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BlackBox

Discussion in 'Other Builds' started by Mark Carew, Feb 22, 2019.

  1. Peter Van Der Walt

    Peter Van Der Walt OpenBuilds Team
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    Checkout WJonson/MATLAB-GRBL-Controller
     
  2. Ronald4418

    Ronald4418 Well-Known
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    Is there anywhere that I can download a copy of the C-Beam XL basic GRBL settings to work with.
     
  3. Peter Van Der Walt

    Peter Van Der Walt OpenBuilds Team
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    CONTROL > grbl settings tab > select profile from the list under Select machine in step 1. Then scroll down to step 2 if you need to customize it. Once happy, use the Backup Setting button to export a copy of your custom settings. Easy. No terminal needed
     
  4. Ronald4418

    Ronald4418 Well-Known
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  5. len civitano

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    So, after an exchange in another thread, I decided to pull the trigger and get an new BlackBox. I have an XCarve converted to lead screws so the Y axis motors now turn in the same direction and I have a different Z axis than the stock one. I scoured the last 27 pages and found one brief post about XCarve compatibility. Two questions:

    1-I'd think my current GRBL settings is as good a starting point as any. I use Openbuilds Control as an interface. I think I've learned that there is no way to save my current GRBL settings other than to copy and paste to a text file. Are those two statements reasonably accurate?

    2-For anyone who has replaced their XCarve controller with a BlackBox, any pitfalls, common issues, words of wisdom, or any difficulty figuring out motor wiring?

    Thanks. I hope I'm not in over my head.
     
  6. sharmstr

    sharmstr OpenBuilds Team
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    Yes

    You can save your settings. Go into the grbl settings tab. Two buttons in there. Backup and Restore.
     
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  7. DarkPenguin

    DarkPenguin Well-Known
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    Has anyone made a fusion360 model of the blackbox? Trying to design a control box to stuff everything in.
     
  8. KaosCNC

    KaosCNC Well-Known
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    @Peter Van Der Walt

    Peter - I know if using Fusion 360 or Vectric there is a post processor that needs to be used for using BlackBox.

    Is there one for MeshCAM ? or just selecting a standard machine that using GRBL enough, i.e. Shapeoko
     
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  9. Peter Van Der Walt

    Peter Van Der Walt OpenBuilds Team
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  10. DarkPenguin

    DarkPenguin Well-Known
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  11. Peter Van Der Walt

    Peter Van Der Walt OpenBuilds Team
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    No other side effects expected no.
    And correct, no longer powers up over USB (but the chance of needing the use the board without it having 24v anyway is acceptable, because the motors, etc needs 24v too)
     
  12. DarkPenguin

    DarkPenguin Well-Known
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    Thanks!

    I'm putting everything in an enclosure and I have a switch in front of the BB so I'm trying to make it not light up the led when it should be powered down.
     
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  13. Quentin Karmark

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    Hello, Sean (or anyone else watching this?) - this diagram is really informative, except I am not confident how I might proceed with my wiring situation, because we have a different VFD.... I have downloaded your diagram, stripped all the existing wires, and made a new diagram version using my equipment: it would be really helpful if you could assist me (or point me in the right direction) as far as getting the wiring completed? This comes from a used Laguna Swift CNC, and have already purchased an OpenBuilds Blackbox.
     

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  14. Denis Lapratte

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    In my initial BB setup, I had my power supply close to the BB. The power supply was causing some EMI interference to the BB and my jobs were stopping frequently. After moving the power supply away from the BB all problems disappeared. If you ever encounter similar problems, this might be because your power supply is too close to the BB. Just trying to point you in the right direction if this happens.
     
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  15. M90Ranger

    M90Ranger New
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  16. Denis Lapratte

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  17. Batcrave

    Batcrave Journeyman
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    It also depends on where your system is picking up the EMI. Mine was coming in (as I'm sure I mentioned a time or three somewhere in this thread) through the LED ring around the spindle, then following the apparently unfiltered pathway through the shared PSU into the BlackBox's power port. Before I finally narrowed that down I'd tried all sorts of shielded cables and ferrites with absolutely no success.

