Hi all, I have my C-Beam all together and I have my power supply, Arduino Uno and GRBL Shield all hooked up. I am trying GRBL Controller and I am able to jog the axis' correctly. I load a simple gcode file and hit begin and the machine seems (to me) to go wild. The display shows the green line and the progress of the cutter (I haven't installed the router yet as I am doing dry trials until I get it right). I have watched Mark's videos dozens of times and when the machine starts up it is relatively quiet. Mine is extremely noisy. I just watched the OX build video and Mark is able to record as the machine is running. Mine is so loud that the dog runs away and it can be heard all over the house. Any ideas would be appreciated! P,S, The same thing happens in GRBL Panel! Thanks Steve B.
You need to adjust the variable resistors on the GRBL shield. This is a small plastic screw-like thing. Be very gentle with it. See the instructions here: Using grblShield · synthetos/grblShield Wiki · GitHub If you set it too low, the motors will be underpowered and skip steps. If you set it too high, the motors vibrate and make a lot of noise and possibly overheat. The other possibility is that vibrations are being transmitted to other things. For example, on my CNC router, I made the fateful decision to add some extra T-nuts into some of the slots to make it easier to bolt things on later. And these T-nuts rattle a lot while it is working, making it noisier than it otherwise would be. So check for that. It might help to put a thick soft pad between your machine and its table, for example. -D
Thanks Jonathan, I have a GRBL Shield by Keye Studio. I doesn't have any adjustment for the axis'. The noise I am getting is loud screaching and siren type noises as well as others I can't describe. It isn't a vibration thing. I can jog the axis' just fine with the normal whirring of the motors but when I run a program as simple as a circle it seems the axis' don't move together to produce the circle but the jog separately, and I will say it, sounds like they are fighting against each other if that makes any sense. Maybe I should post a video??
A video of the CNC , supposed to be a 3" circle?? Facebook I am trying to upload the video and I can't but click on the Facebook link and a video comes up but only part of the view?? At least you can hear the noise!! Click the window when it goes to the video! Thanks
I don't think I've ever seen that kind of noises and behaviour before. I think your best bet for debugging this is to divide and conquer. (a) The problem might be in the different g-code that you are generating (speeds/accelerations) compared to jogging (b) The problem might be the mechanical and things are slipping and skipping steps (c) The problem might be in the wiring (d) The problem might be in one axis but not others So disconnect the wiring for all the motors except for one axis. That will let you see how that axis moves and the problems of that axis alone. Then, on that axis, loosen the flexible coupler and/or the drive pulley so that the motor moves freely without interacting with the mechanical drive system. Now try jogging that axis and see what happens. Change the speed at which you jog and see what happens. Run the g-code. All the other axes will be immobile except for the one axis. See what happens with that axis. Start adding back things. Retighten the flexible coupler so the mechanics run. What happens? Once you have one axis debugged, start working on a second axis. Then the third. Keep us posted on what you find out. It would definitely be useful for others who have the same issues later on if you post what the solution is. -D
Well, I went back and worked on each of the axis' individually and I thought I had everything working properly. I went back to Mark's video and he paired the wires red green blue yellow for each axis using the Xpro. Mine were the same way. I looked at his video of the OX and one of his axis' was moving in the wrong direction so he swapped the B1 and B2 to change the direction of travel. I did the same with my Y axis and had it jogging correctly. I ran one of the C-Beam files and it moved without all the noise. Mind you the motors are still loud but not the noise from the video. So I hooked a pen up and ran a pen plot file and got nothing but garble. At least it was moving like a CNC but not making any sense! I went back to the C-beam video and changed the wires back to red green blue yellow and the Z axis is backwards. So I can switch the B1 and B2 and change the direction. My GRBL settings are the same as Mark's in the JPG file and I have tried Both GRBL Panel and GRBL Controller with the same result. When I run the jogging on the inches setting (non-metric) I set it at feedrate other than 10 and it doesn't jog properly. When I click the metric box and set it at feedrate 500 distance 10 like the video shows and the jogging is loud and minimal, meaning it buzzes and moves maybe the 10mm. Now I am having a problem with the jogging. When I jog any axis it will jog the 10mm sometimes and other times it is more and sometimes it is about 200mm?? I set X and Y back to red green yellow blue and Z to red green blue yellow everything jogs properly. If I check the metric box the jogs are 10mm and loud. Uncheck the box with a feedrate of 10 the jogging is quiet and smooth. So I am at a loss, maybe there are other settings and I am just a newbie or perhaps the controller is disfunctional?? Appreciate any help and guidance!! Frustrated!
