OPEN PNP compatible CONTROLLERS

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Alex Angel

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Nov 3, 2016, 7:39:12 PM11/3/16
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Hello,

First question is :

Can anybody make a list here with all compatible controllers out there that are fully functional and work great with OPEN PNP ?

Second question :

Anybody experience with using smoothstepper and encoders on OPEN PNP ?

Third question :

What about Galil motion control cards ? Are those compatible ? They have allot of potential using encoders and servo's 



greets


Jason von Nieda

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Nov 3, 2016, 7:43:47 PM11/3/16
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Alex,

In general, anything that speaks Gcode or a basic text protocol is compatible. Things that are known to work are: Smoothie, Grbl, TinyG, Marlin based boards like RAMPS. We also have basic support for LinuxCNC based machines. Native support for the TVM802 and TVM920 series machines is in development.

Smoothstepper is not directly supported. Smoothstepper, last I checked, required a Mach 3 plugin supplied by the manufacturer and had no protocol information published.

I'm not familiar with Galil, so can't tell you anything about that. But if they have a published, open protocol it's definitely possible.

Jason


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oliver jackson

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Nov 4, 2016, 6:27:41 AM11/4/16
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No experience of those boards but from what I can tell it seems you're after closed loop control of your motors. CNC servos are pretty overkill for this job and will significantly increase cost for little reward (if I were designing a milling machine I would consider them but not here). The only real load is moving the mass of the machine itself since we're picking up tiny SMD parts. I have a hybrid solution.

There are driver boards that mount on the back of NEMA stepper motors that contain a driver board, magnetic rotary encoder and microcontroller. You send DIR and STEP to it just like any other driver board and it uses PID to maintain positional accuracy. The two I have used are ustepper and mechaduino. I'd recommend mechaduino myself as the code is more developed and just feels more polished although I'm sure ustepper will catch up.

My intention is to use mechaduinos to drive the X and Y. You don't need Z as the nozzles are sprung so simplyand you don't need rotation as you use computer vision for positional feedback. Pretty much any driver board that allows you to swap out driver boards or use external ones would be suitable. I will be using a smoothieboard, or if it happens to be out by the time I'm ready a smoothieboard 2

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Glen English

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Nov 14, 2016, 9:15:35 PM11/14/16
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I buy NEMA23 closed loop steppers (fully integrated controller- no extra box and harness USD $ 87 )
(accept STEP, DIR)
Nice peace of mind when cranking up the acceleration. Of course you DO do your calcs I hope everyone to stay inside torque curve..... Don't forget the rotor inertia...

g

Jason von Nieda

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Nov 14, 2016, 9:47:31 PM11/14/16
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Glen,

$87 sounds pretty decent. Got a link?

Jason


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Trampas Stern

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Nov 15, 2016, 11:32:28 AM11/15/16
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I have been working on board similar to the Mechaduino, see www.misfittech.net.  At first started off like the ustepper using a Pololu Step Stick, however the performance of the step sticks are not great, and I wanted to reduce motor hum so I went to on board A4954 driver.  I have tried to document things on the blog as I have worked on the system. 

I have been testing with the mechaduino firmware, but I am not happy with the results so I am working on new firmware testing various control algorithms.  If anyone has a background in automatic control system theory I would love to chat, I am currently reading a few books on the subject but.... 

I would also love to test some other servos to see how they perform and work. 

I have also thought about making a smarter step stick which can do some automatic tuning of the current waveforms to reduce motor hum, if people are interested I will spin a PCB. 

Trampas

oliver jackson

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Nov 15, 2016, 12:58:48 PM11/15/16
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Sadly don't know enough about tuning them, just about passed my control systems module at uni so I understand the principles. But I will have a look at your site and would be interested in any improvement you may come up with on the closed loop stepper driver over the mechaduino, which is my current choice for 3D printers and most likely will use for my XY axes on my PNP

Glen English

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Nov 15, 2016, 5:17:56 PM11/15/16
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howdy
try some of these :
there area few supplier options :

http://www.cntopstock.com/

now, their search engine doesnt really work properly (like eastern pnp software.) so soemtimes you have to ask, or be creative with your search entries.


you can get those in 2Nm, also

I have ordered some 3 phase ones this week to see how they compare to the 2 phase :
stepper style :


servo style :


now, while the stepper style may show high torque, remember that's at essentially zero rpm... 
the servo will reign supreme for high accel + high rpm  apps.

the drivers in most of these are far superior to your big standard  generic $10 driver.

freight for these relatively heavy buggers is not insignificant.

g

Peter Betz

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Nov 15, 2016, 7:20:24 PM11/15/16
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Someone smarter than me should really REALLY adapt the open source firmware to make this board work with openPnP (or somehow make it smoothie compatible) :

http://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/steval-3dp001v1.html

Peter.

