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MKS V1.0 ?

Discussion in 'Mods and Upgrades' started by tonycstech, Apr 22, 2020.

  1. tonycstech

    tonycstech Active Member

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    I want to swap existing board with MKS V1.0
    My question is, will my existing LCD controller work or i have to do something about it ?
    My LCD shown here https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:219362
    Thanks robots.
     
  2. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    I see a lot of posts when searching for information on this that indicate it should work -- in fact both the RepRap discount (which is what yours looks like) and the RepRap Full Graphics are both supposed to work.

    [I do not have an MKS board nd have not personally used one so I have no direct experience with this]
     
  3. tonycstech

    tonycstech Active Member

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    Searching google didnt help me much or at least didnt give me results i was looking for.
    Thank you.
     
  4. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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  5. tonycstech

    tonycstech Active Member

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    Thanks for the video.
    My questions are:
    Can i flash ROBO3D firmware to this board without any changes ?
    in Pins.h, which board is the MKS GEN I ?
    How to wire second Z axis motor. In parallel with the existing one ?
    What firmware changes i need to make in order to use E1 slot for second Z axis motor ?
     
    #5 tonycstech, Apr 30, 2020
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2020
  6. tonycstech

    tonycstech Active Member

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    Answered my own questions:
    I can flash my old robo firmware.
    For dual Z motors i had to uncomment #define Z_DUAL_STEPPER_DRIVERS in Configurations.adv.h file
    That makes board to use E1 terminal for second Z axis motor.
    For power supply kill switch with M81 command, i remapped pin 11 #define PS_ON_PIN 11 found under "Arduino Mega pin assignment" section in the pins.h file

    I am attaching firmware with all those changes.

    My question still is the steps.
    I dont know what steps to set using LV8729 using steps 80,80,10240,102.
    Motion is not quiet at all. Z axis is very noisy.
    Not sure what pins go where and what steps to set to make it work properly.
     

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    #6 tonycstech, Apr 30, 2020
    Last edited: May 1, 2020
  7. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    I would expect that there are at least a few things that have to change in the Configuration.h before the Robo firmware would work on this board. Granted, that is not experience with that board talking ... just various other boards I have used... none have been clones that were close enough to "just work". Maybe on this one you get lucky.

    The LV8729 is a very low-current stepper driver intended for steppers using less than the normal 1.5 amp/phase.
    So unless you replaced the steppers themselves I am not sure that using that buys you anything. Not saying it will not, but it may not. Those also go up to 1/128 micro steps and the RAMPS only supports 1/32. The firmware is set for that as well so again... you will need to mod that.

    Most RAMPS and RAMPS clones have two stepper motor outputs on the Z that share a single driver channel. Robo in their wisdom stole E1 and repurposed it for a second Z motor rather than run two Z motors on one driver -- even though the Z has virtually no acceleration and no high-speed movement and will not draw enough current to max out a single stepper. Relative to the X and Y the Z is barely moving.
     
  8. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    If you have a schematic for the board we can probably help you figure out how it needs to be wired.
     
  9. tonycstech

    tonycstech Active Member

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    Everything worked, i even printed part for use but Z axis was very noisy.
    Another problem i noticed is when it travels it makes loud noises like it gets hit by a hammer.
    I constantly hear knocks when it jumps from place to place. Its not belts, its something else.
    I used this chart to set the steps.

    Z axist finaly became reasonably quiet but X and Y are jerking when traveling, yet not missing the target at all, they just jerk with hard impact noise when they move from point A to point B performing travel.
    Maybe 64 steps is too much for those motors ?

    Motors are stock.
     

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  10. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Well you could drop them back to 1/16 or 1/32 and see what happens.

    I don't think the stepper itself is going to much care about the number of steps.
    Motors are usually that picky :)

    Just make sure that the jumpers are correctly selected for each stepper driver -- on the RAMPS those are under the stepper driver card. Not sure for your board.
     
  11. tonycstech

    tonycstech Active Member

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    I got everything set up correctly.
    I even bumped up the voltage.
    I am still getting random violent travel moves that sound like they hit something but they dont.
    Travel literally makes it moves and stops half way several times and then continues.
    I hope its not wiring issue. Its totally random.
     
