Hi everyone i'm joe and new to the world of cnc building and control. i live in Australia and have built my first cnc. Although i may be new i have put some time and money into this new machine. sourced my parts from local and international companies. i'm having issues with trying to set up my cnc with the program and have the drivers installed but cant seem to get the machine to move a mm. Some info about my cnc - its running a designated 2hp router. running hi torque stepper motors, 1 for each axis, ball screws not lead screws, hiwin guide hails and the blackbox motion controller all on a custom vacuum table i built. cutting capacity is about 1100mm x 1000mm x 220mm, footprint is about 1400mm x 1400mm. like i said custom. total weight of machine is 124kgs. All my wiring is set up correctly as i have followed all the instructions and have also going to install a laser at a later stage.. So in short is there anyone out there who was or is in the same boat as myself who is trying to work out the parameters and setup for a custom machine not a per defined machine setting that is listed... Hope to learn from all you experts and professionals. kind regards
You mention you have a BlackBox: For BlackBox to be able to move it needs just 3 things: 1: Power connected? (and of course all turned on?) 2: Motor wired properly (miswired motors shudder in place, but you'll hear them) 3: Machine profile loaded: OpenBuilds CONTROL -> Grbl Settings -> CUSTOM (as yours is custom) - Custom sets $4=1 and $1=255 - both critical to enable the drivers) All the other parameters, can be configured from gnea/grbl
Thank you Hi I have gone though all of the setting and changed what you recommended to change, yes all power is on and connected. All wires are connected correctly as attached diagram. I still have the same issue as before, alarm 8 & 9, and my machine will not go to home. I've gone though the openbuilds forums and couldn't find anything matching my case. Could there be something to do with yhe amount of current from the blackbox to the motors. So basically i need a document or a video detailing how to set up a custom machine with a blackbox from start to finish running openbuilds software, i been looking for months and found nothing so hopefully someone here may know the best way to achieve this. I know i'm asking for a lot but in the end we can achieve the impossible. Kind regards to all Merry christmas and a happy new year Hope to here from you soon
the meanings of those alarm codes are 8 Homing fail. Cycle failed to clear limit switch when pulling off. Try increasing pull-off setting or check wiring. 9 Homing fail. Could not find limit switch within search distance. Defined as 1.5 * max_travel on search and 5 * pulloff on locate phases. Are you max travels set correctly? $130,$131, $132 so I would first double all homing pulloffs and crosscheck all wiring to make sure all the switches act as expected. if it still alarms I would turn off all homing and limits and make it work manually. this means... manually move to the home position reset GRBL now jogging should work. check that all motion is in the correct direction, X+ moves right, Y+ moves away, Z+ moves UP run a simple job, say cutting the outline of the letter B. Easy to tell if it is the wrong way up or left-right swapped. once actual motion is correct you can enable limits and test those, then once that is confirmed you can enable homing and test that. be very careful with directions and feedrates and hover over that emergeny stop switch at all times (-:
hi everyone ok ive tried and now im really stuck nothing is working. the motors shudder now but the wiring is correct. i have followed this like like a bible https://docs.openbuilds.com/blackbox/#0welcome.html everything is done right the motors are from china though so idk if they are hard wired backwards, if so how can i resolve this... as for the program and and firmware. i need a step by step on how to set it up from the very beginning and each value i need to set up my machine. also how does one calculate the exact maximum travel for the machine. maybe this will help - i used this to build my x axis with a hi torq stepper motor - US $101.05 6% OFF|2pcs HGH20 HGR20 Linear guide + HGH20CA or HGW20cc + SFU1605 Ball screw High assembly square load ballscrew linear motion module-in Linear Guides from Home Improvement on AliExpress this way my y and z axis - US $69.0 |HPV6 Linear module ballscrew sfu1204 with Linear Guides HGR20 HIWIN 100% same size with NEMA23 2.8A 56mm stepper motor-in Linear Guides from Home Improvement on AliExpress and these are the stepper motors - US $45.56 |Free shipping 1PCS 23HS10028 4 lead Nema 23 Stepper Motor 57 motor NEMA23 Stepper Motor 2.8A ISO CNC-in Stepper Motor from Home Improvement on AliExpress i have an original issue that nobody else has encountered yet to date or is has been resolved but its a very rare issue. kind regards
There's the problem So they arent going to be our color code! Find your wiring pairs using a multimeter, nothing unique, just still wired wrong as mentioned before
Ok so your saying even though the motors have the same 4 colours of the wires they are wrong?.. Ok so if i use a multi meter how do i go about this exactly. Do i put power on? Or run power from laptop usb? What numbers am i looking for?
