At the program for mentally-handicapped people where I work, I have a large CNC Router that my woodshop teachers got from a school several years ago. I had to replace the electronics with new ones. The machine came with NEMA 34 stepper motors with six wires. I used MondoStep 7.8 Bi-Polar Stepper Motor Drivers, PBX-MX Parallel Isolated Breakout Board, and USB SmoothStepper Board. This year, we had to move from an old building to a new building. Two days ago, my teachers moved the machine over. Today, I couldn't get the machine to work. I already have the Smoothieboard V1.1 that I bought for my small CNC router that I built at home. This means that I have to replace Mach3 software with Smoothieboard software. I took a look at cnc-mill-guide [Smoothieware] but I'm afraid of making mistakes that would kill the Smoothieboard and/or the stepper drivers. Any suggestions?
For specifics, there's a pretty active IRC community at irc [Smoothieware] you can ask In terms of wiring up drivers, checkout general-appendixes [Smoothieware] as well Its pretty invasive though, might be easier to just replace the Smoothstepper, or troubleshoot what broke with the move? (One of those times where the time spent (and risk to other components) has to be weighed against the cost of the replacement parts. When you are skilled and efficient, the choice is easier, but if not... Sleep on it
I tried to fix the machine but I think that PBX-RF RF Isolated CNC Breakout Board may be bad because the limit switches and the E-Stop stay on instead of turning off when I touch the limit switches. They are supposed to be off until one of the limit switch is activated. I checked the wiring and I thought they look fine. I found out that I have to solder the headers to the Smoothieboard so that I can connect the external drivers to the board, bypassing the onboard drivers. I found out that the power supply unit inside the machine generates about 48V. I'm afraid of connecting the PSU to Smoothieboard.
I tried to connect the Smoothieboard to my CNC router that I built at home and couldn't get the motors to work. I tried Protoface and bCNC software. I stole the CNC XPro board from my CNC router and will use it on the machine at work. I had to solder the headers to the CNC XPRO board. I ordered another CNC XPRO board.