  12. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    It could be the drivers. As I mentioned those are designed to run on low-current steppers and the ones Robo uses are not that style.
    If you can swap in some A4988 or DRV8825 and see if it behaves...
     
  13. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Really they should work because the steppers on the machine should be less than 1.5 amps/phase, but ... given that they are cheap I wouldn't bet on it. Some of the ones I have tested are closer to 2 amps.
     
  14. tonycstech

    tonycstech Active Member

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    I think those motors cant handle 64 steps so i dropped to 32. Still reasonably quiet and seems like it fixed it.
    What i think was happening is not the X and Y but the Z.
    Layer starts printing outer walls and right before it starts to do infill, Z axis motors would jerk very fast and loud and become locked.

    I am not sure why it does that, there is no lock in the gcode.
    I do not recall this behavior before or on my other printer.
    Maybe acceleration 400 for Z is too high ?

    Right now it makes loud noise when it locks Z motors but nothing else so far.....
     
  15. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    400 is a bit much, I use 100 ... no matter how hard you try you can't accelerate the threaded rod/leadscrews very quickly :)
     
  16. tonycstech

    tonycstech Active Member

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    Makes sense.
    I had wrong steps dialed in for Z so nozzle was bumping into layers making me think it was skipping steps.
    Once everything checked out, print started to look very good.
    But i still get strange Z lock/unlock behavior at each layer change. gcode does not show anything like that.
    It will lock after it lifts to new layer and unlock once it starts to print infill. Unlock is loud.
     
  17. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Weird. Marlin supports locking and unlocking a movable toolhead, but the Robo doesn't have one and the Z motors are not what gets locked in that case. I suspect it is doing that to enable microstepping. Microstepping in Marlin is a SWAG on any board because the electronics can only "know" about full steps. The microsteps (obviously) work, but that is not something you can get active feedback on. If you don't maintain the stepper locked it is possible for the shaft to move some small amount and that would invalidate your microstepping calculations.

    All of this is just a guess :) I have not used that controller. Do they have a support group/forum? Some do, some don't. I didn't see one with a quick Google, but there was some activity around it in the RepRap forums.

    Not saying we won't try here, but without that board I don't have any direct experience.
     
  18. tonycstech

    tonycstech Active Member

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    This is the print 50x50x50 cube.
    DSC00297.JPG
    Perfect print i would say.
    Just that one annoying Z lock/unlock noise coming from who knows where.

    Assuming i will fix the Z noise my conclusion is:
    Its not worth the trouble. Old Ramps 1.4 ? worked just as good.
    But i loved the project and it only took few hrs.

    Any advantages of this upgrade at all ?
    All i see is one disadvantage, when pressing RESET button on the LCD, printer shuts down as expected (i have a relay controlling power supply using PS_ON pin) but it boots right back up as if nothing happened.
    How ever, the M81 at the end of the gcode does shut the printer down completely.
    I dont understand the difference between the RESET and M81 command.
    With that said, is there a way to tell printer to perform M81 command when RESET is pressed ?
    Problem is when reset is pressed, 5v relay that cuts the main power to the power supply is not staying engaged long enough but for some reasons it does when M81 command activates it. Its weird.
     
  19. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    If the LCD is controlled by Marlin (like the RepRap Discount one is) you can edit the controls in Marlin Source.

    ultralcd.cpp
    and the ones that start with DOGMxxxxxx.h

    Those control the menu and layout.

    I have no experience reworking the LCD menus, but there is some discussion around the reset button over here:

    https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues/3045
     
  20. tonycstech

    tonycstech Active Member

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    I have experience but not enough.
    https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues/3045
    talks about making button to act like RAMPS 1.4. I want the opposite. I want it to send a command M81 instead of resetting the board.

    In any case, the final setup is:
    TMC2208 work best for XYZ and LV8729 for extruder.
    With that, all movements are at 1/16
    Z axis must be inverted for TMC2208

    #define INVERT_Z_DIR true
    #define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT {80,80,2560,100}
     
    #20 tonycstech, May 1, 2020
    Last edited: May 19, 2020

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