Any Azteeg X5 owners, a little help please.

[Flateric]

I am not sure, I may have gotten a bad board. I cannot get it to boot at all.

I connect it to usb and it simply does not recognize that I have even done so.

I have tried putting the "firmware.bin" file and a "config" file, both from github edge source.

All four LEDS on the board just light solid and stay that way. Hitting the reset, they turn off and immediately come back on solid, no flashing or activity. The boot button has no effect on the board.

Windows does not see the hardware at all. Unless I press and hold the reset and then the boot at the same time and then the LEDS come back on and stay lit but only very dimly.

I have the onbaord jumper set to USB for power. Other than this I am sorta stumped, my smoothie board works good, I can't see why I am having issues with the X5.

Suggestions? What happens when you connect usb to your board?

Thanks

[Polygonhell]

I am not sure, I may have gotten a bad board. I cannot get it to boot at all.

I connect it to usb and it simply does not recognize that I have even done so.

I have tried putting the "firmware.bin" file and a "config" file, both from github edge source.

All four LEDS on the board just light solid and stay that way. Hitting the reset, they turn off and immediately come back on solid, no flashing or activity. The boot button has no effect on the board.

Windows does not see the hardware at all. Unless I press and hold the reset and then the boot at the same time and then the LEDS come back on and stay lit but only very dimly.

I have the onbaord jumper set to USB for power. Other than this I am sorta stumped, my smoothie board works good, I can't see why I am having issues with the X5.

Suggestions? What happens when you connect usb to your board?

Thanks

If it's like the other panucatt boards he uses a different FTDI chip than most and if your using a Mac and probably a PC you have to install drivers. But that ought to only affect flashing the board.
Mine should arrive this week, but I'm out of town and I won't be able to do anything with it until the weekend.

EDIT -- Atually looking at the docs, it loads the firmware from SDCard, it's possible that whatever card you are using is not compatible, the SD card slot is probably connected via SPI and not all cards support the SPI interface.

[Flateric]

Turns out the SD card was bad. Thanks for the reply Poly.

[mhackney]

Flateric, what are your impressions of the X5 vs Smoothieboard? I like the 32 micro step option on the X5. Can one interface a RRD GLCD to it? I saw the connection drawing that has the pin outs listed but I've not had a chance to compare to what's needed for the panel.

cheers,
Michael

[Flateric]

I cannot directly compare them precisely but I am very impressed with the build quality of the board. It reminds me of the X3 (not X3 pro which I have heard may not all be up to the normal standards) which I was very pleased with and was my personal favorite of the Arduino based controllers (And I literally own every single one of them on the market).

I have not run a lcd of any type on mine yet but plan on running my VIKI LCD on it as I favor it as the best also. I will let you know how difficult it is when I cross that bridge, which may be soon....I hope anyways. Too many projects syndrome here.

As far as the 32 to 16 microstep comparison I can't see any difference. Not on the smoothie based boards anyways. Infact I have had to just down to 16 step on my X5 due to the steppers on my kossel mini being 0.9 degree stepper motors and I couldnt get them to run cool AND have the required torque to not drop steps when really cooking along. Still trying to figure out why this is precisely.

Oh one obseration I did make I remember now is that the 32step X5 with the 0.9 steppers is nearly silent during operation, any fan in the room easily drowns out the stepper sound. I also have inerta dampers on the steppers along with the isolation dampers.

[mhackney]

Thanks Flateric. The X3 Pro has been fantastic for me and the build quality is excellent so I am not sure where the bad press for X5s is coming from. Maybe there was a bad batch.

Broose connected his Viki to the X5 and posted photos yesterday using wolmanjm's arduino adapter. Looks like it looked well.

[Polygonhell]

I really like my X5, looks well put together, runs my kossel extremely well. No LCD yet.
The only issue I had was the diagram for the stepper jumpers was incorrect on the website, the labeling implies all the jumpers on is 32x uStepping and it isn't, the other jumper combination labelled 32x is correct.
I have a smoothie board sitting here as well, which I may still use on the Max.

