ERC TimSav - Cheap DIY CNC Foamboard Cutter

kevinp

New member
I ordered my first 3D printer the same day I ordered my TimSav kit. I'm still waiting on it also. I've got plenty to do around the house in the meantime...
 

CapnBry

Elite member
About how long would you say? A month? Two months?
Not specific to the TimSav kits, but I bought a vector network analyzer for antennas and it has been sitting at the Shanghai airport for over a month now. Talking to the company and others who bought one around the same time, they say 60 days is the earliest you'll see stuff showing up now thanks to the massive backlog. The company I bought from were starting to ship replacements out for anyone who had been waiting more than 60 days, but they started having to re-ship so many that they changed the policy and now it is just a wait it out sort of thing.

Like epsilon said, these packages get put in the extra space on outgoing shipments so there's no way to know when there's going to be a spot for the packages to ship out. I would say two months as a starting point. Meanwhile I had a production run of some electronics made that finished assembly last Friday and are going to be delivered today, but I paid $120 to ship a box the size of a large shoebox via DHL.
 

Merv

Site Moderator
Staff member
Would something like this work for the z axis?

1590444890575.jpg
 
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I have it mechanically and electrically assembled but now I'm at the point where I knew things would go bad. I would be willing to pay another $89 to have had the thing flashed and the grbl installed. I have hours of messing around invested with trying to get it to work. I know it's probably just some simple thing I'm overlooking.

I've never done anything with Arduino stuff and Ed's instructions go really fast for someone trying to follow along and is totally new to the subject. In video 5 he is talking about downloading from a web site and then seems to go off on a tangent about using the files from Thingiverse. This is where I get confused.

When it's time to adjust the settings in the grbl controller and try to open the com port I get this:
1590705539314.png


I'm also not seeing the device in file explorer.

I'm pretty sure I have the correct com port selected.

Any ideas where I've gone off the rails?

Frustrated.
 
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The Hangar

Fly harder!
Mentor
I have it mechanically and electrically assembled but now I'm at the point where I knew things would go bad. I would be willing to pay another $89 to have had the thing flashed and the grbl installed. I have hours of messing around invested with trying to get it to work. I know it's probably just some simple thing I'm overlooking.

I've never done anything with Arduino stuff and Ed's instructions go really fast for someone trying to follow along and is totally new to the subject.

When it's time to adjust the settings in the grbl controller and try to open the com port I get this:
View attachment 170241

I'm also not seeing the device in file explorer.

I'm pretty sure I have the correct com port selected.

Any ideas where I've gone off the rails?

Frustrated.
Oh boy, you’re making me scared to start mine! :LOL: It’s scheduled to arrive tomorrow though!
 
No suggestions? I suppose everybody else had no problems with the programming stuff? I have about 8 hours into messing around and getting nowhere. I keep getting the no data from com port message no matter what I do.

I should have just gone to Office depot and have them print out the pattern and cut the parts by hand! I would have been done about two months ago. I"m feeling like a fool.

This wouldn't bother me so much but I have three guys besides myself who want an F-13. The prototype (90 mm) was a blast to fly but was lost to a bad esc. https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?3533357-F-20-Maiden-Flights No, it's not an F-20.

Can somebody please offer any advice?
 

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chris398mx

Master member
I have it mechanically and electrically assembled but now I'm at the point where I knew things would go bad. I would be willing to pay another $89 to have had the thing flashed and the grbl installed. I have hours of messing around invested with trying to get it to work. I know it's probably just some simple thing I'm overlooking.

I've never done anything with Arduino stuff and Ed's instructions go really fast for someone trying to follow along and is totally new to the subject. In video 5 he is talking about downloading from a web site and then seems to go off on a tangent about using the files from Thingiverse. This is where I get confused.

When it's time to adjust the settings in the grbl controller and try to open the com port I get this:
View attachment 170243

I'm also not seeing the device in file explorer.

I'm pretty sure I have the correct com port selected.

Any ideas where I've gone off the rails?

Frustrated.
If you every get it figured out, maybe make a short video to post on how to get it done. I haven't started on mine, mainly because i am concerned about this part of the build.
 

CapnBry

Elite member
When it's time to adjust the settings in the grbl controller and try to open the com port I get this:
View attachment 170243
I'm also not seeing the device in file explorer.
I'm pretty sure I have the correct com port selected.
Any ideas where I've gone off the rails?
The Arduino system can be daunting, considering things are constantly changing and becoming more complicated. I can understand your frustration. It is one of those things that is so popular and used by so many people of every skill level that googling answers is hard due to some information being outdated, incorrect but works in some weird cases, or just wrong.

You can start with going through what steps you've done, in detail. The basic steps are plug the Uno into your computer. Watch in the device manager under "Ports (COM & LPT)" to see which com port should be used. When you plug it in, a new COM port appears, when you unplug it, it will disappear. That's the one. There is no device in Windows Explorer.

Now in the Arduino software, open the GRBL sketch from File -> Examples -> (Examples from Custom Libraries) -> grbl -> grbl_upload. Verify you have the correct Arduino target specified in Tools -> Board -> Arduino / Genuine Uno, and the COM port under Tools -> Port. It might also help to go to File -> Preferences -> Show verbose messages during [X] compliation [X] upload (check both boxes).

Now just do Sketch -> Upload (or use the second button from the left on the toolbar). It takes a while, maybe a minute or two. Make a note of anything it says in the bottom black part of the window, if it says something that sounds like a bad thing, you'll have to copy paste what it says here for us to help. Once it is done uploading, if it all goes right, go to Tools -> Serial Monitor. Make sure the baud on the bottom right of this screen is "115200 baud" and the box to the left of that says "Newline" (I think that's right). Now type a question mark (?) in the box at the top and hit enter/press send. Sometimes the first one doesn't work so do it twice, at least 5 seconds after you've opened the serial monitor window. You should now see a response from glbl "<Idle|MPos:0.000,0.000,0.000|FS:0,0|WCO:0.000,0.000,0.000> ". If that all works you should be ready to go with grbl controller. Close all the Arduino windows and celebrate.
 
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You hit on a little issue. The grbl Controller doesn't exactly show Arduino Genuine Uno. Just Arduino Uno. No genuine. Does this matter?

Here's a question that will indicate my level of ignorance. When should the 12V power be plugged in? Does the Arduino bot get it's power from the usb cable? These may sound like silly questions to most of you but if you have never operated a dial phone or manual transmission car before you might be lost if no one has ever shown you how to do it.

It was a fun project up until video 5. Hopefully this thing can spark joy for me eventually.
 

CapnBry

Elite member
You hit on a little issue. The grbl Controller doesn't exactly show Arduino Genuine Uno. Just Arduino Uno. No genuine. Does this matter?
Haha welp I just downloaded the latest Arduino 1.8.12 (I was on 1.8.10) and you're right it now just says Arduino Uno there.

Here's a question that will indicate my level of ignorance. When should the 12V power be plugged in? Does the Arduino bot get it's power from the usb cable?
No need for 12V when programming it. The Uno will take power from whichever power source is higher. If there is 12V plugged in, it will use that with its own internal regulator to bring it down to 5V. If only the USB is plugged in, then it will just run on the 5V USB power. 12V isn't needed until you need to run the steppers.