SoCal RS-CNC32 Initial Build Summary

[DaveDolsonUSA]

Thank you so much.Giles. I got a local and cloud copy.
John,
I found a couple of nice clamp parts
And printable parallels, v blocks etc up Thingiverse.
Your braver than I am to use a metal clamp for close in machining. When I learn milling back in the 70’s there was no plastic or 3dprinters so metal
it was. There are also printable screws and other keep it from flying pieces parts. Plastic kind of takes the fun out of the shrapnel of a blown bit...

Heading out to the shop after work tomorrow to finish mechanical for the gantry. Not enough hours in the day.

[Zepp3001]

Dave,

Rest assured those are brass woodscrews through some plywood holding down the part inside the EOP toolpath, so not too much risk if the bit goes wayward. The only other metal is the stainless steel bolts for the red 3D-printed clamps. Some risk there, but certainly more margin for hitting the E-Stop button if needed. Still room for more variety in clamping methods, though, to be sure!

John

[RoMaker]

Hi John !

Very nice job ! That's very clean !

Where are you located in California ? I went 7 times in USA (2 times in California) And my last travel in Florida was cancelled because of covid19

If you have problems with USB cable when the cnc is running, please check the version of the ESP32 library in arduino Tools>board>board manager, search ESP32, and the version shouldn't after the 1.0.4 (1.0.5 and 1.0.6 have problems with serial communication). I learned that a few days ago

I'm testing the GRBL32bits board V2.0 wich should be released next month with most improvements ... I'm like a kid after opening its new toy the day of Xmas

[Zepp3001]

Thanks, Romain!

I am just north of Los Angeles. I haven't made it to Europe myself, but it's very much on my list!

Thanks for the tip on the ESP32 version. Unfortunately (and much to my surprise), I'm apparently already using version 1.04:

ESP32 Version.jpg

Again, I do plan to make a more detailed post on this subject, but I did a bunch of experimentation with different USB cables, ferrite beads, and investigation of the USB signal on a DSO, and couldn't find a smoking gun. I think the longest running job I've had on USB before failing was about 47 minutes (and that was an outlier).

It's definitely possible that there's some noise on the USB line that I can't see on my DSO, or a problem with the USB hardware on one of the boards. However, the UART serial comms is rock solid (both from the ESP32 board to the GRBL board, and between my Raspberry Pi and the GRBL board). If other folks are having better luck, I haven't quite figured out why.. Without any other info, my best guess was that there's an issue with the relay function on the ESP32 (e.g. a buffer issue, or some timing problem). But if no one else is having this problem, that seems unlikely (I'm not any sort of software expert!).

All I know is my switched UART serial solution is working reliably.

Thanks again! The design of the RS-CNC32 is really great.

John

[Zepp3001]

Hello again Romain,

I forgot to mention that the GRBL board V2.0 looks very impressive (as does your "higher-end" CNC design)! I appreciate the joy of testing a new creation .

John