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project gallery #47

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martin2250 opened this issue Feb 20, 2018 · 110 comments
Open

project gallery #47

martin2250 opened this issue Feb 20, 2018 · 110 comments

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@martin2250
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Hi everyone,
I love seeing what you make with OpenCNCPilot, feel free to post pictures of the PCBs (or other projects) you make here.
@martin2250
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first attempt at a double sided PCB, 0.4mm traces, SOT-23 and 1206:

img_20171210_161356
img_20171210_161407

@martin2250 martin2250 mentioned this issue Feb 20, 2018
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@deHarro
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deHarro commented Feb 20, 2018

Adapter board for a display (obvious from SIEMENS LOGO!), sold at Pollin. It carries an Arduino Nano V3 and an I2C adapter on one side and the display on the other:
2017-08-21_img_3648_resize
2017-08-21_img_3649
2017-08-21_img_3647

This was the first approach, the conneection between board and display is made of wires. Display and board are aligned when mounted, of course. My second approach uses matching connectors on board and display, so both parts are located closer together. The housing is made from POM and holds both parts together. No pictures yet, sorry.

@deHarro
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deHarro commented Feb 20, 2018

Another project I made I already posted here, but to keep the pictures together, here again...
It's the controller board for an electrically boosted city scooter (in german). The design is two sided.

2017-03-19_p1080695

The structures for the MPU9250 are 0.2 .. 0.3 mm

mpu-einbauplatz_mass_a

Not possible without height mapping -> OpenCNCPilot! :)

@S2000Stefan
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Time for a Change, no PCB but something OpenCNCPilot can also very good. ;)
imgp0957
imgp0948
height mapping rules. 👍
Stefan

@canbaytok
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I'll just leave my Imgur Album here, since I dont want to spam this thread with 10 pictures of my crappy PCBs:

Look here!

All in all I gotta say that most of my circuit are just impossible to route, without the height adjustment of the CNC and OpenCNCPilot does a pretty good job with that.

Kind of off topic, but did any of you guys think about protection of the bare copper of your PCBs. My PCBs are getting very dirty, as time passes and I would love to get some input as to how I would protect the from corrosion etc.

@bensonsbc
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Hi @sirsenor !

I did not try it yet, but I have read about using a spray coat (does not know the English name, in Portuguese it's called "Verniz", it's used to coat wood, or even paint to make it gloss and help to protect, I will post a picture later of how it looks like), the people said it would not interfere on the solder process (I am a bit skeptic about this, but need to try it out) and will protect against oxidation.

I had seen a process that I thought is very nice, look at the video below, but I will need to make a spring loaded tool holder to try it. Don't know if this is an easy job... I think to get the spring pressure right will not be easy.

Look here:
https://youtu.be/7EctuSTL7-w?t=180

best regards

@martin2250 martin2250 mentioned this issue Mar 4, 2018
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@Borntrippy
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p1015166
Thanks m8 will send some beer money very soon via donate, really appreciative of all the hard work you have put in :)

@Borntrippy
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i have used circuit board varnish before when i used to chemical etch my boards... it does a great job and can be resoldered after the varnish is on.. ie to replace a part... it acts as an insulator as well i think from memory - should be able to buy it at thew local electronics store

@trietdao95
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can anyone upload the layout or gcode file to test on my machine?

@martin2250
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My latest project, a three-phase power monitor built around the ATM90E36A:
20180628_080501
20180628_142925
20180628_080537
untitled

As of yesterday it is mounted in a DIN rail case inside our main fuse box and is providing data to my RPi/InfluxDB/Grafana setup.

@trietdao95 : here are the design files for the bottom right board in the first picture
gerber_esp-carrier.zip

@canbaytok
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I needed an excuse to test out my solder mask technique and cutting the pcb out with my new bits so I designed this little breakout board for an LM324N. I hate it to connect 5 jumper wires to build up a quick little NIamp. The board will be a new home for an LM324N and four potentiometers to adjust the gain.
image

I tried to use every step I can to "manufacture" this pcb.

