Brilliant, good to hear! I just finished this Gutenberg page

And was heartily sick of the servo whine the time it finished, though the actual movement noise wasn't so bad. Quiet servos are not cheap though!

sn

Hi Merijnpen, want to tell us a little more about your setup? Type of arduino, type of motorshield / circuit schematic, version of firmware etc. What testing are you doing to verify that the circuit works etc?

sn

So what version of firmware are you using? (I mean, where did you get it from?) Lanthan's amendment is in more than one place, his code, my code.

The Kritzler code uses
MotorA step - pin 9
MotorA dir - pin 10
MotorB step - pin 11
MotorB dir - pin 12

So I'm guessing your wiring reflects that?

The test code you have has motorA (x) on
dir - pin 8
step - pin 9
enable - pin 10

So that doesn't match the kritzler code - not sure why it works for you.

Probably isn't a driver issue if you're getting movement using the test sketch.

The most recent version of the controller uses new comms protocol, where it appends a CRC rather that does a reply and confirm to make sure it's got the right command. I'm pretty sure all the firmwares I've published have been updated to do this, but I'm also pretty sure none of the firmwares I've published have their stepper pins mapped out the same way as der kritzler, so all of them will require a minor amendment to get them to work. If you haven't done the amendment, then that's probably the problem.

If the commands are disappearing out of the command queue in the controller quickly enough (the status line goes yellow, and says "BUSY ... " for a second), then the communication is working ok.

sn

Ok, lanthan's code doesn't do the CRC check, so although it eventually goes green and issues a READY, it has actually just ignored the previous commands. For something like a "set home", it just just flicker BUSY for less than a second. On my testing here, lanthan's stays BUSY for a couple of seconds.

I would, if I were you, use my code from this branch:

Polargraph firmware - serial stepper driver

This is configured to use serial stepper drivers, and to use CRCs on the comms. It's set up to use the ITead motorshield, but just change the lines to point to your pins you need as you did for Lanthan's firmware. You can safely ignore the "..Microstepx" variables, they don't get used in the code. They're just there if you want to change microstepping programmatically rather than with jumpers etc.

sn

Works!!! At first it didnt, but resetting the arduino and suddenly the motors started singing!

Thanks a lot

Great! I'll go get my gears from the lasercutter now! 😉

Is there a solution for the random moving of the motors when the arduino is resetting or stuff is getting uploaded onto the arduino? Its not a big problem, but might be annoying later on.

ok thanks, I will look at that when it gets too anoying. thanks for the help and software anyways!

Hey!
There seems to be a problem with c17 commands. vector files worked perfectly before, but for no reason, now it doesnt react to the c17 commands any more. Moves every now and then when another command passes.

Does anyone know how this suddenly changed? and how it can be solved?

Thanks!

It was working the first time that I started the machine, now it doesnt anymore. Makes no difference where I put the vector.
It is strange, since I didnt really change anything...

I think the machine spec are correct, the pen moves to the right position, but when it gets the c17 commands, it stands still. No sound from the motors. The vector in the controller is ok and slowly disappears while the commands are sent.
Turns out this is not the only problem, when i try to make a scribble drawing, the pen moves to the right position, then starts scribbling at that point but stays scribbling at that point. The commands in this case are not disappearing and the controller stays busy.

I will spend some more time trying out different stuff, I will let you know if I manage to fix it.