Just wire them across the switch terminals that you are using. one lead to each wire. Similar to these will do the trick. 10 Pcs 0.47uF Polyester Film Capacitor Radial Lead 63V

 

The probe gets wired to A5, which is in the black connector on the xPro board.

 

I sort of got it working I can get it to move down and stop on the touch plate it won't raise up with the next command I put it on the back burner I'm working on getting my step mm accuracy on X Y Z

 

Correct, on the previous page Snokid posted a link to instructions. I have not done it yet, instead I just disabled the hard limits for now. In fact you could quickly do the same to verify that is indeed the problem. Just set $21=0, hard limits off.

Here is what Snokid posted below my initial issue.
CNC xPRO Driver | Page 15 | OpenBuilds

Good luck.

 

Added the capacitors and homing now works, I get no alarms while homing.

That being said I'm still getting alarms if I turn on hard limits!!! No idea what is going on there.

 

Another newbie question here.

After homing the working tool (router) ends up bottom left corner with Z-axis raised. I assume from my high school geometry this location is x=0,y=0,z=X where X is some positive value to clear the work area.

Why is is that my machine coordinates indicate negative values? I would have thought that bottom left corner after homing would be close to 0 if not zero and not some positive values.

Is there a different cartesian coordinate system for GRBL or CNC in general? What am I missing?

 

Check the explanation on the grbl FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions · grbl/grbl Wiki · GitHub

I had the same questions when I first started using homing.

 

I'm using a 12v 30a power supply with the CNC Xpro board and it's not providing enough power. If I have USB connected it has enough power but once that is disconnected the LED lights dim and it doesn't have enough power to function correctly. My use doesn't require or lend itself to have the USB always connected.

Any suggestions? I've tried multiple power supplies to rule out a bad power supply.

 

I'm using a 24v 360w power supply, so far so good. NEMA 23 motors

 

Ok, I am getting the following error when trying to connect to board.

"No supported kill alarm lock method for this version"

This was after I hit the emergency stop button. Button is reset and power is running to motors. I try to connect using UGCS and it stalls at "Connected to xxxx ..." then waits a while then switches to "Connection closed ...".

Even tried disconnecting the mains and connected to board just through USB but same result.

Have I fried the board somehow?

***EDIT**

Just went into UGCS > Settings > Firmware Settings > GRBL

And it says "GRBL has not finished booting".

What is going on?

 

How are you using the xPro without being connected to the USB port?
With the power supply plugged in are both the main power and 5v LEDs lit (on the USB end of the board)?

 

I'm using the Xpro as a custom Arduino based motor driver board to run multiple motors via push buttons. It's going to be inside a project with no need or access to USB.

With the power supply plugged in the power and 5v LEDs do light up but they are half dim and the TX/RX and other LEDs do not light up. Once I plug in the USB the LEDs get brighter and then I see the other LEDs blinking and everything works as intended.

Is this board not capable of running solely off a 12v 30a power supply? Would a 24v supply fix my issue?

Thanks

 

That doesn't sound right. Maybe a problem with the board? Try contacting @Michael for feedback.

 

Hi @Michael (Mike), any chance you (or someone else here) can point me to the pinout assignment for the ISP pins on the board.

Thanks

 

I just got a 24v 14.5a power supply and that seems to have fixed my issue. Thought I should post in case someone else stumbles upon this same issue. If you're using USB along with the board like it's original purpose the 12v supplies should be fine.

 

Pinouts are in this diagram: 2. Connecting CNC xPRO · Spark-Concepts/xPRO Wiki · GitHub

Even though it says V1, it is the same for the V2 board.

 

When trying the print the DIN clip it is really small! Did you create this in metric or standard?

Thanks

 

Anyone using a fan to cool the board? Which fan and specs? How did you wire it up and not run into a current draw problem?

 

This is metric

 

Has anyone programmed the XPro with Arduino code to control the steppers? I wanted to do so but haven't been able to figure out how to move the motors. This picture shows what the Arduino pins for the peripherals are (D9, A0, etc.) but it doesn't say how to access the motor drive pins through the Arduino software. Thanks!

