Hello everyone, I’m new to not only to CNC but to google+ and communities. Just wanted to introduce myself.
I’ve always like building things and I’m a union pipeliner and spend about half the year at home so I decided to buy an R7 with the M1 to make things with to sell at local trade days and even some cabinet doors for my father in law’s business when I’m home.
I’ve got it all put together and wired up, just need to go get the printer cable to hook it to my laptop. I’ve got Vectrics Aspire (my cousin had it and gave it to me, not paying that much for software) and am going to use Universal g-code sender because my shop is to far from my house for wifi for chilipepper. I’ve heard some bad things about UGCS though. Can anyone recommend anything better that doesn’t need to be online?
I’ll take some pics once I go get the cable and give it a test run to see if there are any bugs I need to work out.
Also, if anyone else uses Aspire, I’d love to be able to pick your brain from time to time because I know nothing about it. I’ve made it about halfway through all the training videos they offer.
I use bCNC which works great, can run on windows or Linux. I’m running bCNC feeding gcode over serial to a motion control board.
Welcome to the forum. I use cncjs and so far it works great. I am still learning to use it. But so far I am happy with it. I have vcarve pro. I figured if I upgrade to aspire I will only have to pay $100 more than the regular program.
I’m assuming the M1 that I got with my R7 would be my motion control board? As I said, noob lol
@Edward_Bigham thanks for the welcome,
and also to whoever approved my request to join.
Only difference I remember in description between TinyG and the the M1 is that the has “Bigfoot sticks.” I believe they are just to be able to run bigger amperage motors if you so desired later on, I think
I spoke to one of the guys at Smw3d and he recommended the M1.
What do you mean “still learning to use it”? Is it complicated or have a bit of a learning curve? Right now I’m kinda looking for some simplicity. Aspire seems complicated enough atm
I don’t think I mentioned, I’m going to be running my R7 from my windows 8.1 laptop
I run mine from a Windows 10 laptop. There is a learning curve. Not to bad with cncjs but you want to take advantage of all it has to offer. I was carving things in an hour or so. That was making something in vcarve then having cncjs tell tinyG what to do. So you can get to work quickly but you will want to learn more. Vcarve is very easy to use but there is so much it can do you will not be able to do It all so fast. I am sure aspire has a lot more to offer than vcarve pro.
I have helped a friend who used UGS. The hardest thing to sort out is when it is in mm and when it is in inches. Other than that it hasn’t been too hard to sort out.
CNC.js is about the easiest to fire up and use and only requires internet to load the software.
In the vectric product select post processor of GRBL.
So I got the cable today, plugged everything in, plugged it into my laptop annnd, nothing. Laptop doesn’t recognize the device and UGS doesn’t connect. Can’t find any info anywhere on how to troubleshoot. Windows says I need drivers, but none are available (oh so helpful)
Any ideas?
If it has the prolific chipset this one works. I found one for Linux by googling “Linux usb to serial driver”.
http://serialio.com - Drivers and Set-up for the USB RS-232 Adapter with Prolific Chipset | Serialio.com
@Colin_Kaminski I saw on the product reviews for the R7 that you also purchased yours from smw3d in July last year. Did you get yours with TinyG or M1?
I downloaded and installed the drivers for that cable, gonna go see if it works after I get the baby back to sleep and my wife gets back. It uses a USB a/b cable though, like a printer cable.
@Anthony_Box you are in great hands with Colin. He has been a tremendous help getting me set up. In fact everyone here was great.
I run the TinyG. I don’t think the M1 was an option then. Thank you for the kind words @Anthony_Box . I have learned more here than I have taught. I like the community feel here.
@Anthony_Box I am not a UGS guy but drivers typically should not be an issue.
Let us take an approach to load similar drivers. The Arduino software comes with all types of good stuff.
Download the IDE from the link.
Open Arduino and connect to the GRBL board.
There is a small eye glass looking thing in the upper RH corner, this is a serial port.
When you click on the hour glass you should get a new window open. In the window you should see GRBL 1.1.
This confirms connection.
Close Ardiuno and continue as normal.
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software
I got it to connect after I installed the driver Colin suggested and reset my com port. Internet went down last night so I couldn’t update you. It will all connect now, but when I try to jog around, I can hear the motors hum, barely. It’s like they aren’t getting enough power to actually move or something. I did the the spindle to fire up. Gonna check all my connections again for a third time
@Anthony_Box are you able to turn your Motors when the power is off? Maybe something is too tight or something is binding.
Yes, I can turn them all by hand
Anthony, just tossing this out there. You have to home the machine before you can jog around. Will get a bunch of error twos if you try to jog without homing the machine first.
You may already know this though, your steps/mm should be set around 400 at the 1/16th microstepping you are using.
Just mentioning this if you want to check to see if your settings are correct. Type $$ in a serial port and they will return.
Make sure your wired pairs on the motors are correct, yellow blue is a pair red green is the other.
Make sure the red lights on the bigfoot stepper sticks is not on .We test all before they leave so should not be an issue, but if the fan is not blowing on them they can over heat in a short while in relatively warm ambient.