Smoothieboard V1, Smoothieware usage and Derived Clones

[beanflying]

Will start this topic off here as it is more about the Board/Firmware to get it to do something than how to make this Board produce a result (3DP, CNC, PnP etc). I had a good search around and there is no real thread for discussing the Board/Firmware. Specific final use cases are maybe better off in their own threads

Not wanting a discussion about the V2/Kickstarter and lengthy delays on shipping or excuses for that either best in it's own thread as it is a long way from this one in terms of design.

Links:   http://smoothieware.org/smoothieboard and the Github https://github.com/Smoothieware

Commonly derived Boards and Firmware.

https://cohesion3d.com/shop/controllers/cohesion3d-laserboard/ and custom firmware designed to suit Lightburn Laser Cutting software.

CLONE (Clown) possibly don't buy me warning eBay auction: #402589338799

to be added to as needed for links etc....

[beanflying]

And the reason to consider starting a Smoothie thread I brought a Bad Clone  So partly as a warning to others in particular those with no SMD skills be careful buying a clone and test it fully before your Paypal protection runs out. At the time and still even now being able to buy a 'Real' Smoothieboard V1 is about as likely as tripping on Rocking Horse Poo.

When I received it over a year ago now with the plan to drop it into my Laser Cutter I downloaded a trialware version of the software and hooked it up and they both talked to each other so due to other things happening it went back in the box for later use. Now onto the last week time to get it out and get it installed.

BUT

It won't talk to the steppers at all using the smoothie or cohesion firmwares in spite of it hooking up to Lightburn and seemingly handling firmware upgrades as it is supposed to. After much pulling of the hair and blaming the Firmware and much Google trawling this random topic turns up. It is a hardware problem.

https://forum.makerforums.info/t/aliexpress-fysetc-smoothieboard-v1-1-mcp4441-issue/77926

And putting the board under the lens sure enough it has the same WRONG two Quad Digital Pots fitted  Turns out for reasons unknown the muppets concerned deviated from the Open Sourced BOM and used 100k 7 bit Pots instead of the 50k 8 bit ones. Likely an availability issue more than saving $0.10 but 

Luckily they are a common footprint so it is just a case of read the BOM and go buy $3 worth of bits and then get my head around reworking 20 pin TSOP packages to fit them I hope....

Parts are inbound so then remove the two MCP4441-104 7 bit 100k and fit the two MCP4461-503E/ST 8 bit 50k packages.

[phil from seattle]

For laser cutters, consider grblHAL.  I sell a board based on the Teensy 4.1 that runs laser cutters super fast. Several customers have replaced smoothies with it. Works with Lightburn.  https://www.tindie.com/products/philba/grblhal-breakout-board-unkit-for-teensy-41/

[technix]

Since it is open source, if you want a clone, just don't buy those pre-made ones, be a good hacker and make your own. JLCPCB has ran those $2 PCB ads for a while already.

[beanflying]

Since it is open source, if you want a clone, just don't buy those pre-made ones, be a good hacker and make your own. JLCPCB has ran those $2 PCB ads for a while already.

Might be a better option as the stock of 'Smoothie original' ones is about zero. The issue is getting small quantities of all the IC's for the job as supplies of a lot of the bits are hard to come by at present. Even getting the correct pots was a none at Mouser and E14 and one of the two options only at Digikey for example.

Digital pots and the bits for the job on mine arrived yesterday and the bench got a good clearing today so I have room to move and swap them over in the next day or two.

[technix]

Digital pots and the bits for the job on mine arrived yesterday and the bench got a good clearing today so I have room to move and swap them over in the next day or two.

I wonder what are those digi-pots for? Also I wonder if it is possible to replace those digi-pots with DACs?

[beanflying]

The are more or less an 8 bit DAC depending on how you wire them I guess. Roughly they take their input from the Micro and use their output to set the current limit for the Stepper drivers instead of the more common manual pots on the Ramps style boards. If you wanted to rewrite parts of the firmware to suit then a DAC or use the KISS option and a Pot works fine. To avoid the firmware and compatibility issues with other software best to follow the recipe here I guess which is were the clone went wrong 

[technix]

The are more or less an 8 bit DAC depending on how you wire them I guess. Roughly they take their input from the Micro and use their output to set the current limit for the Stepper drivers instead of the more common manual pots on the Ramps style boards. If you wanted to rewrite parts of the firmware to suit then a DAC or use the KISS option and a Pot works fine. To avoid the firmware and compatibility issues with other software best to follow the recipe here I guess which is were the clone went wrong 

What I mean is, they do need the pots for LPC1700 series. Had they went with STM32F103 which has built-in 2-channel DAC, maybe the cheaper option would be using that built-in DAC and a few op amps to distribute that voltage out.

[beanflying]

Apart from buying one (clone) I hadn't really followed the project before but it dates from 2015-16 from memory so maybe the STM release was after? The V2 which hit kickstarter a year ago (still to be delivered) has gone a fairly different again and worthy of a separate thread when it is released. For a one off I was looking for a solution to link an existing Laser to Software (Lightburn) so I didn't want a 'project'.

[Doctorandus_P]

Some years ago I put GRBL into a "Blue Pill" hacked together as a one-off on matrix board and good old 74ls244 buffers to drive optocouplers in beefy stepper motor drivers. Works quite nicely.

Then came the race to the bottom which was lost by the blue pill and I bought a bunch of WeAct Black Pills with an STM32F411 and am now experimenting with grblHAL on it.