Machsupport Forum
Third party software and hardware support forums. => Promote and discuss your product => Topic started by: nerginer on October 25, 2010, 02:58:50 AM
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Hi,
I am a big fun of mach3. I decided to use mach3 for my homemade 3d printer like reprap or makerbot. I use an arduino for the extruder temperature control. A host software is messaging over usb (serial rs232). mach3 is controlling the 4D system via gcode. I have a problem. The serial communication has a negative effect on mach3.
the motors did not work smooth when I plug the usb.
Please send me your advice to correct this issue.
Regards,
Nuri Erginer
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Mach needs most of your computer resource to provide the correct timing etc.
Just a thought, but...... Using an external timing device such as the "Smooth Stepper" may free-up sufficient Mach resource to allow your RS232 communication.
Tweakie.
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Definitely post what you find! I am interested in making and installing a Rep Rap head on my Sherline/A2ZCNC mill.
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I rewrite the arduino firmware. It will not cominicate with pc. It is now standalone temperature control system. Mach3 can run smoothly now. I will let you know about the progress.
regards,
Nuri Erginer
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What are you using to create the G-Code?
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I am using skeinforge (http://fabmetheus.crsndoo.com/)
it gets 3d stl file as input and produce g-code. it has lots of parameters for fine tuning.
regards,
Nuri Erginer
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There has been another discussion of this , what you might want to consider is using the spindle speed as the extruder control. Would give you a way to start and stop the extrusion, as well as control the extrusion rate. Might require that you do some translation of output codes, but that should be a faily straight-forward text substitution which could be done using find/replace all, or by writing a small program in basic/C/other language of choice.
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what I am trying to do is easy switching from a cnc to 3d printer. Mach3 will be the software. You will plug a extrusion head instead of a spindle and you will begin to print. A arduino based circuit board will control all the stuff like extrusion temperature, extrusion speed and build platform heating. I prefer to separate the 3d printer requirements from mach3 software. This will not disturb the mach3 to run the cnc code and will help people to switch between cnc and 3d printer.
regards,
Nuri Erginer
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what I am trying to do is easy switching from a cnc to 3d printer. Mach3 will be the software. You will plug a extrusion head instead of a spindle and you will begin to print. A arduino based circuit board will control all the stuff like extrusion temperature, extrusion speed and build platform heating. I prefer to separate the 3d printer requirements from mach3 software. This will not disturb the mach3 to run the cnc code and will help people to switch between cnc and 3d printer.
This is a brilliant concept Nuri - I am following this with great interest.
Tweakie.
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Thanks Tweakie!
Let me tell you what I did up to know. After then I will share all the information.
As you know there are two approaches to the extrusion motors in 3d printing community. One is 5D concept that use a stepper motor as a filament feeder. The other is a gear head dc motor. For the first one I slightly modify the skeinforge software for 'E' letter. For the forth dimension skeinforge use the letter 'E' as an axis definition (like X,Y and Z) After the small modification software produce gcode with letter 'A' instead of 'E'. This is suitable for mach3 to read the code and control the stepper extrusion motor in desired speed. The arduino based circuit is only dealing with extruder temperature, build platform heating and cooling fun control. This works fine. Feed rate, extrusion speed and temperature are the main parameters that you have to fine tune for better print quality.
The second concept is a gear head dc motor. I use the spindle relay for on-off control of the dc motor. I just write two M-code macro to define the M101 (start extrusion motor) and M103 (stop extrusion motor). This time arduino circuit deal with PWM motor speed control with a potentiometer.
I will soon share the information so that you can build a kit by yourself (or buy one) and screw it to your mach3 cnc and start using it as a 3D printer.
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I will soon share the information so that you can build a kit by yourself (or buy one) and screw it to your mach3 cnc and start using it as a 3D printer.
This I am looking forward to, thanks for the info Nuri.
Tweakie.
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You could use the spindle PWM to control the temperature setting. Can even setup the arduino to output a pulse (RPM input) that can me read as true temperature on a DRO. Convert RPM to temp in a screenset. Heck maybe the PID would work too? Give you full control in software.
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I have been watching videos over the last 2 months or so about Mendel and Darwin. I thought using my Sherline/A2Z mill would be much better than trying to cut metal with it. Lets jump in! I would like to try. First steps while you work on the interface? Heater, extruder?
