First of: I couldn’t find a solution for this anywhere, so please forgive me if it sounds redundant to anyone …
My hardware Situtation:
I have a smoothieboard with M542 drivers and nema24s. No endstops yet.
The Smoothie Config:
latest cnc-edge firmware and a config where endstops are disabled and I even put in grbl_mode true for good messure.
The Problem
When I use telnet I can move the motors via gcode … no problem.
So I went to setup bCNC via socket://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:23 and selected controller ‘smoothie’: Serial connection established gets green.
BUT:
Grbl-Status says still ‘not connected’ (orange) even though clicking Grbl-status says: “Connection is established with Grbl”
Can’t move motors in bCNC. bCNC Terminal reads a bunch of ‘ok -ignored’ messages.
I spent the last two days with this but no luck ….
Has anybody an idea whatI do wrong?
Help is much appreciated!!!
Tom
Imported from wikidot
I din’t even know bcnc could do network connection, are you sure that’s “officially” supported by them ?
Does USB work ?
Have you done everything that is mentionned at smoothieware.org/bcnc ( it’s not just grbl_mode ) ?
Well, as I said, at least the serial connection via network seams to work.
I honestly haven’t used USB … I come from 3d printing an never used USB there either … thought that was smoothies charming plus point.
I’ll try usb tomorrow, BUT …
… since serial connection seams to work … I more suspect there might be a problem with grbl mode (status format seams to have no Mpos and Wpos)
But then again, I have no real clue about grbl …
In config I set ‘grbl_mode true’ AND ‘new_status_format true’
what else is there to do?
Thanks!
Tom
BTW …
In bCNC Terminal the smoothieshell login message appears, so serial connection should be okay.
then come a bunch of ok - ignored messages.
Well, you were right: I tested it with USB and it works as advertised.
Still don’t get why network does not work, because it’s seems to be intended to work according to the bCNC configuration docu on github.
Wouldn’t it be neat using only a ethernet cable to drive a CNC??
Shouldn’t ethernet be much more stable , especially if you needed to bridge a longer distance?
Best Regards,
Tom
Ethernet is good to upload files to SD card for playing, but it’s not really good for “streaming” Gcode ( which is what bCNC is good for ). I expect Smoothie doesn’t implement the new format over Ethernet since that’d only be used by bCNC, and that’s for streaming, and ethernet isn’t for streaming.
Got it. Makes all sense.
Do you have experience on the maximum of recommendable USB cable length (where you don’t run into interference and other problems)?
Otherwise I’ll probably use a Pi to keep the USB cable as short as possible and connect to the Pi via ethernet.
Anyways … thanks a lot.
Some people have no problem with 2 meters cables, others can’t get anything longer than 20cm to work, it really depends on a lot of things, including EMI at your place, voltage differentials ( ground loops ), the USB ports themselves etc.
github[].com/vlachoudis/bCNC/wiki/Configuration
in [Connection] suggets connecting Over Ethernet: socket://192.168.1.120:23