LinuxCNC or GRBL?

[brianw13a]

Hello all,

This weekend I expect to be able to start moving my machine around.  Being that far, I need to start thinking further ahead to integrating OpenPNP.  I have a spare machine with a parallel port and I also have an arduino that can run GRBL.

Which one would I be better off with in the short/long term?

Thanks - brianw13a

[Jason von Nieda]

Hi Brian,

Can you describe the axes and outputs of your machine for us? That will help us make a better recommendations. i.e. how many motors, axes, pumps, solenoids, LEDs, etc. do you want to drive?

Jason

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[brianw13a]

Sure.  It has steppers for X and Y, and I have the robot digg headset which add another 3 steppers.  I purchased 2 vacuum pumps and solenoids for the nozzles although I hope I only only need one vacuum pump.

Robot Digg headset

http://www.robotdigg.com/product/559/Headset+for+PNP+Machine

X & Y drives   TB6600

http://www.ebay.com/itm/20KHZ-CNC-Single-Axis-TB6600-2-4-Phase-Hybrid-Stepper-Motor-Driver-Controller-/291685220744?hash=item43e9cb4188:g:QHsAAOSwYIhWjPqY

Headset drives  TB6560

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CNC-Router-1-Axis-Controller-Stepper-Motor-Drivers-TB6560-3A-driver-board-LO-/161933753563?hash=item25b400fcdb:g:uQUAAOSwLN5WhO3L

For the controller, I have plenty of arduino experience so I'll either create my own board for the GRBL controller or use LinuxCNC as I have plenty of spare PCs with parallel ports.

Long term I'd like to use both nozzles for placement but short term I'll be happy with just one.

[brianw13a]

I'd also like to add a solenoid for a drag feeder.

[Jason von Nieda]

Hi Brian,

So, you've got:

Axes: X, Y, Z, C1, C1

Outputs: Pump, Vac Solenoid 1, Vac Solenoid 2, Drag Solenoid

Based on this I'd recommend you pick up a Smoothieboard 5X if you want to save yourself a lot of hassle. That will work basically out of the box. Anything else and you are going to have to do fairly significant hacking. Grbl only supports 3 axes and 2-3 outputs by default. We have a hacked up version of Grbl at https://github.com/openpnp/grbl but that still only supports 4 axes.

LinuxCNC is another option, but you'll have to do some work on the driver as it does not currently support this many devices or a cam based Z axis. If you are comfortable working in the Java code this might be a good way to go.

Finally, the GcodeDriver I've been working on (see other thread) could work for you by using maybe two Arduinos with Grbl running on each. You could use one for X and Y and the other for Z, C1 and C2. It's going to make motion pretty weird, though. The machine will end up moving in X/Y, then in Z/C1/C2 separately. 

So, to sum up:

* If you are okay writing Java I'd probably go with LinuxCNC.

* If you want an off the shelf solution i'd pick up a Smoothie.

Jason

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[brianw13a]

Jason,

Thanks for the advice.  I'd like to spend the time to get more involved with OpenPNP and updating the LinuxCNC driver but at the moment time is at a premium.  That being said, it sounds like the smoothieboard is my best option.  

Maybe later I can circle back and look closer at the OpenPNP code.  The OpenCV portion is of particular interest.

Anyway, thanks again - Brian

[Ray Kholodovsky]

Hey Brian,

The only place to get a smoothie right now is from France at Robotseed.com - it looks like they have the 5x in stock.  

[Cri S]

Il giorno sabato 2 aprile 2016 14:33:27 UTC, Jason von Nieda ha scritto:

Hi Brian,

So, you've got:

Axes: X, Y, Z, C1, C1

Outputs: Pump, Vac Solenoid 1, Vac Solenoid 2, Drag Solenoid

If you need to have push output, better chinese machines use 3 vacuum pump. 

then you have additional 2 solenoid for doing pressure puff. 

Stepper: 5 stepper, minimum 9 Pins.

Home: 3 Pins.

output: 4-6+2 = 6-8 pins, 

total 9 + 3 + 6 = 18 pins , simple Arduino works, if you have arduino micro/... that have two additional pins,

allows to run pressure sensor or light controlled pwm. step pins need hw pull-up or pull-down.

I Forget the enable pin, then using arduino uno, either you need i2c/spi output extension, or change to arduino mega, or 

use one with 2 extra pins (a6-a7) or reduce needed io pins, eventually home could be reduced to one single pin.

Standard Grbl never worked, and the new Gcode driver is not necessary better.

My Grbl driver seems to not compatible anymore as the driver api changed, so maybe using linux can be better solution.

Drop me a pm if you want use linuxcnc or grbl, but i never intend to support the new driver api changes

[brianw13a]

Ray,

That's what I found too.  I ordered shortly after my last post.

Thanks - Brian