It’s been a busy personal and work life for the past few weeks so it’s been difficult to ‘tinker’……….I have however made something new!………….. Continue reading “Wanhao Duplicator 9 – New X Axis parts coming”
Tag: stepper
Wanhao D9 – Poor Y axis design and free printable fix
During my tinkering time with the printer, trying to improve the print quality I noted that something seemed a little ‘off’ with the Y axis movements……
Continue reading “Wanhao D9 – Poor Y axis design and free printable fix”
Technical Stuff – Noise
Well, having left the printer on overnight to knock out an urgent print for a friend, I’ve discovered that, it’s a little on the noisy side!
The Wanhao D9 has FOUR fans! (yep, FOUR)
One 60x60x15mm fan in the power supply and Three 40x40x10
Two of these…AAA HZHZ 4010 MS 24V DC 0.10Amp fans
One on the extruder, right by the number 7, top yellow arrow
This one is the fan that cools the extruder block
TinyG – G2 – Arm Processors
Reading up in-depth more about Arduinos, CNC’s and ‘stuff’, I’ve found a superb product called TinyG
Reading further on the Synthetos website about the TinyG, I discovered a forked branch of the code that is called G2. It’s basically a TinyG Arm port that uses their G-Shield, which at the time of writing is, unfortunately sold out.
I’ve noted that the G Shield uses TI’s DRV8825 stepper drivers
Whilst Googling those parts, I discovered – This website that basically suggests that they’re pin compatible with the A4988 used in those cheap drivers I picked up. Main advantage of the G-Shield device is that it can do 1/32th of a microstep, so much finer resolution for the CNC. Given that i’ve trouble locating the spindle within roughly the 30×20 area of the CNC without smashing into the limits, I think i’ll manage with 1/16th for now
Oh, the picture.
The V2 sounded rather good, so, I picked up an Arduino Due also, my favourite cheap chinese webstore had a voucher for 10% off so I bagged this for just over $23 AUD
Grand total for my new Shield is now $44.59. and I have the option of standrd TinyG GRBL, or G2
I think i’m going to spend more time buggering about making the thing cut than actually cutting anything…..Still have the software to go yet
Finally, why I haven’t bought a Syntheos product.
I can see that the TinyG V8 board has been out a little while now, there’s headway being made to V9, even some reports of them out for testing. I’m on the wall right now and really happy learning, tinkering. i’ll be jumping and buying a V9 when it’s released :-). V8 is a very well reviewed product so I can’t wait to see what V9 has to offer.
For those of you less into the electronics and general tinkering – highly recommend to get a V8, it’s almost plug and play with these cheap, chinese CNC’s
TinyG and G2 – an idea for the future!?
Have been reading up on control methods for the CNC (yep, too much reading, not enough actual do-ing),
Stumbled across something called GRBL, which to summise,is, “an arduino CNC controller”
There’s a shedload of websites regarding GRBL…..so……
I actually own various quantities of each of the following microcontroller boads that i’ve acquired over the years, a few more modern ones include
- Arduino Duemanelivove
- Teensy V3.0
- Intel Galileo
- ST Stellaris Launchpad
- Raspberry Pi (too many of these, one of the first 1000, one B 256 Mb, two B 512Mb, two A+ and one 2!
And, given my recent discovery of GRBL,and a penchant for hoarding un-used demo boards,
I’ve purchased one of these………
It’s a blatant clone of a couple of other shields out there, at under eight AUD though, it was worth a punt
it uses the standard Polulu style driver modules – that use the A4988 Stepper Driver from Allegro MicroSystems
I picked up five of them also….for just under $14 AUD, three for now, a fourth if I ever figure out 4 axis machining and a fifth as i’ll probably blow something up
so, for a grand sum of $13.81 Plus $7.63 = $21.44 delivered, I have a nice CNC Shield for my Arduino