Hello Everyone, I'm new to this community and to CNC electronics. I own an old 5x9 Multicam 3000 router which I bought from a guy who went out of business. it came with a Bob Campbell's Design control box that looks well built. My issue is that when I turn on mach3 and hit the reset button the spindle(router) will start making jerky moves and would not respond to the mach3 commands. I had a guy come out to fix it and he told me it was a problem with the 5v power supply that powers the ESS. we ended up changing the supply and the problem was fixed. a month later the problem came back and now the tech said that is probably something else not related to what he did. my questions are? Have you ever seen this? Should I change the ESS card or the Breakout Board card? Should I upgrade the whole box? is the new Black box an alternative to me? Please, if you have a minute to give me some advise I would really appreciate it. Thanks, Will C.
About 10 years ago, I was given a Phoenix CNC router inside a cabinet. Its working area is about 21 inches by 21 inches. The company that built the router went out of business. I had to replace the electronics with breakout board and stepper motor drivers from Probotix and USB SmoothStepper. A few months ago, the machine was moved from an old woodshop to a new woodshop. The machine didn't work anymore and after troubleshooting, I had to replace the breakout board and USB SmoothStepper with CNC XPro V3 board and got the machine working. A few weeks ago, two of three drivers went bad and I had to replace them with new ones. The old breakout board needed Mach3 software to run and the CNC XPro V3 board needed GRBL Panel or any GRBL software to run. I suggest that you replace the boards with CNC XPro V4 board and use GRBL software. If the drivers don't show green lights, replace them.
Jeff, Thanks for taking the time to respond. I've been wondering if the electronics on my box are old and need upgrading. the CNCxpro V4 board sounds great. do you think it would work well with my existing gecko drives? does this board replace the ESS? what kind of file format do GRBL uses and what program generates it.? I use Vcarve/Mach3 Thanks for your help. Will C. please see the image below. is this it?
If you have to get new drivers, I would get higher amperage drivers like the DQ542MA drivers. The new Black Box may also be an option. I can't remember the ratings of those drivers though. Your machine looks like a beast and the Xpro would be under-powered unless you used it to control external drivers but then you are paying twice as much as you need to unless your Gecko drivers still work. Mach 3 does not work with GRBL see: Grbl and Mach 3 . You can use the drivers you have with an arduino based system like the Xpro running the Geckos as external drivers, or just hooking a $20 arduino to the drivers and running GRBL. This may work too: DB25 MOTION CONTROLLER ARDUINO SHIELD It plugs into the Arduino and then you just hook your DB25 Parallel port connector to it. Also, V-carve works with machines running GRBL.