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It actually dosent look hard at all to make this work. Basically here is what I see that is needed...
1) 3 axes mill / router.
2) Additional stepper axis (4th axis "A")
3) Mach 3 control.
4) Modified skeinforge. Swap E for A in the script so the E control moves the A axis.
5) Mendel style extruder with A axis for the feed.
6) Temperature control for the heat of the extruder. This one should work great...
http://cgi.ebay.com/Omega-Programmable-Digital-Thermocouple-Meter-Excellent-/110604146539?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19c085576b (http://cgi.ebay.com/Omega-Programmable-Digital-Thermocouple-Meter-Excellent-/110604146539?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19c085576b)
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Hello:
I'm veri much interested for the topic.
Looking for more info....
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I am at the end of the design phase of the ver2 circuit board. It will do all the stuff. With this circuit board I will release the modified skeinforge software and mach3 configuration xml files. I will let you know very soon.
Please find below the images of my test environment which use mach3.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37197094@N00/sets/72157625166612319/show/
regards,
Nuri Erginer
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Excellent work Nuri.
Tweakie.
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Can you tell me how you modified Skeinforge from the 'E' axis to the 'A' axis? I am already well into building a stand-alone 3d printer and this is the problem between Mach and Skeinforge I've run into. My feed steppers are on the 'A' axis and I need to change them.
I love your idea of interchangability! I wish I had thought of that 6 months and several $$$ ago :-[
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Brilliant, Nuri!
I'm following your thread.
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Can you tell me how you modified Skeinforge from the 'E' axis to the 'A' axis? I am already well into building a stand-alone 3d printer and this is the problem between Mach and Skeinforge I've run into. My feed steppers are on the 'A' axis and I need to change them.
There is no option for doing this in skeinforge so I modify the source code
Regards,
Nuri Erginer
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Can you tell me how you modified Skeinforge from the 'E' axis to the 'A' axis? I am already well into building a stand-alone 3d printer and this is the problem between Mach and Skeinforge I've run into. My feed steppers are on the 'A' axis and I need to change them.
There is no option for doing this in skeinforge so I modify the source code
Regards,
Nuri Erginer
I was hoping you could direct me to the plugin that you modified the source code.
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Nuri, looking good! I figure my G540 could control all 4 axis with out a problem, throw an extruder head on the A2ZCNC Monster Mill in place of the Sherline head. Maybe some form of heated bed?
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Nuri, Thanks for sharing with us... Few months ago i was on the verge of ordering all that circuit boards etc for the Reprap printer but fortunately i didn't... I am very much interested in this thread.. I will follow it and will highly obliged if you post some more pictures of the build..
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Nuri
Please Please PLEASE post your skienforge. Been prowling around, and came up with this idea all on my own, started looking on how to do it, and found this thread.
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Hi everybody I am back again.
Sorry I can not write for a while. But the news are good. I have finished the control board Here its features:
atmega8 and arduino code (standalone no PC connection)
LCD (to read temperature values)
two trim-pots (to set two separate temperature value one for nozzle one for build platform)
one thermocouple input
two thermistor input
two relay output
two power transistor output
With this board you can easly convert your desktop cnc to a 3D printer.
Here is a picture of the board.
(http://blog.gnexlab.com/public/.isi_kucuk_m.jpg)
I will prepare a web side to tell people how to convert their cnc to a 3D printer. All the software (including modified skeinforge) and the hardware as a kit will be there.
Please e-mail me if you interested in buying this board nerginer@gnexlab.com
The first group will purches the board with a compatitive price. I will mass produce according to the number of people willing to buy the board.
Regards,
Nuri Erginer
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Hi,
I am getting e-mails from people who want to buy the control board and a hole CNC to 3D Printer conversion kit. I am almost finished a tutorial about the conversion and will send the link to this post.
Can you please reply to this post if you want to have a board or the hole kit. So that I will have the list of people for the first production.
Regards,
Nuri Erginer
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Nuri,
I am a bit confused here.
Are you going to share this information with us for free and post all the details here or has this turned into a commercial project where we have to buy the kit and the details ?
Tweakie.
