Greetings
This build is mostly created from leftovers from the spare parts bin.
Most parts are new / unused.
Recently acquired a new 40W tube (freebie) and have a bunch of motors, motion rails, wires, drive boards etc left over from other projects including a new smoothieboard.
Unfortunately … have never used a smoothieboard before.
Or
Have used Lightburn before.
Lightburn and smoothieboard are talking and there is some movement … machine probably could be use “as is” but it runs roughly.
The issues :
When stop button is activated software must be closed and restarted. i.e. M999 or $X won’t restart the program.
Pause button not working.
Keyboard shift plus move command causes a runaway which then crashes the machine. (Keyboard control plus move command does perform a small jog)
$H or G28 moves opposite of desired direction but only a small amount and then resets all axis(s) to zero.
Home is set wherever the head happens to be when program is opened.
Homing command does not cause the machine to seek the end stops.
Lightburn and smoothieboard have the most recent version of firmware.
config files are available to examine.
I found and read several different smoothieboard forums.
Tried lots of different configurations.
No joy.
Thought I’d try here.
Likely a few thousand of them at this point. Cohesion3D Mini and LaserBoard both run Smoothieware and have for a couple years now. I made changes to Smoothieware to handle faster image engraving. I can assure you that Smoothieware works very well with LightBurn. You will need the CNC build.
Stop is a ‘hard stop’ / abort. You may need to reset communication when doing this by right-clicking on the ‘Devices’ button.
Smoothieware does not support instant pause like other firmware does, so all we can do is pause sending data. Any moves in the planning buffer will be executed to completion. If you’re engraving an image and the moves are short, this will happen quickly, but if you are cutting long lines it might take a significant amount of time. The planning buffer is 32 moves long, by default.
Shift + Move sends a move that is 5x what you specify for move distance in the Move window. Ctrl + Move sends a move that is /5 what you specify for the move distance.
LightBurn uses G28.2 XY to home only the X & Y axis. If $H or Home in LightBurn are not working, you likely have the limits wired or configured incorrectly. Homing configuration is somewhat complicated because you need to know which corner to send the head to (direction settings using home_to_min or home_to_max), and whether the switches are normally open or closed (switch polarity settings).
This is normal until the board homes
See #4
Are you running the CNC build of Smoothieware? LightBurn requires this, but otherwise shouldn’t need anything special. Smoothieware is well supported by LightBurn and used by a lot of people - probably several thousand.
You also need to tell it how far it should travel before giving up (max_travel) and there are rates for fast & slow homing speeds, and retract distance.
Found the Cohesion3D firmware and config file here
This update has made a significant change in behavior.
Motors sound better and run smoother.
Thanks for explaining the keyboard commands …
Right clicking on “Devices” does reset the controller although this error message shows up in the console : WARNING: This is not a sanctioned board and may be unreliable and even dangerous. This MCU is deprecated, and cannot guarantee proper function
Guessing this warning can be ignored.
G28.2 and $H still moving just a small amount, not seeking the end stop switches.
Will continue to tinker with the config settings.
That warning message is presumably because you’re using a clone, likely with the cheaper version of the chip, and comes from Smoothieware itself. You should ask Arthur about that one. Happy to help.
Studying the Smoothieboard end stop pages has me heading in the correct direction.
X and Y axis are now homing correctly.
Z axis is moving the wrong direction but I think the fix is simple enough with a motor wiring change.
Yes. But it is indicative - the genuine Smoothie boards use a different spec of microcontroller running at a higher clock rate than the Chinese clones. They are different in other, engineering ways, but for the purposes of CNC motion, no different.
What you will find is that the clones can’t deliver the same performance as the genuine cards.
I use both - I’ve bought 5 or so Smoothies, but when I can’t buy them, like now, am forced to buy a clone and don’t suffer any pangs of remorse
If you’re suffering from stepper stutter or a lack of power, often that can be down to whether the board supports automatic current control. Some Chinese ones do, some don’t - it’s down to the combination of chip and driver chip and how they’ve implemented the smoothieboard design.
If you have varistor driver current control - like the Reprap, TinyG, etc. do - and you have the config set for ‘auto’, that can cause misbehaviour.
You can tell it in software to go the other way. If it’s wired, I would leave it.
And, I can’t stress enough the need to have two end stops per axis. People try and save ($2!) money by only wiring in one, but much safer to have two, and you get proper calibration.
Changing motor direction … Thanks for the mention … I also had the revelation of a software change last evening while watching a movie. That will be the first thing to try this morning.
The board is indeed the real thing not a clone. Purchased in late 2012 or early 13 but never used. Warning message may be coming from the recently installed Cohesion3D firmware.
Previous projects were using TinyG boards.
7 years between builds … I’m a bit rusty.
Things left to tackle … fans, temp sensors, water pump, safety interlocks etc.
Probably will be back with more questions.
I guess it may be the early version that used the 100GHz processor, not the 120GHz LPC1769 of later models, which is why you get the warning. The code checks the chip.
Have a word with Arthur Wolf and give him the serial number. He will be able to confirm.
Sounds like a reasonable explanation.
Moving back to a Smoothie firmware instead of the Cohesion3D firmware could fix the error message ?
Although …
I’m sure the primary problem was the switches not wired correctly combined with my rookie understanding of the config settings.
So far this is the best overall combination as the motors sound best and run cooler then previous attempts.
A good enough baseline to continue the build.
Thanks for you input.
Steve
For anyone who might find this thread in the future …
“cluster mode” improves the data speed from Lightburn software to the motion control board allowing for better quality in the “raster” or “etching” modes.
The Cohesion3D firmware works best for the “cluster mode” feature.