    Unfortunately I never did find a good solution to the problem - although one thing I didn't try was using a dedicated power supply for the LED ring - and eventually I ended up moving back to my Gecko G540 with LinuxCNC (which has other problems, but solved all the noise issues) and more or less forgot about it.


    -Bats
    (who also has other problems and makes a lot of noise)
     
  18. Denis Lapratte

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    Prior to my BB, I also had a Gecko 540 running on windows. The PS was also enclosed with the Gecko and my jobs were also stopping randomly and sometimes very often. I never figured out it was probably also caused by EMI. This is one of the reason I switched for the BB thinking it would solve all my problems. My steppers were 48V and I had plenty of torque and I could run my steppers as fast as I wanted. The BB is 24V max and for some reason I can't run my steppers as fast, they stall when accelerating. I tried all the calibrating on the forum and couldn't fix the problem. I didn't have time yet to try to figure out what the problem is, but I suspect because I have a very heavy gantry that 24V is not enough to drive them. They certainly run much cooler, but they don't seem to be powerful enough for my heavy gantry.
     
  19. Batcrave

    Batcrave Journeyman
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    Entirely possible, but Mach3 is also very temperamental when it comes to what hardware it's running on. I had a lot of trouble with random stops too, and I was dead certain it was a noise issue, since my system was far too powerful to possibly have any trouble running Mach3... but it turned out that was exactly what was happening - even overly-vigorous mouse movements at the wrong time could kill a job.

    Me too! And then I thought my problems had carried right over, until I eventually figured out that, no, I had an entirely new problem that just looked, acted, and smelled the same. Oops.:oops:

    One other thing is to keep an eye on the serial console. I found that when I was picking up a lot of noise it would often manifest as garbage coming through in the logs. If you don't see anything weird it doesn't mean noise isn't the problem, but if you do see a lot of incoherent crap (not that GCode doesn't look pretty incoherent itself, sometimes), that's a pretty clear indicator.

    I really missed the 48V PSU on my Gecko when I was running the BB, and the speedy rapids I could get away with... but now that I'm back on the Gecko, I find I barely ever have the machine running faster than a brisk walk. Although it certainly doesn't help that $%#^&$ing Autodesk disabled $%#^&$ing rapids in Fusion.

    What sort of gantry are you trying to push? I'm running a big chunky 80mm spindle on mine, but the gantry itself is stock (well, I guess technically it's only half of stock, seeing as I've got half a LEAD).


    -Bats
    (Half a LEAD, philosophically, must ipso facto half not be. But half the LEAD has got to be, vis-a-vis its entity, you see?)
     
  20. Ronald4418

    Ronald4418 Well-Known
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    I've noticed the same thing going from the G540 and its 48V compared to the Blackbox and its 24V . I have noticed that the acceleration seems to be the biggest headache and have even tried using only 80% of the optimum Acceleration. My system does still stall on occasion but I have run into a newer problem that I have never seen before and that is that the OpenBuilds Controller Lags in its response running on a Windows 7 Professional Laptop. I've seen it stop responding for upwards of 3 seconds on occasion. I've tried setting it to a Higher dominance with no luck. I think I'm going to give the CNC3D Commander( formerly SharpCNC Commander ) a go by transferring my GRBL Settings over to it. Because it is a Windows based program, I can set it to a Higher Value within Windows 7. Unlike the rest of you, I'm not having issues with Noise as I am using Shielded Cable for both my Motors and My Home Switches. I have seen various videos on running a higher Voltage on Arduino Based systems but haven't figured out if it is possible with the Blackbox and at present I'm not about to play around with the Magic Smoke and my Controller. The reason why I'm not still using the G540.
     
