"Some" assembly required

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Bought a Maslow when sales opened up in December.

Decided to eagerly find some way to explore until it gets here… so watching the ship’s progress with anticipation.

While I wait, bought a cheapskate special off ebay just to try to play a bit.

If I can make that kit work… I’m all set getting underway with my real kit when it gets here. B’sides, might just learn something… first CNC ~n~ all that.

So… assembled the arduine compatable kit - no instructions included, & scrounged up the software to try to make it work. Arduino 1.8.5 I think it was. Found a UGS software that seemed to be useful too… so made a connection to try to turn the motors. Scrounged a little “Turn one revolution” script & poked that into the board.

So far so good, but one issue now. The motors don’t turn.
The UGS says that the motor is turning clockwise, but motor no turn.

I don’t know terminology well enough to know what to look for, or where… but am strongly suspicious that the “Turn one revolution” script is telling the wrong pins to send signals to the drivers. No signal to driver, no motor turn.

So… while I wait… anybody care to try to assist me at whatever isn’t quite right on this little adventure?

Perhaps giving y’-all a few more details might help figurinig out how to code the little gizzmochie. B’sides, I’d like to make it into a “pseudo-Maslow”

So… it’s supposed to be a little R3 arduino “fully compatable” CNC kit that is supposed to allow me to run 3 or 4 NEMA 17’s at the same time. Do they let us post links here? Can do that if it’s ok with the powers that be.

Then again… Hmmm… just tried throwing this search in at eBay and found about the first 10 items all look like the right kit.

“Arduino R3 compatable CNC kit”

Further down… there is one by “Longruner” that looks like an exact match to what I have, with the shield, cable, switches, etc. So, that’s my “project”. Any takers on playing with it a bit?

By the way, I’d like to welcome myself to the forums! :smiley:

Thanks
OldMacDon

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Welcome! Is this the kit you have?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1n_CQJiO8A

I bought one that will one day convert my cheap old china desktop CNC from parallel port to USB. One day… don’t have the time to play with it.
With the Maslow GroundControl and the current firmware, you will not be able to play with your kit.
The Maslow does not use stepper motors.

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Those grbl shields are crazy cheap. Add a $3 uno clone and knockoff stepsticks and you’re under 20 US bucks

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Hi Gero, Mooselake

My kit is similar.
It also has some other stuff in it… switches, cable, brackets, ~n~ motors.

Am a bit shocked that Maslow doesn’t have steppers!!!
Was entirely unprepared for that. Almost fell off my chair.
My understanding (until just now) WAS that CNC ultimately = (demands) use of stepper motors.
… so never even checked that part.

I thought this would be giving me a big head start on making sense of how things worked on Maslow!

Will ignore the blazing question about how Maslow gets the accuracy without steppers… for now, but yeah, am very courious about that too.

The bigger issue is…

Since I’m using an old Mac (and we’re not using steppers), do I even need the same software as the kit above… AND… can I do this using an old PowerMac, or even better the old PowerMac based laptop I had in mind to use on this project???

…and yeah, those kits are crazy cheap.

I envisionED a “Maslow clone” of sorts to play around with the concept… right up until that got shot in the foot just now. I should put it together anyhow… even though it’s not quite as anticipated.

Ok, I’m off to go explore the assembly instructions further… but out of time till tonight. Will have to pick this up later this evening after work.

THANKS for the replieSS guys.

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No, just something that can be used to move accurate and repeatable distances. The big iron uses servos, motors with encoders, like the Maslow. Servo vs stepper is an ongoing discussion in the DIY community, Google it if you’re interested.

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Welcome to our group. Can you send a link to your kit?

Thank you

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I think what you are asking is “Will anyone here be mad if you post info about a product that is not a Maslow?” If so, the answer is “Not at all.” At the risk of speaking for the whole community, I’ve found that there’s a lot of respect here for other products and good ideas “not invented here”. So post away!

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I agree. We all came here to learn more about the Maslow and/or contribute. Other products serve other needs, but many times there are overlaps in implementation, and knowing what else is out there can help improve the Maslow. Since the Maslow is such a unique machine, it is unlikely that any link would be direct competition anyway.

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Bee, JWolter, Keith

Found this link…

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Arduino-CNC-Kit-w-UNO-Shield-Stepper-motors-DRV8825-Endstop-A4988-GRBL-US-OY/273013386574?epid=530593780&hash=item3f90ddad4e:g:~qwAAOSwTM5Ytmpt

It’s not who I got the kit from… but is identical.
The original seller gave me some link… I’d have to go find it (and them) again.
It didn’t seem very useful. Will have more time later tonight to fish around for it if needed.

These people (link above) also didn’t seem too good about giving me info on using it unless I bought something first. That’s where I started… so am not in a big hurry to buy another kit and have two ‘useless’ kits. They claim they’ll give me a link to show me details if I buy. Big HMMM!!

I guess even if it’s a bit different (than Maslow), I’m going to try to get it working enough to experiment a bit.

Anyhow, back later tonight. Thanks for replying so friendly guys. Greatly appreciate the friendliness.

OldMacDon

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you might want to check out -

http://reprap.org/wiki/Teacup_Firmware

Thank you

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Nice find, @OldMacDon. I don’t need another project, but compared to just a year ago, that’s a pretty nice price for an electronics package.

Pro tip for you, if you put an at symbol (@) in front of a user’s name it will flag their attention.

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Teacup is pretty interesting, but also dated. It completely avoids floating point, using fixed point scaled integers instead. Dig out your copy of Knuth and look it up. Since the mega 2560 (not to mention the 168 and 328) doesn’t have floating point hardware there’s a big overhead emulating it in software. Kinda like an 8088 without the 8087 (iirc) coprocessor chip.

Today i’d avoid the hassle and go for a 32 bit board with hardware FP, cheap because of all the smartphone clutchers

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