  1. Isolation of traces
  2. Applying and curing soldermask
  3. routing soldermask off the pads
  4. drilling the holes
  5. cutting the pcb out

I will most likely never cut my pcbs out again ( I think fiber glass dust is not really good for your lungs :D )

You can also clearly see that the left pads are nice and clean and the right pads have scratch marks on them. Thats because I noticed halfway trough the process that my spindle is not mounted firmly and had a little of a wiggle. Well at least my copper is safe and wont degrade as much.

@bensonsbc
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bensonsbc commented Jul 18, 2018 via email

@canbaytok
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canbaytok commented Jul 18, 2018 •
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I use the soldermask gerber file I get from easyeda in combination with FlatCAM to generate a gcode file that routes the pads geometry at Zheight of 0mm. The trick is that the spindle speed should be set as slow as possible so the copper underneath it doesnt get damaged when the bit passes over it. The results look pretty darn good, even if it means that the process of creating a pcb takes longer.

@martin2250
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It's a bit rough around the edges but damn, this is the most beautiful milled PCB that I've seen yet!

Why worry about FR-4 dust? Just drip some alcohol on the board before you start isolation milling, this will bind all the dust. Cutting out should be quick enough that you can vacuum up the dust as the machine is working.

@bensonsbc
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bensonsbc commented Jul 18, 2018 via email

@canbaytok
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@bensonsbc this is the video I was inspired from, but I knew that the time spent on finding a good spring that fits and gets the job done was not worth it so I experimented to find another way.

@martin2250 I also thought about using some plain old vegetable oil, but I didnt want my bits to get greasy. For now I will stick to not cutting out my pcbs and just use my clippers (as long as the pcb is rectangular).

@deHarro
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deHarro commented Jul 19, 2018 •
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Hi all!
Since I always sit by and watch the milling process and don't want to get my working area spilled with dust, I use a vacuum cleaner with modded nozzle to suck away any dust and pieces the tool produces.
I take it as some sort of meditation - just sitting there and following the tool with my nozzle for hours... ;-)
Needless to say, I wear noise protection equipment when attending my CNC router.

The modding is straight forward: A short piece of PUR foam heat insulation from HVAC (heating, ventilating & air condition) cladded with duct tape and pressed into the standard vacuum cleaner hose. Inserted into this PUR part is a not so short (about 150 mm) piece of 16 mm plastic hose (electrical installation hose). The end of this plastic hose I flattened by applying heat.

The vacuum cleaner runs at its slowest setting, the reduced diameter produces enough airspeed to suck in all dust and most of the flitter.
Leave it at the slowest setting since the reduced diameter restricts airflow through the vacuum cleaner, reducing the needed cooling for its motor.

2018-07-19_img_4801
2018-07-19_img_4805
2018-07-19_img_4806

@martin2250 martin2250 mentioned this issue Aug 18, 2018
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@A-J-Bauer
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A-J-Bauer commented Oct 17, 2018 •
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Hello Martin,

thank you for your great work!

Did this PCB with a cheap mill and OpenCNCPilot after many failed attempts to get it done without leveling (before I found your program :-))

pcbtest

mill

I made a quick branch with an icon you might want to use.

applicationproperties

applicationiconsuggestion

I like your coding style, nicely done.

Thanks again and regards
A.J.Bauer

@martin2250
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Hi @A-J-Bauer,

thanks, your PCB looks great!
I absolute love your icon and I actually was about to ask for permission to use it :) I'll definitely add it before the next release!

Happy milling!
Martin

@canbaytok
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I just completed my last attempt at milling and protecting the footprint of a QFN IC (NCP5911 Dual Mosfet Driver IC) and took some pictures along the way. Take a look here!

I think the next step would be completing my QFN breakout board and then maybe a fully fledged breadboard module.

@deHarro
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deHarro commented Nov 19, 2018

Hi sirsenor,
looks quite good :)

Do you remove the solder mask with a spring loaded stylus or just made another pass with the engraving bit, adjusted somewhat higher?

You ask why the height map didn't work any more. Did you perhaps forget to apply the map?

Harald

@canbaytok
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Do you remove the solder mask with a spring loaded stylus or just made another pass with the engraving bit, adjusted somewhat higher?

The latter. I let the spindle spin at a very slow speed. You can see the markings of the engraving bit in the forth and fifth picture.

You ask why the height map didn't work any more. Did you perhaps forget to apply the map?