Michael Anton

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Nov 16, 2016, 2:06:50 AM11/16/16
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Another option might be the Re-Arm Smoothie compatible Arduino like clone, which was designed to work with RAMPS.  It can be found on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1245051645/re-arm-for-ramps-simple-32-bit-upgrade.

Mike

Michael Anton

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Nov 16, 2016, 2:08:54 AM11/16/16
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Glen,

Do you have any video of these running?  I'd be really curious to see them in action, and the price is certainly attractive.

Mike

Glen English

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Nov 16, 2016, 5:25:20 AM11/16/16
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Hi Mike , I don't have any 3 phase running. The closed loop 2phase integrated types I use on customer's retunable filters, none here , although I have another 6 in my shop-cart ready to purchase, . but, really there is nothing to see. Not sure what you might hope to see on a video ....They are steppers  with integrated driver.. so are compatible with everything out there... Closed loop was used because the tuning shaftes can have alot of stiction.

The 3 phase ones are generally better behaved in all the ways 2 phase ones are not.
cheers
g

Michael Anton

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Nov 16, 2016, 6:49:17 AM11/16/16
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I'm just curious to see a machine running these vs open loop steppers.  Thanks for the info, I'll keep these in mind when I get around to working on my build.

Mike

Trampas Stern

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Nov 16, 2016, 8:17:45 AM11/16/16
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For me personally I have come to dislike the Pololu step sticks, especially the DRV8825, see my testing here: http://misfittech.net/2016/09/08/drv8825-microstepping/

The A4988 is not too bad, however I had the motor humming from the current limiting of the step sticks.   I have have toyed with the idea to make a smarter step stick, where a micro would monitor the current and if it was doing current limiting in audio range, then change the current limiting PWM outside of the audio band.  However I am not sure people would want a better step stick or not. 

I am also working on finishing the firmware on the Nano Zero Stepper, http://misfittech.net/product/nano-zero-stepper/ which will solve a lot of the step stick issues.  Last night I was able to get my control loop where it worked the way I wanted, next I will be doing more testing and adding in ability to send commands from the host controller (RAMPS is currently my first planed host) to the NZS such that host can set torque limits and other features.  For example it would be nice to set current/torque low and then run to rail limits to remove limit switches. 

Trampas

oliver jackson

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Nov 16, 2016, 12:40:04 PM11/16/16
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@Michael Anton I backed that a few days ago out of interest as I want a smoothieboard without steppers.  However its a bit of a gamble.  I'd really need more than 5 axis so that means GPIOs being available.  I've asked the project creator for a pinout, or at least an indication of how much GPIO will be available and I've basically got a "wait and see" response.  

@Trampas Stern I like the NZS and dislike most of these "step sticks".  Have you experimented much with the Trinamic TMC2130 or TMC2100 (what the silent stick uses)?  I prefered them to A4954 step sticks I've tried on my 3d printer

Trampas Stern

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Nov 16, 2016, 1:34:11 PM11/16/16
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I have not tested the Trinamic parts yet I have looked at them, I figured that most 3D printer people will not be able to configure the parts via SPI.  Therefore I was thinking about taking the NZS and removing encoder and then putting in the step stick format, the advantage being is that with some firmware I could dynamically adapt the current control such that you just plug it in, set the maximum current and let it figure out the rest. The firmware would look at the voltage/current waveform and adapt the driver to give silent operation, and lower heating of motors.  However the solution might be looking for the problem that the silent step sticks solve already... 

On the smoothieboard, have you talked with Ray Kholodovsky at http://cohesion3d.com/, I think he has smoothie boards with 6 axis and without step sticks. 

oliver jackson

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Nov 16, 2016, 4:22:11 PM11/16/16
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There are plenty of boards with 3-5 drivers on them.  Not only that, Smoothieware (the firmware for smoothieboard) can handle extra motor drivers over SPI or GPIO pins set as step/dir pins.  Most boards I have seen so far come with drivers soldered in, except the AZSMS and the Re-ARM and now cohesion3d - I will definitely keep an eye on that.  I want one with 0 drivers on them, just the step/dir pins for steppers 1-5 and enough GPIO pins for me to expand with whatever else I may need to add in the future.  I like to be able to choose my drivers and don't want to pay for ones I am not going to use.  For example using mechaduino or NZS.  Before these came along I was looking at getting linear scales, a KFLOP driver board+expansion board to get closed loop control of my milling machine.  Now I can get pretty much the same result with a smoothieboard and driver/rotary encoder/microcontroller combo for a much lower price.