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Spark-Concepts/xPRO/master/wiki/V2 xPRO pinout.jpg

 

Hi Eric,

Can you explain a little more on what your intentions are. You control the steppers through GRBL code. Using various commands you can control the stepper motions. More information can be found on the GRBL wiki.

Configuring Grbl v0.9 · grbl/grbl Wiki · GitHub

 

Originally I was hoping to control the steppers using the XPro board by programming it with Arduino code. The reason I wanted to do this was so that I could infrequently send waypoints from the computer to the XPro, and the XPro with my code on it would handle getting to those waypoints. I kind of wanted to play around with my own controls software instead of GCode. I thought that driving the motors would be something simple like just toggling the right ports. This isn't for a CNC machining tool, by the way, I'm trying to make a 2 axis drawing bot, doesn't need to be as precise as a machining device.

When GRBL code is loaded on the XPro, how are the motors controlled? Do you send a number of steps to take? Or a pulse every time you want to take a step? Or do you send a distance to travel? How easy is it to vary motor speed dynamically?

I'm very unfamiliar with GRBL, so thanks for your help. If I can set up the XPro to do what I want with the GRBL code on it that would be great.

 

Eric, I don't think you'll get much support for running anything other than GRBL here. This is what the board supports.

The GRBL control language is very flexible. You can string commands together and "stream" them to the board. This is essentially what most control software does such as UniversalGCodeSender. You can control speed and the steps are very smooth with this board however there are many factors to consider which depend on your hardware setup and linkages. The simplest test is connecting a stepper up to one of the axis on the board, connecting the board to the Arduino IDE and running commands through Arduino IDE stream window.

 

Alright, it looks like I should look into streaming and play around with it a bit. I'll have to figure out the basic GRBL commands, which look a bit dense, but I'm sure I can find a lot of resources by googling. Thanks!

 

the cncxpro is a Arduino board paired with stepper driver chips. So you can do what you want.

in Arduino code you have to include a 'Stepper' library then set the motor speed all you do then is send the number of steps and the direction to the chip and the motor moves.

what grbl does is code that for you by using simple commands.

Bob

 

Hi snokid, I was curious about that, thanks for the input. When I looked at the Arduino library it involved connecting the stepper to specific Arduino pins, like so:
Stepper myStepper(stepsPerRevolution,8,9,10,11);
From this file in the Stepper library: Arduino - StepperOneRevolution

Do you know which pins should be referenced on the XPro board for which motors?

 

Hi Ronald, I saw that picture but didn't understand how it related to the Arduino Stepper library, which wants to be connected to four pins. The picture, in contrast, just has a single pin listed per axis. Do you know what the lines of Arduino code would be to drive a motor forward a step or change the speed?

It still sounds like using the GRBL tools might be better, I just wanted to get a clear picture of what the Arduino-like options were, thank you.

 

first to answer your question the pinouts are right here....https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Spark-Concepts/xPRO/master/wiki/V2 xPRO pinout.jpg

what you are trying to do (make a plotter) the cncxpro and a ox cnc would be somewhat overkill but the perfect setup. If you go to youtube and do a little searching a lot of people when they first get their cnc built tape a pen where the router would go and do a drawing.

the workflow is pretty simple
draw something you want to plot in cad software a lot of people including me use sketchup, it's free pretty easy to get up to speed up on.
then you add the CAM plugin to sketchup sketchucam is another common plugin and also the one I use. for a plotter you would just enter the distance you want to pen to drop on to the paper instead of how deep to cut, really wouldn't be any other changes.

the CAM part of this will generate g-code this is what you send the cncxpro. The xpro figures out what f200 x.090 means and moves the steppers to where they need to be.

I get the feeling you are trying to do this on the cheap, not saying it can't be done, but a lot of times you end up spending more in the long run then if you just saved up a little and went another route....
C-Beam Machine Mechanical Bundle
if you look at what you get that's a pretty good deal. No figuring out does this fit do I need this, buying the wrong parts....etc....

A lot of people will help even the greenest newbie get them going including me, feel free to p.m. me if you need help....
long winded I know but I really like this stuff (just wish I had more time!!!)
Bob