Hi @crnrstndes Don't let it get to you, you are almost there. Its a matter of tuning the machine at this point and the good news is that you are on an awesome helpful forum full of people willing to help out and get you up and running. lets see if we can dive in and figure out what could be causing this. First, always please always be sure to unplug power to your machine when ever switching motor (or any) wires. this can destroy your board. Sounds to me like you are stepping too fast and the motors are stalling. It also sounds like the acceleration is off. What do you have your steps set to on your board? The jumper settings on the mine are set for the default 8th stepping that come on the xPRO I will need to get back in the shop tomorrow to look over my recent grbl settings but can you please post yours here so we can take a look at them. Thank you EDIT: I thought you were using the xPRO board i see your using the GRBL Shield by Keye Studio I see they also have jumpers to set the micro stepping as well: Jumpers to set the Micro-Stepping for the stepper drivers. (Some drivers like the DRV8825 can do up to 1/32 micro-stepping ) So make sure they are set on to 8th steps
Thanks for the reply Mark! This is the board I am using and I went with this one because they had a website for information about their products (unfortunately very limited information as I found out after my purchase). They say this is compatible with V.08c, I have V.09 installed...maybe a problem. They also say the steppers can be micro-stepped with jumpers but don't say how to do it! I was going to go with the Xpro but it has been out of stock for a while now and I wanted to get up and running asap. When I originally looked at cnc I wanted to get an all-in-one solution but decided the $5k plus price tag was too much. After a year of research and watching your video a dozen times at least, I believed I could build a cnc!! Maybe I was a little naive to think the electronics would be as easy as the machine build was! I wanted simple and now after hours and hours of reading and trial and error I have come up with mostly error. This is not a criticism, just an observation, when selling a package like the C-Beam, while the videos are a bonus, perhaps a complete solution including software and electronics should be covered. And more importantly an alternative when the Xpro isn't available. I am thinking of going Xpro on Friday, wink, wink but I don't want to sink any more money into this venture if I can't get it running! I am a woodworker who makes custom cutting boards and I wanted the cnc for inlay work like David does in his video: As for the settings, I have set the GRBL settings the same as the .jpg in the C-Beam download. Thanks
Prior to wiring up my DRV8825s to the shield, I read through this: Arduino CNC Shield V3.XX – Assembly Guide | Protoneer.co.nz Skip down to the "First Run" section. It describes the jumper position and gives other very useful information. Mark's wiring scheme may not match up with the shield you are using since it is not an xpro. My generic cnc shield did not come with jumpers so I had to buy them separately. Also, to properly set up your driver current, here is a great video. It may help with the noise: *EDIT- I thought your shield was a clone of the Protoneer V3, but I see that it is not. Also, I see it is marked with input of 12 volts yet the sales page says 12-36V. You would think the board would also say that. Hopefully, it came with instructions for setting the jumpers. If not, I bet it is similar to the Protoneer V2 so those settings in the link I put above may be accurate. Protoneer V2
Thanks Giarc, my board is identical to the Protoneer V3 Arduino CNC Shield V3.51 - GRBL v0.9 compatible - Uses Pololu Drivers | eBay I will start reading!!
the micro stepping is set under the driver chips.... I agree with Mark post a screen shot of your grbl settings for a start... I know it doesn't seem like it but this is an easy fix!!!
A positive update!! Thanks for all the help thus far from everybody! I followed the advice of Giarc with the link he provided for the Protoneer V3 board and as Mark stated my steps needed to be reduced to 1/8th. The Protoneer site indicated I needed to add two junction pins to the driver board per axis.So I went to a local computer repair shop and asked if he sold jumper pins? He told me in 16 years I was the first one to ask for them in 16 years?? I took the jumpers home and installed them and jogged the axis' and they were so quiet and smooth running. So, I loaded the Hello World Foam file and I believe it went through the proper motions!! Very exciting!! I am not that naive to think I am out of the woods yet, being a newbie and all LOL but I am well on my way thanks to all the help I received here!! Thanks all!!
As an update. I have been playing around with the vector programs, Inkscape and cam programs, Makercam and then GRBL panel and GRBL Controller. I found I was getting error messages from GRBL Controller from time to time, not sure why, it said it was an unhandled exception. It seems it had problems depending on the file I used .cnc worked great, .nc and others seemed to work some of the time. I found a GRBL Controller clone called PiBot GRBL and it seems to be very stable and works much better than the other GRBLs. I have also been using UGS and I really like the fact that it has a visualizer built in. I made a pen holder got the spindle mount and ran the OX Plate file and the plate cam out perfect! So I downloaded a jpg image, worked it through Inkscape to produce the svg file, opened it in Maker cam and generated the gcode files and opened the file in UGS and ran the program and it worked great. Next I need to put a bit in the spindle and do an actual cut. Thanks to all!
I started with a jpg image and converted it to an svg in Inkscape. Then I opened the file in Makercam which only reads svg files. You open the svg file and then decide whether you want a profile cut or a pocket cut. You highlite the part and then choose profile/pocket from the cam drop down. A window will open and you can choose your speeds, bit etc. Then you hit OK and then from the cam drop down you hit "calculate all", this calculates the tool path. Then you just goto the cam drop down and choose export gcode and it gets you to save the file with a name. Then you open the file in GRBL Contoller/Panel or Universal Gcode Sender and start cutting.
Sorry for the late reply LOL, I was able to use Makercam just fine. I use it all the time now, the only thing you need to do is change the preferences, the default svg resolution from 72 to 90 if you are using Inkscape generated svg files! I also downloaded the makercam.swf file and open it through flash player so I don't have to use makercam online!
