Hope I am doing this right! Yup I am a newbe! But I am really familiar with cnc. (retired cnc machinest) I have an Arduino uno r3 and using arduino ide to flash grbl. Looking at the install through the IDE seems to show that it was a successful install. But when I go to universal g code sender and select open I get the following line repeated endlessly down the window. Baud rate is 115200 and com port is correct. [verbose]<Idle,MPos:0.000,0.000,0.000,WPos:0.000,0.000,0.000> I have not plugged stepper drivers into the arduino yet. I wanted to check the settings in grbl 1st. But when I type $$ nothing happens except the verbose line above continues. I have one of my steppers and drivers ready but before I buy the rest I wanted to check to see if everything was right 1st.
I fixed my own problem, I kept checking around for different things and finally noticed a check box on the universal g code sender. The box was marked verbose... It was checked so I unchecked it and now it behaves as expected. I can input the $$ and the parameters display as expected. Now it is off to the next step of checking for stepper movement and then build. Thanks for not raking me over the coals as a newbie. Its always in the last place you look!
well done! next up is doing the settings GRBL settings calculator and then calibration HOWTO Calibrate your CNC Machine for MACH3 or GRBL if you plan to implement home/limit switches then do read the GRBL wiki thoroughly because it is very easy to get noise in the wires Home · gnea/grbl Wiki · GitHub
Thank you very very much for the spreadsheet and example. Yours is much better and more thought out than the one I started making. I am still trying to test the stepper. I have been searching for an example that calls out which pin # from the uno goes to tb6600 to do a simple test of turning. most of the examples just say connect pins 8 thru 10 but don't bother to say which pin goes where. I have nema 23 425 with 4 wire bipolar. below is a pic ot the driver. I don't want to screw it up or fry anything so I guess I am being overly cautious. I used to fix the cnc machines at work for many years - but somehow this being mine puts a different spin on things. Thanks for being the expert and helping out. When I do get this tested to do a few turns and steps I plan on posting a how to for this particular driver with pin callouts and as much info as I can. I know that the example program that comes pre loaded on the arduino IDE doesn't help as pin callouts are not specific. I can't complain after all it was written quite a while back by those that really understood arduino's.
this shows the connections on the Uno Connecting Grbl · gnea/grbl Wiki · GitHub the TB6600 is similar to the DQ542 so this video should help Just load GRBL and follow the pinout on the page I gave, easy enough. No sense is using anything else to test since the Arduino stepper library is much slower than GRBL, GRBL can do 30khz steprates and the stepper library can barely do 4khz.
thanks so much!! I got it working. I took your advice and just went to grbl and universal g code sender to test everything. Works just like advertised. Now I can order more motors & drivers with a lot more confidence that everything will come together. Once making chips is in your blood it is difficult to quit. Retirement doesn't remove the urge to make stuff.