  21. Peter Van Der Walt

    Peter Van Der Walt OpenBuilds Team
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    If you have High Inductance motors they will self stall. Dial back Max Rate and Acceleration in Grbl Settings to suit the motors, or replace with our Low Inductance motors.
    Try a clean install, check for conflicting applications, try after a Reboot, and update chipset/gpu drivers
     
  22. Ronald4418

    Ronald4418 Well-Known
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    I tried all of the suggestions that you listed and there was no improvement. And after checking for conflicts, I could find only one and I was able to get around it by disabling windows Update.
     
  23. David the swarfer

    David the swarfer OpenBuilds Team
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    Use the OB post for GRBL. MAch3 should be happy with it, and it reinstates most of the rapids...
     
  24. Ronald4418

    Ronald4418 Well-Known
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    Is there any hope of having something added to the Diagnostic Tab that shows the actual Voltage Draw by the Steppers. I realize that Marlin and GRBL are different beasts with and not compatible each other, but at least with my 32 Bit Marlin I can see what the voltage draw is on my 3D Printer and adjust accordingly so as to not overdrive my steppers. This would make life a lot easier that it is now where it seems to be a hit or miss proposition by turning 4 potentiometers until the motors overheat or lose steps. It would make it so much easier without having to remove the blackboxws cover and adjust the VREF.
     
  25. Peter Van Der Walt

    Peter Van Der Walt OpenBuilds Team
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    Factory default is perfect for almost everyone. Halfway up the scale. Dial in a little more if needed. Its hit all the way
    VREF is 'old fashioned', our potentiometer is offset scaled, its not nearly as sensitive as what you are used to. All the way left = Our NEMA17s, middle = Our NEMA23s and suitable for almost everyone, Dialing in a Little more = high torques.

    Careful to not confuse "lose steps" with "I have high inductance 3rd party motors that brake themselves under excessive back-EMF during fast moves because they are not well suited for BlackBox" :) - post the datasheet for your motor. If that is the case, no amount of current adjustment will address the issue


    What motors do you have, overheating a motor isn't easy. You do know they run hot by nature right
     
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  26. sitoru

    sitoru New
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    • Step Angle: 1.8°
    • Holding Torque: 3.0Nm(425oz.in)
    • Rated Current/phase: 4.2A
    • Phase Resistance: 0.9ohms
    • Recommended Voltage: 24-48V
    • Inductance: 3.8mH±20%(1KHz)
    I got these motors, but once in a while they will stall on me, are they too much for the bb? I can never really go over 2500mm or 2000mm/min, but i'm also using ball screws which seem to limit my speed. I would think those motors would have the torque not to stall
     
  27. Peter Van Der Walt

    Peter Van Der Walt OpenBuilds Team
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    Torque resists stalling at low RPM - You really need a torque curve graph over the range of RPMs to make any real calls on that characteristic
    For example, even our motors: See https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-itw...oaded_images/nema23ht-tc-38483.1582318507.jpg


    Those are quite similar to our High Torque motors (4mH) so at least is not too crazy.

    Ohms law says V=IR. So V=4.2*0.9 = 3.78v - also quite similar to ours

    So, I'd give your motors the thumbs up!

    But see here comes a 3rd party component into play :)

    Whats the pitch and diameter of your ballscrews?
    Our 8mm diameter, 8mm pitch leadscrews screws are theoretically easier to spin (weight) and move 8mm per rotation. If you switch to, for example, a 1204 ballscrew:
    - Area of a circle = π * r2 - so a 8mm diameter (50.27mm2) versus 12mm (113.1mm2) is about twice as heavy (factoring in nothing else except diameter) (see Circle Calculator)
    - and with a 4mm pitch, versus our 8mm only travels half the distance per rotation. For the same max RPM, you can only move half as fast.
     
  28. sitoru

    sitoru New
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    i think i went overboard and got 16mm ballscrews
     
  29. Giarc

    Giarc OpenBuilds Team
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    Were they 1605s? Those only move 5mm per rotation. That is almost half what the lead screws from OpenBuilds will move your gantry and are about 4 times as heavy.
     
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  30. sitoru

    sitoru New
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    Yes 1605s
     

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