Foamforce
Elite member
Mine is a brand name Arduino, so that makes this surprising. I originally had an off-brand one and switched to this one to try to fix a previous issue. Hm.
What does it take to set up the end stop switches?
ERC TimSav - Cheap DIY CNC Foamboard Cutter
- Thread starter Edwardchew
- Start date
What does it take to set up the end stop switches?
Dudley1001
Member
Its been a while but I think you have to edit the config.h file then a couple of the $20 $21 if I remember. I will see if I still have the modified files but I used GRBL 1.1h_servo and not the one for the timsav as it allows for laser mode
Foamforce
Elite member
@Dudley1001, thank you for all the help! I don’t have it figured out yet, but I’ve been taking your advice to heart and trying things out.
Tonight I looked into the problem of the shield not powering the Arduino. It turns out that the 12v input from the shield isn’t connected to the VIN pin. So to provide the 12v to the Arduino, I had to solder a short jumper wire from the output of the fuse on the shield to the VIN pin. I found that advice on another forum. That works, and now I have power to my Arduino via the shield. That eliminates the cheap-o power supply that I was using for the Arduino as the problem.
After that I tried another cut, and it errored out again. It errors out in a different place each time. So then I wondered if it was interference coming over the power line, so I tried connecting it to a 3s battery. The battery was at storage charge, so only 11.4v, so safe. Unfortunately that didn’t solve it either and it errored out again.
So then I went back to cutting with my computer instead of the offline controller. Success. At least for the smallish test I was doing. However, I was getting occasional unexplained stoppages with my computer before too, just much less frequent and different in nature. With my computer, the cutting head would just stop every once in awhile. It was good for about a year after I got a good power supply, then started doing that again. With the offline controller, it skips random steps. It’s far less frequent with the computer though.
So now I’m wondering... Interference over the air? My wifi router? I’m suspicious of the ribbon cable that came with the controller because it’s not twisted. I tried twisting the wires the I jumped between the ribbon cable and the Arduino, but that didn’t do it. So I think I’ll try removing the ribbon cable entirely and just jump straight to the controller.
This has been a confounding problem, but I appreciate any and all advice you give! Thanks!
Tonight I looked into the problem of the shield not powering the Arduino. It turns out that the 12v input from the shield isn’t connected to the VIN pin. So to provide the 12v to the Arduino, I had to solder a short jumper wire from the output of the fuse on the shield to the VIN pin. I found that advice on another forum. That works, and now I have power to my Arduino via the shield. That eliminates the cheap-o power supply that I was using for the Arduino as the problem.
After that I tried another cut, and it errored out again. It errors out in a different place each time. So then I wondered if it was interference coming over the power line, so I tried connecting it to a 3s battery. The battery was at storage charge, so only 11.4v, so safe. Unfortunately that didn’t solve it either and it errored out again.
So then I went back to cutting with my computer instead of the offline controller. Success. At least for the smallish test I was doing. However, I was getting occasional unexplained stoppages with my computer before too, just much less frequent and different in nature. With my computer, the cutting head would just stop every once in awhile. It was good for about a year after I got a good power supply, then started doing that again. With the offline controller, it skips random steps. It’s far less frequent with the computer though.
So now I’m wondering... Interference over the air? My wifi router? I’m suspicious of the ribbon cable that came with the controller because it’s not twisted. I tried twisting the wires the I jumped between the ribbon cable and the Arduino, but that didn’t do it. So I think I’ll try removing the ribbon cable entirely and just jump straight to the controller.
This has been a confounding problem, but I appreciate any and all advice you give! Thanks!
I had the stopping problem too. It was the drivers over heating. Have you touched the heat sinks on the drives to see if they're hot? A small 12v fan blowing on them solved that problem. I'll attach a pic after the coffee takes affect.
Foamforce
Elite member
With the offline controller, I’m nearly out of ideas. I tried several things that people mentioned online. I removed every arc, reduced decimal point precision to two places, and reformatted the SD card. I’ve found other reports online of these controllers having the same issues.
Hooking it back up to my computer worked fairly well. I cut two sheets with only one random stoppage. That was with a fan on it, and the heat sinks were cool. I had previously adjusted the vref on them.
One thing that I’m looking at now is if I can incorporate the grbl servo changes into the most recent version of grbl. The servo version uses grbl .9, and the most recent version is 1.1. It’s possible that my controller isn’t compatible with the older version. I looked into it and only one file was changed, but it refers to several variables in other files that don’t seem to exist anymore.
My best bet though is probably to work on grounding my machine. I watched a couple videos on it and you’re supposed to use star grounding. I think for the TimSav that would mean a wire from the X axis beam, a wire from the Y axis beam, and a wire from a ground pin on the Arduino, connected together and run to ground. Has anybody else done this? Pics?
Hooking it back up to my computer worked fairly well. I cut two sheets with only one random stoppage. That was with a fan on it, and the heat sinks were cool. I had previously adjusted the vref on them.
One thing that I’m looking at now is if I can incorporate the grbl servo changes into the most recent version of grbl. The servo version uses grbl .9, and the most recent version is 1.1. It’s possible that my controller isn’t compatible with the older version. I looked into it and only one file was changed, but it refers to several variables in other files that don’t seem to exist anymore.
My best bet though is probably to work on grounding my machine. I watched a couple videos on it and you’re supposed to use star grounding. I think for the TimSav that would mean a wire from the X axis beam, a wire from the Y axis beam, and a wire from a ground pin on the Arduino, connected together and run to ground. Has anybody else done this? Pics?
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