My only issue with any of panucatt's stuff is the fact they are usually completely unresponsive if an order is delayed, though may be that's changing, I was surprised this time when they contacted me asking if they could sub out the connectors I'd ordered to ship it faster.

[Broose]

I do have the Viki working well on my Mini Kossel but it is with a Smooothieboard. Unfortunately my X5 Mini had a stepper driver go bad, so I have been waiting a few weeks for Panucatt to send a replacement- they said are waiting for a shipment from the manufacturer. In the meantime I picked up a Smoothieboard thinking I would eventually put it on my Max and have been using that instead.

[Eaglezsoar]

I really like my X5, looks well put together, runs my kossel extremely well. No LCD yet.
The only issue I had was the diagram for the stepper jumpers was incorrect on the website, the labeling implies all the jumpers on is 32x uStepping and it isn't, the other jumper combination labelled 32x is correct.
I have a smoothie board sitting here as well, which I may still use on the Max.

My only issue with any of panucatt's stuff is the fact they are usually completely unresponsive if an order is delayed, though may be that's changing, I was surprised this time when they contacted me asking if they could sub out the connectors I'd ordered to ship it faster.

I have just ordered the X5 yesterday, could you document the correct jumper placement for 32X such as bottom middle top or whatever makes sense. Thanks!

[Polygonhell]

On the wiring diagram for the X5 on panucatt's site, the On Off On setting does provide 32x, the On On On does not, or at least didn't on mine.

[Flateric]

I had them contact me and apoligize for my order being delayed and I would be receiving a complete wire harness and jumper set in addition to my order to make up for it. That being said my order only took 2 days longer than usual so no biggie to me.

[Polygonhell]

I got the same response, they couldn't ship with the original connectors I orders, then bizarrely after contacting me offering the other connectors and wiring harness, they then shipped the board with the original connectors I'd ordered.

[Flateric]

Well, I think that is better than being unresponsive and slow anyways.

I've been following your blog for sometime now.

Was wondering how you are or rather if you are planning to maintain the tension in your filament drive somehow.

I tried something similar and found that over time the filament would stretch ever so slightly and become less accurate.

I ended up trying a number of different tensioning solutions and in the end just abandon the whole the concept for gt2 belts.

[Polygonhell]

Well, I think that is better than being unresponsive and slow anyways.

I've been following your blog for sometime now.

Was wondering how you are or rather if you are planning to maintain the tension in your filament drive somehow.

I tried something similar and found that over time the filament would stretch ever so slightly and become less accurate.

I ended up trying a number of different tensioning solutions and in the end just abandon the whole the concept for gt2 belts.

The 4 pulleys opposite the steppers each have about an inch of movement, though the prototype isn't showing any real slack.
I need to get some time, so I can get back to it, the big issue I have is one LM8UU is not sufficient to provide resistance to rackingfor the Y carriage, so I need to redesign it, been way to busy at work to want to invest any time in it.
To be honest I think the Ultimaker gantry design is better overall solution than any of the H/CoreXY variants, it's a neat mechanism, but it unnecessarily couples X and Y, which inevitably introduces some crosstalk. That can be minimized in the CoreXY case by ensuring both belt loops have identical tension and having good enough bearing arrangements.
On the Ultimaker design, everything works towards consistent motion, the cross bars are driven from both sides, so the bearings are really only providing alignment and the hole thing is much "stiffer" than it looks. The one real issue is it's very finicky about things being square and aligned properly. I have a 90% complete open beam tantilus variant I knocked up. I still have to make up the bed and connect the Hotend, but my intent was to compare and contrast that with the Kossel I built in parrallel. It think it will be an interesting comparison.

[626Pilot]

How many of you have tried my Z probe with your X5s? I know one guy had great results. I have an X5 on my desk, but no time to install it yet. (I do have a printable X5 mount, maybe I should upload that!)