I believe Ive applied it. I think this issue might be caused when I apply the solder mask and press it down to even it out.

@martin2250
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20181221_104728
20181221_104815
20181222_231439

This is the PCB for my latest project, an energy monitor to plug between an outlet and a device.
For clearing out the large copper areas, I used a 1mm endmill and FlatCAM to generate the gcode.

@luizabbadia
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luizabbadia commented Dec 24, 2018 via email

@deHarro
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deHarro commented Dec 25, 2018

Very clean, congrats!

@martin2250
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Thanks!

@canbaytok
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After 3 or 4 tries I was finally able to get a decent looking double sided and masked PCB:
img_20181228_134151
img_20181228_134144
Gotta tweak my settings a little bit, since flatcam produces tiny copper strands between the copper areas.

This time I tried to print a real solder mask onto some transparent foil, but unfortunately my printer is not the newest and the toner is almost empty so the saturation of the black ink was not enough and the UV light managed to get trough and solidify the solder mask on the pads. I tried to remove the solder mask with a little motor and a 0.3mm isolation bit, which does not look good (I only routed of the pads that I had to solder to the board)
img_20181228_162325

For the other side I printed 4 copies of the solder mask and stacked them on top of each other, which helped a lot, but after 4 hours of working on this PCB with no breakfast I was exhausted and the alignment took a hit.
img_20181228_162331

@martin2250
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Hi everybody,

@deHarro cool project, routing all wires through individual channels gives the clock a really interesting look, it's almost a shame to cover it up with the faceplate once it's done 😁 I'm curious though: why switch back from RGBW to regular RGB LEDs? Was the added white channel not worth the extra coding effort?

@Donderda My first CNC was a Shapeoko 2 clone and it made some (at the time) pretty impressive PCBs. Backlash was manageable (unless the timing belts were too cold or not properly tensioned) but what I missed most was repeatability across larger distances. When moving 200mm in XY to give me clear view at the workpiece and going back, it didn't end up at the same spot (no missed steps, I'm still not sure why this happened). Also the rigidity was pretty poor, so I had to mill deeper than necessary (I used Z-0.14mm back then, now I get away with 0.05 mm). I don't know if this still applies to version 3, but I remain a bit skeptical. Anyways I think the Shapeoko is a machine that you will outgrow some day. I'd take a look at the new "Hobby-Line" lineup by Sorotec, these seem to be priced not much above the Shapeoko 3 (no electronics included though) and should be both more rigid and more precise.

Cheers,
Martin

@deHarro
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deHarro commented Feb 29, 2020

Hi Martin,

I elaborated this topc over at Christians Bastelladen.
In short: Actually there seems to be a shortage in LED Stripes, at least in the wanted population (90 or 144 LEDs/m). So I had to take what I could grab.
On the other hand, since I didn't use white as color for my clock(s), those additional white LEDs where not used at all. So why bother about them missing? ;-)

... Just an idea, you might have expericenes with this?
On page 4 of the above mentioned thread I posted a picture of a test with self adhesive copper film as stencil for another, even smaller word clock.
As I stated there, I think the adhesive is too soft to hold the copper film against the force of the routing bit.
Do you know a cure against this? Hardening the adhesive by tempering?

My next attempt will be to glue pure copper film (without adhesive back) with a hard glue (e.g. 2K adhesive) to the acrylic plate.

Harald

@martin2250
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Hi Harald,

I wouldn't use the self adhesive copper tape at all. Two ideas:

Use a thiner 0.8mm PCB or mill pockets on the FR4-side to make the letters more transparent.Bonus points if the entire clock is just a stack of PCBs with no visible electronics.

For your idea with plain copper film search for "cnlohr glass pcb" on YouTube. Charles uses copper foil which has a rough side for better adhesion and UV curing glue. Not sure if this is necessary for this purpose, but it will work for sure.

Martin

@deHarro
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deHarro commented Feb 29, 2020

Bonus points if the entire clock is just a stack of PCBs with no visible electronics.

You know, in the end there is a cover with letters hiding all electronis? Sure, you know that.
... AH, I get the point. All visible surfaces in FR4, inclusive the letter front, right?

