I have been chipping away at this for a bit and it has been going well. Order a little bit, assemble, order some more, assemble, repeat. I have it mostly assembled but now I'm to the things I haven't given much thought until now. The machine will be a 40x40 Acro (2 axis), 4w Laser & Arduino Uno w/Grbl 1.1 ( and maybe Lightburn ) First topic I am having issues finding info on is endstops and slaved motors... On my large CNC that I built years ago I have the Y axis also propelled by dual steppers. Both have their own endstops which I home in Mach3 or UCCNC before every run in order to "square" the machine. My plan was 3 endstops, X, Y&A to zero everything. How is squaring done with GRBL, is it the same?
Hello. I am building the ACRO 1010 2 axis 3 motors. I have Home/Limit switches at the ends of both axis. I ran the far Y axis switch wires to the home switch, and from the home switch to my controller. Did the same for my X axis. I just wanted the extra safety of knowing it would never go but so far on each axis. Just waiting for my laser to show up now.
@Bob Waterfield what did of shield are you using with your ACRO? I bought the elesksmaker and it has been nothing but trouble.
I went with the Openbuilds/Spark Concepts CNC controller ver4. CNC xPRO V4 Controller Stepper Driver I am using lightburn software. So far I am happy with everything. I used drag chains on both Y axis and along the top of the X axis. Machine is too big to have those snake cables running all over the place. I was using a computer power supply (350 watt) but found out it did not have enough power, so I upgraded to the Openbuilds power supply.12V/29A Meanwell Power Supply Bundle I was just about to clean everything up and burn a Grid onto by table when I burned out the Mosfet that drives the laser, this was my fault, had not provided a heat sink for the mosfet. New one should arrive on Monday. Will try to post a pic soon.
I still don't have any limit switches installed. My main concern is getting the machine to square before I run a project. I am working on getting the machine table, enclosure & ventilation built. Waiting on more parts to come in the mail at the moment. I got the GRBLDuino Shield because it has screw terminals. I haven't had time for extensive use (machine is in a bunch of pieces right now) but it worked great for the week I had it setup in the garage. I cut a bunch of card stock & cardboard, also did a few grey-scale tests on "birch-like" ply and was pleased That was when I realized to use indoors I will have to build a enclosure and vent out a window.
That is where I am at now, trying to build a ventilated enclosure. Its ok for just engraving, not much smoke, but cutting.....you need exhaust.