Wire colors are not a global standard thats per-manufacturer Just the Motor in hand, multimeter with resistance mode, find two wires that belong to a pair. Put one pair on pins 1 and 2 of connector Put other pair on pins 3 and 4 of connector Then power on
Your stepper motors basically have two coils of wire. Two of your wires are connected to each end of a coil. Use the resistance setting to identify the wires linked to each coil.
Ok i set my meter to resistance and i have worked out red and green. Then blue and yellow. They flicker numbers other combinations dont work. Thanks heaps gents... whats my next step Kind regards
WOOO HOOOOO you gents are legends i got my z axis perfect now to do the others. Thanks. Hopefully its smooth sailing from here. But also i have no experience in cnc or code work. I just know how to use autocad and. I have vetric aspire just dont know how to use it. What is the best way and how can i learn without troubles. Kind regards gents
Hi gents z and x both work very smoothly. but now my problem is my 2 y axis. Any idea? I been going thru every combination of wires and software settings to work it out. There's only 1 post but its for a different machine but its using the belt system. The photo reads left to right axis X - Y - Y2 - Z
Why have you wired your Y motors differently from your X and Z? What happens when they are wired the same? Alex.
No difference they shudder the same. I opened up each motor to be sure and they were different. So i wired them up correspondingly.
Also the video shows what happens either way the wires are wired up. I spent 90mins doing every combination all 48 of them since they're are 2 motors.
Get some motors from Openbuildspartstore.com (; Worth every penny not to have to scratch your head so much - matches documentation - proven to work really well with other components (have you even checked that your motors have the proper inductance etc for good performance) - high quality University of YouTube never disappoints: Vectric Aspire tutorials - YouTube And also see Aspires own documentation Aspire V9.5 User Manual
I got my other motors from the same company for my z and x axis. They now work perfectly. So i would say yes they would be high quality cause they are the same type as the openbuilds one. And same price as well. I checked the resistance on them as well like you said before. Thats why i wired them like that. Thats the most rotation i got from them currently. The video shows everything. I also piggy backed both motors together from 1 connector so each slot had 2 wires i wanted to see what would happen. Same thing in the video... This one is tricky. I may be so basic i dont recognize it. But i dont think its the motors as they still turn. Could it be a setting maybe? Idk. Ill load my settings in the morning Thank you for the links i sure will look into them. Cant wait to fix this issue and start cutting. Kind regards
Won't go deeper into it (; but ours is custom made for us, so don't trust them to be same at all Shuddering in one place is ALWAYS wiring. Either pairs mixed up, or not all wires making good contact throughout (any joints, extensions, etc should be checked too) Should only need to test one combination: Find the two wires that make up a coil using multimeter in resistance mode: then make sure the other two is a coil too; AABB onto connector (pictures show where each coil goes too)
Ok ill try again in the morning. Could it be the slave driver pin or something else? Or the motors wired on opposite poles? Are there any photos of your machine build setups ? Kind regards
Slave pin and opposite poles won't result in shuddering, as long as thats the symptom, its either wrong coils (instead of wired 1234 for example its 1324) or not all wires making contact, (or worst case faulty motor but more likely wiring )
As @Peter Van Der Walt said the random changes of direction are down to a bad connection (usually only one out of four) - often wiring between controller and stepper, but could also be a faulty connection inside the stepper or a break in a coil winding. Good luck Alex.
Open circuit would show up nicely on the multimeter in resistance mode (; so go for the engineering approach instead of trial and error (; Measure out both coils (on the side nearest the connector going into BlackBox)
Hi @Joe Calvaresi, I just read back through the whole thread and noticed that you said that when you checked the coils with your multimeter the numbers "flickered" - that could indicate an intermittent connection - sometimes prodding a connection with the meter probe "improves" a faulty connection. Alex.
Hi gents So i wired up the 2 motors differently to see what would happen. 1 works 1 doesnt but they can only do incremental jog. Not continuous jog thats when they shudder.
Thats acceleration (acceleration is too fast, so the motor stalls before it gets up to speed) One of two (three) reasons: 1) Current set too low 2) Acceleration value set too high (our profile values match our motors - if you loaded our profiles) see gnea/grbl 3) Motors with incorrect inductance or coil voltage ratings (too high) have very sluggish acceleration and low RPMs. Might need to tune gnea/grbl as well for them then if thats the case (again, these might look like ours, but are they? ) Video helped a lot. I wouldn't have described that as shuddering, as it starts, then stalls
Ok ive altered that and this is the result in video. I loweres each value to 100. The motors spin in both directions. On each motor while im pushing 1 y axis direction at a time
@Peter Van Der Walt . What does the this mean. The attached motor is y axis and the loose one is my y2 axis the slave one. Why does it like going both directions when i push the Y- button. I wired them the same at first, same problem. Then i reversed it like a belt driven machine. Same problem? This one is baffling? Also does " - " minus symbol mean it goes towards or away from the motor. Kind regards
