad, DraftSight, 123D Make, Sketchup
2. CamBam
3. GRBL Controller, Universal G-Code Sender, Chilipeppr, Mach3
4. GRBL

Some of them are free (with basic feature set), some of them are expensive (and could be more for professional use).

 

So basically i can just pick one or the other right?

 

Strooom...THANK YOU. That was very very helpful!

 

good question...i believe the answer is YES.

 

Hey Josh,
My power supply is 24V 16.6A ie. a 400W
This is sufficient for the worst case scenario :
3 NEMA23, each 2 coils, each coil max 2.5A = 15A
1 NEMA17, 2 coils, each coil max 0.64 A = 1.3A
which yields a total max consumption of 16.3A
Note this is a upper limit, worst case, as most of the time not all stepper coils will be driven to maximum current ALL at the same time.. Average power consumption will be nuch lower, I guess between 50 and 100W or 2 to 4 A. (let me do some measurements once my CNC is actually milling stuff)

Now onto the slow feed speeds:
Setting the feed to 75 mm/min (F75) I noticed the movement was not smooth. I could see and hear that while the motor was microstepping, there was clearly a rhythm for the full steps... So it looks like although the xPRO can do microstepping, it is not resulting in a real smooth substep motion.
So I decided to cut back on microstepping (going from 1/8 steps to 1/2 steps).
This was really good : at maximum speed (6500 mm/min) the machine still moves perfectly smooth, but at slow speeds the movement is also still relatively smooth. Of course stepper motors can never be driven as smooth at slow speeds as they are on their 'resonance' speed.

Another advantage is that at 1/2 steps (versus 1/8 steps), the GRBL controller has less work to do (4 times fewer steps to calculate)
Finally, the motor has more torque (http://www.micromo.com/microstepping-myths-and-realities)

 

I think you should read the previous posts before considering the xpro

 

Jonny are you talking to me? Which posts specifically? Thanks.