The challenge would be to integrate the WIFI part invisible. We use ESP-xx µC now.
I think, the old "Arduino" version, without DCF77 though (the antenna will be too big at all), fits easily into a small 4 by 4 mm sized AtMega328, which can be buried in a pocket in the FR4 material. But then you will have to have buttons to set the clock and so on.
... There are touch sensitive solutions with I²C. This could be of use.
I'll se forward for your solution... ;-)

Anyway, I am just designing a 12 x 12 cm version. And perhaps another in 10 x 10 cm just to consume surplus LED stripes, but then I will (re)turn to other projects... :-)

But thanks for the hint, I will have a look.
Harald

@deHarro
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deHarro commented Apr 18, 2020

Hi guys!
I'm back on this gadget thing.

Summary: I want to make standard 3DTouch/BLTouch sensors cooperate with our CNC routers without having to fiddle around with soldering smallest SMD parts and high voltage programming at tiny Atmels. Just use the out of the box sensor, attach it to a to be defined gadget and that gadget to the GRBL controller and be able to probe non conductive surfaces with OCP.

The newly ordered sensor, this time a SODIAL 3DTouch with an connector instead of wires coming out of the housing, arrived but wasn't working at all.
Some friendly mails later I got my money back and was told to dispose the non functional device.

Surely I investigated on that and found that they forgot to set the Reset pin to be an output.
I fixed that by settings the correspondig fuse via HVP.

Now the sensor performes as expected and I could start to implement the gadgets program.
As stated, I use a Digispark, mostly because of its size and because I have some laying around.

The code is sort of straight forward. After power on just issue the command for "pin down" and then poll the "Sig" line of the sensor for getting HIGH.

When the gadget registers the rising edge on "Sig" it sends the command to retract the sensor pin and starts a timer.
After the set time the pin is again forced outwards to be able to sense the next probe contact.

The "Sig" line is forwarded in parallel to GRBLs probe input, the recognition of the probe moment is therefore not delayed. The gadget only produces the signals for the sensor it normally gets from the 3D printer controller.

At this point we encounter a small inconvenience, since our probing with conductive material, namely PCBs, reacts on changing the probe input from High to Low.
GRBL has an option to make the probe input react on High or on Low signals, but since we perhaps want to probe conductive and non conductive materials variantly, it is advisable to implement an inverter on the gadget.
I plan to use a SMD FET for that purpose since I have some on hands, they are fast and do a good job in grounding signal lines when activated.

If I have designed the board I will provide you with additional information.

For now, I need additional input on the behavior of different sensors.
The SODIAL type has implemented the truth table of the original BLTouch V2, reacting on five different commands. The resemblance is very similar, but the BLTouch uses an AtTiny 13(A) or 2313A, the SODIAL clone uses an AtTiny 25 in a 20 pin QFN housing.
The old 3DTouch versions only react on two commands, used for servo type probes, namely Up and Down.
So perhaps I have to implement two different schemes. We will see...

Harald

@deHarro
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deHarro commented Apr 20, 2020 •
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Who goes first? ... ;-)

3DTouch_Interface_sch

3DTouch_Interface_brd

There are two options for the signal inverter. My preference is the FET, but chances are bigger that one has a standard BC547 (NPN) or the like laying around, so I added this option, too.
Obviously T1 and T2 are alternatives and must not be populated both.
If using the FET, R2 has to be mounted, too.
If using the BC type transistor, mount R3 and R4 instead.

Beware! It's not tested yet!

Harald

[Update]
I now made the board and added an option to bypass the inverter via a solder jumper.

2020-04-23_IMG_2720

Now I have to wait for the "old" 3DTouch to arrive and some machined pin headers to fixate the Digispark.

@deHarro
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deHarro commented Apr 23, 2020

Bonus points if the entire clock is just a stack of PCBs with no visible electronics.

Hi Martin,

I made a copper front for my test board. The front is 11 by 11 cm in size.

2020-04-23_IMG_2724

The smear around the characters is the remainder of the resin I used to fill the carved characters with before I turned the board upside down and milled away 1,4 mm of the epoxi carrier.

2020-04-23_IMG_2729

The 3D printed grid snaps into place between the remaining epoxi isles

2020-04-23_IMG_2727

2020-04-23_IMG_2728

Once again, I have to emphasize, without your fine program ist wouldn't be feasible to mill such thin boards. Thanks!