I haven't really looked into it enough but it is possible to use an MBED development board and run smoothieware on that and just breakout the pins I need.  But its really smoothieboard v2 pro I am waiting for.

Ray Kholodovsky

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Nov 17, 2016, 5:35:49 PM11/17/16
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Thanks for the Cohesion3D mention.

I wanted to maximize the functionality of Smoothie and have swappable Pololu style drivers in case one burnt out and to allow people to use whichever module they wanted (Allegro, TI, Trinamic, or a Signal Breakout for external drivers). 

We've got 6 axis which lets you have 2 independent Z for 2 heads or the extra linear axis for the "reel pusher" to advance tapes. 

The MOSFETs all have flyback diodes installed so I've been running the Vac Pump and Solenoids from them directly without issues, there's a 20 amp FET channel (meant for larger heated beds) in case you have a larger load to run, endstops are buffered so that you can run inductive sensors/ endstops at 12-24v directly without any external components, GLCD, and Smoothie ethernet via an expansion module. 


Pics of my machine in the works with the board on the far right, the board, and one of our "advanced peripherals" demos. 


The factory is finalizing assembly of my first run of 100 of these right now, I hope to have them here after the weekend and will be launching sales at that time. 


Happy to answer any questions.


Cheers,
Ray

Wireb

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Nov 17, 2016, 9:32:58 PM11/17/16
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What is the expected price of the remix?

Ray Kholodovsky

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Nov 17, 2016, 9:39:52 PM11/17/16
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ReMix will be $150.  That will include the necessary MicroSD card (I'm working on sourcing these right now) but drivers will not be included in that price. 

On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 9:32 PM, Wireb <wi...@hotmail.com> wrote:
What is the expected price of the remix?

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Glen English

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Nov 17, 2016, 11:10:55 PM11/17/16
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Ray
Nice , clean looking PCB layout. Nice work.

glen.

SMdude

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Nov 18, 2016, 3:11:12 AM11/18/16
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Hi Ray,

I think off board drivers are the way to go. I have had to replace a couple of drivers on my smoothie(operator abuse!) and it was a royal pita! The ground plane on the smoothie is REALLY good at removing heat, making the driver ic quite difficult and time consuming to replace...

Is it smaller than the smoothie?
A head mountable/function specific controller would be really nice... ;) I have too many wires going to my head and I'm going to get headaches at some stage!

Wireb

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Nov 18, 2016, 6:27:37 PM11/18/16
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The fact that > 5 axis are supported is a major selling point as I have dual driven Ys. Been trying to find a option that supports that out of the box and was not having much luck. 

By any chance does the PCB support screw terminals on the driver outputs? I really hate those crimp on connectors in machine tools. Had to many issues over the years with the tangs in the connectors loosening up / corroding and causing issues. 

Second question will there be a bare PCB option? (To head off the internet. Yes my time is not free and if included in the cost it would be cheaper to get it prebuilt. BUT... I like building cards and if I build it will take more time and prevent me from picking up more projects as fast saving money in the long run :P) 

Arthur Wolf

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Nov 18, 2016, 6:42:54 PM11/18/16
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On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 9:11 AM, SMdude <spiteri...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Ray,

I think off board drivers are the way to go. I have had to replace a couple of drivers on my smoothie(operator abuse!) and it was a royal pita!

You can just wire external drivers instead, costs $10 a piece and very simple to wire up.
 
The ground plane on the smoothie is REALLY good at removing heat, making the driver ic quite difficult and time consuming to replace...

It's also why you can get Smoothie up to the full rated 2A :)

Is it smaller than the smoothie?
A head mountable/function specific controller would be really nice... ;) I have too many wires going to my head and I'm going to get headaches at some stage!

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Ray Kholodovsky

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Nov 19, 2016, 2:00:06 PM11/19/16
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Thanks Glen!

SMdude: yes all this (6 drivers, the more powerful mosfets, and larger current capabilites/ thermals for them) all fit into under 4 inches square, the board is 101x101mm.

I have been playing with CAT5 breakout boards for a while and that's how I've run all the wiring for my pnp head: roughly 3 cables going to the head for the 2 Nema 8's, the X motor, 2 endstops, the Z motor, and 4 pins are left for things I can't think of right now (LEDs, etc.)

Wireb: the PCBs are coming fully assembled from the factory including with the white molex connectors on the motor and endstop connections. The only way to get screw terminals on board would be desoldering the existing connectors at your own risk (or, as you suggested, build the board yourself :) )

Quick note: Smoothie cannot slave an axis in config as of now.  Arthur's solution is to use physical jumper wires between the drivers to bind the signals over to the 2nd one.  I don't consider this a valid solution.