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Hi Tweakie,
This will be a completely open source project. I will purplish all the drawings, the design files and the software code. So the people who wants to build their own can use the design files. If you have not too much time and ability to produce such circuit boards and hardware, you can buy from me as a kit and start to print with your desktop printer immediately.
PS: English is not my mother language. If there is someone agree to read the documentation (5-10 pages) and wants to correct the typo and grammatic errors will get all the information before publishing as open source.
Regards,
Nuri Erginer
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Thank you Nuri, I am really looking forward to following your project.
(i would be happy to check grammar in any of your documents if it would be helpful).
Tweakie.
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Thanks a lot Tweakie
I hope you got the mail I sent to you
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Hi,
As I promise and with the great help of Tweakie I finalise the extruder controller board and write down a small tutorial for the people who may want to convert their desktop CNC to a 3d printer.
http://blog.gnexlab.com/index.php?post/2011/05/27/Converting-a-CNC-Machine-to-a-3D-Printer
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Please take a look at my web store to purchase assembled boards.
http://store.gnexlab.com/
regards,
Nuri Erginer
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I was wondering, could you just use the Makerbot extruder controller v3-6 http://store.makerbot.com/extruder-controller-v3-6.html (http://store.makerbot.com/extruder-controller-v3-6.html) via a USB port to control the temps?
I am working on the same project and found these posts this morning.
Al
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Hi BTS,
There are some differences between gnexlab extruder controller and the makerbot's. The main issue is gnexlab controller is standalone and do not communicate with pc. The on board lcd and trimpots let you to set the extruder and the heated bed temperatures. If you want to use mach3 as a 3d printing software, communicating via pc while mach3 pulsing the motors become a problem. The message traffic corrupts the pulse sequences. The gnexlab solution lets the mach3 control the motors including the extruder stepper as 4th axis. The gnexlab extruder controller dealing with the temperatures without pc.
Regards,
Nuri Erginer
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Nuri
Is the display on the gnexlab extruder controller removable so the display can be panel mounted?
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If you want I can send you the board without soldering the LCD. A removable socket is also possible.
Regards,
Nuri Erginer
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I want to happily announce that I am working on the second version of the controller board.
I got lots of great feedback from the people. It is a very easy way to have a 3d printer. This board is dealing with all the complex issues. And separate the temperature controlling stuff from the CNC tasks. It is very easy to use because it is stand alone and plug and play. Just connect the sensors and the relays set the temperatures and go.
The new board will have some nice features. I will also try to set up a video while printing. I want to thank all of you because of your supports.
Regards,
Nuri Erginer
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Hello Nerginer!
Nice work. What about release time of new board?
Thanks,
anfarol
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I am very happy to announce that the new board and a new web page has been released. http://cnc2printer3d.wordpress.com/
This page is full of information to help people who have their own desktop CNC machine and wish to use it as a 3D printer.
An other new development is a mach3 add-on which will allow you to run Skeinforge (the modified one) inside mach3. You will use mach3 software both for slicing the STL file and printing directly.
The controller board will isolate the temperature controlling functions from motor control functions. This will help us to setup a 3d printer in a modular and easy way. I hope you will enjoy the idea. Please post your photos and videos about your setup.
Regards,
Nuri Erginer
store.gnexlab.com
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Hi,
I have modified both the replicatorG software (http://replicat.org/ (http://replicat.org/)) as well as the skeinforge software to get it to output G-Code for mach3.
the generated G-code can be used directly with mach3. I want you to test my modified replicatorg and print some stuff. Please help me to be sure about this software is working well.
After then I will publish it in my web site : http://cnc2printer3d.wordpress.com/ (http://cnc2printer3d.wordpress.com/)
Please send me your email address if you want to get it and try.
Regards,
Nuri Erginer
3dprint@gnexlab.com
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This is the link you can download the modified replicatorG to use with mach3.
https://github.com/downloads/cnc2printer3D/cnc2printer3D/GENEXLAB_REPG_V1.zip
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I might be a little slow here...but is there a diagram or technical manual to explain how to use this product? (Preferably a "for dummies/newbs" version.)
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here are the information and connection diagrams
http://cnc2printer3d.wordpress.com/ (http://cnc2printer3d.wordpress.com/)
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Hello all.
Has anyone gotten around to making a video on the installation and set up of Nuri control board and the setting used for Mach 3?