Harald

@martin2250
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Hi Harald,

this clock front looks great! I love the look of the resin filled letters and milled away substrate. Also leaving the edges for aligning the 3D printed grid is pretty elegant!

Just checked your website, the new design is a welcome update :) Looking forward to more pictures of this clock there!

Cheers

@deHarro
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deHarro commented Apr 24, 2020 •
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Thanks!
The new design costed me some brain (the horizontal menu is more or less hand-knitted and I have to implement changes to the structure by means of an auto hotkey script which imports the page names and link structure from an gigantic Excel sheet with formulas and macros into the homepage generator), but now it works flawlessly.

This "clock" is in deed a clock, but I built it solely as some sort of prove of concept. On the search for a smaller display size and fitting RGB LED stripes I stumbeled over LED panels with 8x8 LEDs and wanted to check whether those panels can be splitted in usable chunks... They can be used, but this results in lots of connections to be made.
I will elaborate on it on my HP.
And on another one, slightly bigger, I invented together with Andreas :-)

Harald

[edit]
Done

@Borntrippy
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Borntrippy commented Apr 25, 2020 via email

@Borntrippy
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Borntrippy commented Apr 25, 2020 via email

@martin2250
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martin2250 commented Apr 25, 2020 •
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Hi Paul,

G0 Z1
G92 Z1.01

simple as that :)

This lowers the work offset by 0.01mm when fed into the manual console, then just re-run the file.

Cheers!

@Borntrippy
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Borntrippy commented Apr 26, 2020 via email

@Borntrippy
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Borntrippy commented Apr 26, 2020 via email

@canbaytok
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Hi everyone!
I got pretty bored during this lockdown and decided to try and mill a double sided PCB. First off the result:
Top Layer:
IMG_20200508_193931

Bottom Layer:
IMG_20200508_193940

As you can see the solder mask is very ugly, which can be attributed to not using a transparent foil. The problem with the foil is that the solder mask material does not adhere properly to the PCB and lifts up from it, when the foil is removed.

This time I ditched FlatCAM to generate the gcode for the drill and solder mask steps and instead used pcb2gcode for everything. pcb2gcode has a nice little command line argument called "invert-gerber", which allows the path to be generated for the inside of a gcode shape (in this case the individual pads to route the soldermask off). The pads are in a pretty bad shape, because I could not find my spring loaded engraving bit, that I made to route the solder mask off.
Despite this I am pretty happy with how this came out.

My next PCB will be a PWM controller, so I can drive my little vacuum cleaner properly and suck up all the FR4 dust.

@bensonsbc
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bensonsbc commented May 8, 2020 via email

@canbaytok
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Yes I did, but I have to find it and do a little bit more testing, to make it look nice and get consistent results.

@bensonsbc
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bensonsbc commented May 9, 2020 via email

@canbaytok
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And another double sided, soldermasked PCB test:
album here
I believe there should be a picture of my spring-loaded engraving bit, somewhere in this thread (or the "general discussion" one).

This will probably be my last PCB for now. I tried creating a PCB with a QFN-IC and noticed a lot of backlash and general CNC problems with my machine (since it is a stock 3018 and they are not really meant for this type of application), so I ordered some new parts and have to design, print and assemble everything, which will take quite some time. I am hoping that, after the upgrades, my machine will be able to route those QFN package ICs (the backlash really prevents me from getting enough accuracy).

@deHarro deHarro mentioned this issue Oct 20, 2020
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@deHarro
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deHarro commented Oct 20, 2020

Since happycncer asked for something he can use for probing non-metallic surfaces, I digged into my drawer...

It's a long time since I made the board and evenly long ago that I started to work on the program for the gadget that will give us GRBL addicted users of CNC mills the means on hands to use standard off the shelf 3DTouch or BLTouch sensors for probing height maps of non conductive materials with OpenCNCPilot.

The main problem is, there are plenty of versions of those sensors out there in the wild.
The first version of BLTouch (the original from ANTCLABS) reacts on two different signals, ~600 ms for "pin retracted" and ~1400 ms for "pin pushed out".
All of the clones back then used this scheme and this is, what I implemented first.