Arthur - I've had 5 separate complaints over the past week about not being able to double up an axis in config (define a 2nd set of DIR STEP EN pins to send alpha/ beta/ gamma signals to).  What would be needed to make this happen?

Cheers,
Ray

Arthur Wolf

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Nov 19, 2016, 2:05:24 PM11/19/16
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Hey.

On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 8:00 PM, Ray Kholodovsky <rayk...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks Glen!

SMdude: yes all this (6 drivers, the more powerful mosfets, and larger current capabilites/ thermals for them) all fit into under 4 inches square, the board is 101x101mm.

I have been playing with CAT5 breakout boards for a while and that's how I've run all the wiring for my pnp head: roughly 3 cables going to the head for the 2 Nema 8's, the X motor, 2 endstops, the Z motor, and 4 pins are left for things I can't think of right now (LEDs, etc.)

Wireb: the PCBs are coming fully assembled from the factory including with the white molex connectors on the motor and endstop connections. The only way to get screw terminals on board would be desoldering the existing connectors at your own risk (or, as you suggested, build the board yourself :) )

Quick note: Smoothie cannot slave an axis in config as of now.  Arthur's solution is to use physical jumper wires between the drivers to bind the signals over to the 2nd one.  I don't consider this a valid solution.

Arthur - I've had 5 separate complaints over the past week about not being able to double up an axis in config (define a 2nd set of DIR STEP EN pins to send alpha/ beta/ gamma signals to).  What would be needed to make this happen?


You just can't with the current codebase while maintaining the same maximum step rate, it'd really have a significant impact ( either that or we'd make the code much more dirty, which we won't do ).
Because doubling drivers is as simple as adding 3 wires to the board ( http://smoothieware.org/3d-printer-guide#toc27 ), we don't feel there is any reason to make that sacrifice.
 
Cheers,
Ray

On Friday, November 18, 2016 at 6:27:37 PM UTC-5, Wireb wrote:
The fact that > 5 axis are supported is a major selling point as I have dual driven Ys. Been trying to find a option that supports that out of the box and was not having much luck. 

By any chance does the PCB support screw terminals on the driver outputs? I really hate those crimp on connectors in machine tools. Had to many issues over the years with the tangs in the connectors loosening up / corroding and causing issues. 

Second question will there be a bare PCB option? (To head off the internet. Yes my time is not free and if included in the cost it would be cheaper to get it prebuilt. BUT... I like building cards and if I build it will take more time and prevent me from picking up more projects as fast saving money in the long run :P) 

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Michael Anton

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Feb 25, 2017, 1:20:38 AM2/25/17
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Hi Glen,

I've been digging into these a bit more.  In what ways don't the 2 phase ones behave, that the 3 phase ones do better in?

I've been looking as iHS57-36-20, and iHSS57-36-20 motors.  Do you have experience with either of these?  I'm thinking about using these on a CoreXY PnP, and I suspect the machine would move really quick when driven by a pair of them.  These might actually be way overkill, and perhaps the 1Nm motors would be fine, but I'd rather have the extra headroom, if it makes sense to do so.

One thing I'm curious about is how much noise they make compared to open loop motors?

Thanks,

Mike

On Wednesday, November 16, 2016 at 3:25:20 AM UTC-7, Glen English wrote:

Arthur Wolf

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Feb 25, 2017, 7:17:03 AM2/25/17
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I've been using those 3-phase motors in cartesian and delta large format 3D printers ( with the CCM rails we already talked about ), and they work really great.
Most important is probably how quiet they are, but they also have a much better torque at higher speeds, which is neat to have.

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Александр Зендриков

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Feb 25, 2017, 8:00:09 AM2/25/17
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In my car I use fee MKS sbase. Perhaps the most budget solution.
https://world.taobao.com/item/44718074273.htm?fromSite=main

Daniel

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Feb 27, 2017, 12:33:31 AM2/27/17
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RAy, board looks nice ! 
Please tell me is it opensource ?
I would like to build my own board and would help me to have a look on your schematic/board.
BR,
Daniel

daniele

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Oct 31, 2017, 6:02:33 PM10/31/17
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do you have a schema of links to do with that board?

Ray Kholodovsky

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Oct 31, 2017, 6:03:36 PM10/31/17
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daniele

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Nov 1, 2017, 9:06:18 PM11/1/17
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sorry I was wrong, I meant a link diagram that Александр Зендриков did to use the MKS sbase

Олег Перевышин

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Feb 6, 2018, 4:44:10 AM2/6/18
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Hello everybody!
Share settings for control Cohesion3D ReMix
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