[Eaglezsoar]

How many of you have tried my Z probe with your X5s? I know one guy had great results. I have an X5 on my desk, but no time to install it yet. (I do have a printable X5 mount, maybe I should upload that!)

The X5 mount would be appreciated and if you ever get an lcd working with it please share the details of that also.

[626Pilot]

I'm attaching the mount. Let me know if it works. I haven't had a chance to test it with the real thing yet. If it does work, I'll publish it to Thingiverse. It's designed to mount to the door, just like the RAMBo.

EDIT: Deleted attachment. It needs work.

[626Pilot]

The .stl in the previous post has screw holes for the board that are only large enough to accommodate M2 screws. I've modified the geometry so it'll take M3 screws instead. I have mounted the board to the carrier successfully. I have a print going now so I can't remove the RAMBo, but as soon as it's done I will mount it to the door. I think it'll fit fine. After confirmation, I'll upload the fixed .stl to Thingiverse with instructions on what screws to get (you need M3-0.5x12 or longer screws, M3-0.5 nylock nuts, and optionally M3 washers.)

[626Pilot]

Can someone post a working config? All I can get mine to do is respond to G28. For awhile I could get it to move (incredibly slowly and apparently ignoring the steps/mm settting) but now it won't even do that. M119 indicates the endstops are working correctly.

Also, why is the serial comm so terrible in Linux? I have to send "version" from a terminal emulator several times before Repetier can send it any commands at all. If I don't do that, it will show commands waiting to be sent, but never send them.

I'm deleting the X5 mount I uploaded. It needs more work, but that won't happen until I get the board working.

[Polygonhell]

I can post the config for a Kossel if it's useful, I don't have mine connected to the Max.

[Eaglezsoar]

I can post the config for a Kossel if it's useful, I don't have mine connected to the Max.

I bought the X5 that I intend to place on my Kossel so I would appreciate your config files.

[Polygonhell]

You may have to invert the dir pins on the steppers, I'm using some 6 wire steppers I got "free" with the dampers I wanted ;P

config.txt

(13.05 KiB) Downloaded 262 times

[Eaglezsoar]

You may have to invert the dir pins on the steppers, I'm using some 6 wire steppers I got "free" with the dampers I wanted ;P

config.txt

Thank you!

[626Pilot]

You may have to invert the dir pins on the steppers, I'm using some 6 wire steppers I got "free" with the dampers I wanted ;P

The attachment config.txt is no longer available

Thanks for this.

I modified my config to "look more like" yours, and against the default config on github, and between those two I got the motors moving the carriage downward.

What I haven't figured out is the microstepping stuff. AFAIK there is no line in the config that tells the board what the microstepping is set to. I have the jumpers set up for 32x (on-off-on). I originally copied these values from Repetier:

Code: Select all

#alpha_steps_per_mm                           53.3333         # Steps per mm for alpha stepper
#beta_steps_per_mm                            53.3333         # Steps per mm for beta stepper
#gamma_steps_per_mm                           53.3333         # Steps per mm for gamma stepper

However, doing a G1 Z0 only drops the carriage a few inches! I assumed that I had to multiply the numbers by 32 to get the correct (microstepped) values, but that resulted in an enormous acceleration. The nozzle dove into the print surface, and the motors made weird high frequency noise as they couldn't move it any lower. I'm honestly surprised it didn't spiderweb the glass!

How do I fix this? I'm attaching my config for reference.

[Polygonhell]

The 53.333 is for 8x uStepping with 15 tooth pulleys, for 32x you would use 213.33333

You can compute it as follows, calculate the number of steps per revolution
200(steps/rev of 1.8 steppers) x 32 (uSteps) = 6400
Then divide by the distance the belt travels in 1 revolution
15 (pulley teeth) x 2 (belt pitch) = 30mm

So steps/mm is 6400/30 = 213.3333

It's 160 if you have the 20 tooth pulleys