Ah, I have to mention, I wanted to make the reproduction of my gadget as easy as possible and so use a so called DigiSpark Chip as hardware base for the interface.
The programming of a DigiSpark is issued by just plugging it into any of the USB ports of your computer, the programming itself uses the Arduino IDE (with some add ons installed first of course, to make the DigiSpark acquainted to the IDE).

This said, back to the firmware and the different versions of the sensors.
The next versions of BLTouch use a comfortable command set. Now the BLTouch knows a "reset" command, a "self test" and some more. The standard "pin out" and "pin retracted" are known as well, naturally.

But I sometimes encounter situations where one of those "next generation" clones refuses to cooperate after issuing some touch events.
I do not know the problem, only the facts: After having reported some touch events, the pin is retracted and the sensor does not react on subsequent pin move commands.
I can implement "reset" commands to get the sensor back on its feet, but I cannot verify this against a "first generation" sensor. All my sensors of this first generation are flashed with my own firmware which is not compatible to the original.

Long story in short:
To verify the firmware of the "3DTouch interface", presented on my homepage, I need volunteers with ARDUINO practice owning a 3DTouch or BLTouch sensor, who are willing to help me debug this thing.

Harald

@deHarro
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deHarro commented Oct 21, 2020 •
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Mhmm... update

On the way of implementing the code for interrupt driven touch recognition for the Digispark I suddenly realized, that my IRQ routine is not called at all, but the pin of the sensor is retracted on the touch event and is pushed out afterwards.
Concurrently the sensor issues a positive signal of 10 ms duration.

So the need for an microcontroller of any sort (Arduino, Digispark, ...) is not given, we just need an inverting stage.
The FET inverter on my board implies a delay of around 9 ns. Concerning the step pulses of GRBL this is near to nothing. Very good :)

This is valid for an recently (february 2020) purchased 3DTouch sensor from a chinese supplier.

Using the sensor in this way I have no influence on the duration between retraction and push out of the pin, it is fixed to around 200..300 ms. But theoretically this should work fine, if the router is fast enough in pulling the sensor away in Z direction after the touch event.
My experience with my modified sensors however show, this is rather short. Even 500 ms is short, 700 ms is better.

Harald

[update, 22.10.2020]
I managed to get the firmware for the interface up and running.
I had to modify the hardware of the gadget to work seamlessly with interrupts, but no big thing, easy to change on existing boards.
Read the whole story...

Harald

@deHarro
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deHarro commented Oct 30, 2020 •
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So the need for an microcontroller of any sort (Arduino, Digispark, ...) is not given, we just need an inverting stage.

This is NOT true!
GRBL doesn't reliably recognize this short 10 ms impulse :(

So I had to pimp my design somewhat (... actually I iterated up to 4 designs up til now ;)
I now pass the inverted signal from the sensor directly to GRBL, so there is no lag between touch event and recognition in GRBL. In parallel I trigger the µC to generate a negative signal on one of its pins. This pin is normally (inactive) set to Hi-Z, which comes very close to the open collector design realized by the FET stage.
When the sensor triggers, the pin at the AtTiny is changed to output and is driven LOW for about 300 ms. This impulse is recognized by GRBL and OCP reliably signals "Probe".

In the course of adapting the interface to the arising problems, I had to omit the ability to use a normal transistor as alternative to keep the size of the board.
Anyway, now you can go and build your own interface and use an off-the-shelf 3DTouch sensor on your router :)

The firmware of the interface generates only "pin in" and "pin out" commands, so chances are, that it cooperates with any version of 3Dxxxxx Sensor. Just give it a try.
Have fun!

[edit]
Concerning the reaction time of more than 10 ms, one can wonder how time critical the recognition of the probe signal in GRBL is at all...
I didn't start to figure out the timing of step pulses and reaction times, since obviously this all works very well.
[\edit]

Harald

@deHarro
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deHarro commented Oct 30, 2020 •
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Just to keep you informed...

I installed the gadget at my router and made two probe runs with an up-to-date version of 3DTouch and an older version, running with my replacement firmware.
Since I was shocked from the results, I made two additional runs with a V-Bit, all 4 runs on the same, inbetween unaltered, copper surface.
Just to be sure I made a second run with my old 3DTouch sensor with modified firmware and this time found it more or less identical to the V-Bit readings (in sense of colors and min/max readings), see 5th picture below.

The resulting surfaces, left to right as described above:
__new 3DTouch w. iface___old 3DTouch w. FW___________V-Bit (1. run)___________V-Bit (2. run)___________old 3DTouch w. FW
Test_map50x20_all

I also saved (some of) the resulting height maps to have a look at the discrete values, but missed to record the max and min values from the GUI, respectively. I thought, those two values are saved with the height map, but I was wrong or I missed to find them in the files.

Since I speak Excel, I extracted the values manually:
grafik

All in all, I am shocked about the differences between V-Bit readings and sensor readings in principle and especially concerning the interface (or perhaps the new hardware of the 3DTouch sensor) :(

Harald

@deHarro deHarro mentioned this issue Nov 1, 2020
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@deHarro
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deHarro commented Nov 6, 2020 •
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Hi Martin,
I had much fun the last days in generating height maps :)

Background is, my four 3DTouch sensors are operating with, mhm, let's say different accuracy, respectively.
So I wanted to identify the factors which prevent the different mechanics from resulting in identical measures.

My main concern was, that I have two identical sensors version V1. Both are modified to work with GRBL without interface.
First topic on those two was, the one reacts very early, about 0.8 mm down after first touch of the pin with the surface. This is ok, the magnet at the top end of the pin has to be moved away from the hall sensor to issue a touch event.
The second, identical sensor reacts at about 2 mm down after first touch.

I think I found the reason for that:

  1. The hall effect sensor was placed far away perpendicular from the pin
  2. Additionally the ferro core at the end of the sensor was turned farther outwards, so the magnetic force between this core and the magnet at the upper end of the pin was too low to pull the pin upwards early.
    After adjusting those two parameters, the reaction path was more or less identical (around 1 mm for the second sensor).

Now I started with generating height maps.
I used
sensor 1 (V1 type with my own firmware)
sensor 2 (V1 type with my own firmware)
sensor 3 (V2 type, unmodified, with "3DTouch Interface")
sensor 4 (V3 type, unmodified, with "3DTouch Interface")

Some of the results I showed here.

Later on I changed my approach and tried different speed values for probing.
Here I found, that when probing at higher speeds (50 mm/min), the differences between successive probing runs are much smaller than when probing at slow speeds (10 or even 5 mm/min).

I think this is logical, is it?

All in all, my tests revealed one thing very clearly:
The mechanical construction of the sensors is very critical.
Besides the distance between hall effect sensor and pin, we have the lateral play in the guiding of the pin.
I realized that the pin tilts some degree when moving upwards, and this tilting is different every time.

I would ask all of you guys here in the forum, whether you have an original BLTouch from Antclabs and are willing to support with some tests with my 3DTouch Interface.
Background here: I don't want to buy an additional sensor "just for fun" (I already have four of them), and the Original is very expensive.

If there is someone out there owning a original BLTouch, but unable or unwilling to build the Interface, I may provide him/her with the Interface for the tests. It will be the prototype with some wires, but fully functional.

Thanks!
Harald

@deHarro
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deHarro commented Nov 6, 2020 •
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And another double sided, soldermasked PCB test:
album here
I believe there should be a picture of my spring-loaded engraving bit, somewhere in this thread (or the "general discussion" one).

Hi Can,
I accidentally found the link to your postings at imgur: https://imgur.com/a/zCjIX39

Harald

@canbaytok
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Hello everyone,

after many months of absence (or rather working my job and redesigning my CNC in the meantime) I designed and fabricated a new PCB. Link to imgur album here -> Click!

The PCB is an IGBT based full bridge driver for my tesla coil, which I also built in my free time. I am personally very happy with the result and believe the process is "complete" for making homemade PCBs.

Bye everyone!
Can

@martin2250 martin2250 pinned this issue Feb 28, 2021
@martin2250
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Hi everyone, I just enabled discussions for the OpenCNCPilot repository. Feel free to share your thoughts and projects over there from now on! https://github.com/martin2250/OpenCNCPilot/discussions
(I'll leave this issue open, so history isn't lost 😃 )

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