Mounting upside down is OK. It has mounting holes for rigid mounting. The e-stop breaks the AC power. It is probably not safe to relocate it and run AC out of the enclosure. I suggest using one of these e-stops to add an additional e-stop for the AC power to the X-Controller.
Great idea
Just saw that the X-Controller now has a price! $329
I X that.
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Just wondering if there are and updates on the ETA of the X Controller? My X Carve should be coming in the next few weeks and I didnāt order the current motion controller because I want to purchase the X Controller.
4th Axis upgrades are tricky, Iāve been researching it on and off for a while now. You can find 4th axes on ebay for under $150. The problem is accuracy. With a rotational axis you need a fairly high amount of accuracy. If you are rotating one way, then another, and there is backlash you can start offsetting the work piece. Since grbl doesnāt support a 4th axis youād have to go with Mach3/LinuxCNC (which means no more Easel for running your gcode). Assuming you have the hardware to run those, adding a 4th axis is a matter of getting the axis itself, a stepper, and any old single stepper driver, like a leadshine DSP controller. Also Z-axis height is a major concern. X-Carve has ~2"-3" of travel, which means youād have to get a 4th axis with a maximum work piece radius of ~1"-1.5", because the center needs to be at most that far off to accomidate the work. I was thinking the other day it would be possible to make the Z-Axis travel higher with a longer makerslide, but youāre still limited by the x-carriage height. You could still cut the 4th axis though, assuming the work piece has a small diameter.
Easiest solution is taller endplates. I made mine 75mm taller to accomodate for my 4th axis.
Also, TinyG2 supports up to 6 Axis. But this will require a Arduino Due & External Stepper drivers.
As stated above the best route would be LinuxCNC/Mach3/4.
Your other issue for any 4th axis is the CAM setup. Fusion360 might work but it would require their upgraded packed I think to get the 4th axis which would run around $300 a year at least if I recall. This is by far the cheapest option I know for 4th axis CAM. But Eric is right in that the X Carve is not very well suited to a 4th axis setup. I have seen one person who mounted it at the far end of their travel and the Z axis would hang off the end of the table and over the 4th axis. But without a controller that allows you to take backlash into consideration and compensate for it, there is not an affordable 4th axis that will work well with how the X Carve is set up. The Tinyg and the stock shield do not allow you to measure and compensate for backlash. Higher controllers like a Planet CNC MK3/4 or MK 3 do and a few others do I am sure. But Eric is right that even with the X controller, a 4th axis is not easy at all to add to the X carve.
Yeah that was me. I was using TinyG2 at the time and it worked really well. Iāve moved on to LinuxCNC with the same setup and it also works epicly.
What CAM software did you use for programming the 4th axis? I get asked that a lot and have not had a good answer in an affordable range. Since I have access to SolidWorks and SolidCAM now through the lab, I sort of get to cheat and program Gcode there is needed. An option which is not open to most folks I know.
I use Aspire & Fusion 360.
I could also see a hole in the waste board that allows for the 4th axis and the material. This would also allow for vertical mounting of other stationary material for dovetail and finger joints to be carved.
Iāve been thinking about cutting a hole in mine for this very thing, it might also serve double duty. I like the TinyG 2 option as well.
@EricDobroveanu ELI5: Does a rotational axis introduce more backlash than an orthogonal one?
Hi all- I need to jump in here and clear up a mistake I made in communicating about X-Controller-
While the X-Controller has separate drivers for 4 stepper motors, the X-Controller is not 4-Axis because it is Grbl only. Grbl is only a 3 axis controller.
This was a misunderstanding on my part, and I didnāt run it past Bart to double-check before I sent that email. Sorry for any confusion that caused, and weāll be issuing corrections to try and clear it up.
-Michael Una
@JohnMcwhirter Iām not sure, which has more total backlash, but the problem gets amplified with a rotational axis (from my fairly limited understanding). Also, most 4th axis that are within a normal, non-machine shop budget, are Chinese made, and they can be really spotty in terms of quality.
So a .1 degree error is much more noticeable on a 6" radius workpiece compared to say, a 2" radius workpiece.
I just went to the X-Carve web site and looked at the features of the new controller. For the most part it looks like all of the present parts that folks are buying for there machines with some additions. The one thing they appear not to have done is change from a stepper driver set with 3 drivers to one with 4 drivers so you can put the stepper motors of the Y axis each on a driver and stop sharing a driver for Y that appears to cause problems.
Iām not sure the price reflects the improvements.
As to the talk about using a 4th rotary axis on a X-Carve. The stock machine is not capable of having a 4th added.
A 4th axis based on a rotary table that will go to the vertical position are very popular. Most have the ability to control backlash and work very well. I have one on my Tormach 770 CNC mill and have machined a lot of parts on it. Problem is it is a 6" unit that weighs 70+ pounds. So no way would it go on a X-Carve.
There are 3" rotary tables that can be converted to stepper control that with the right changes to the X-Carve could work. You would also not be able to use the stock control software or electronics. You would need software that can control preferably 5 stepper motors. You will also need CAM that deals with 4th axis.
Itās doable just not real easy.
Dave
The new controller is a nice piece of kit, but I am not sure itās for me either.
My machine is working well now, my wiring is not as neat as it could be, but all the connections are solid and problem free (finally). As far as I can tell there is no āmust haveā feature on the new controller that would give me new capabilities or precision above what I already have. I guess if I was buying a new kit I would seriously consider it. But why change out hardware that is already working fine.
I think this could be a pretty cool upgrade. One point Iām noticing is that maybe it would have been better to have just a connector on the back of the unit for an E-Stop, instead of an actual E-stop. This way you could put your E-Stop where ever you would like.
One more feature that I think would be nice is an option to have a remote power switch. With my current system itās a bit of pain to turn my machine on and off.
Nothing major, but I thought Iād add my 2 cents.
Although there is some appeal to having everything put together in one box this device doesnāt work for me either. As others have stated it just doesnāt provide much improvement over the current setup and is too expensive for what you get.
When this potential product was announced I was pretty excited. The more I learned about the details the less I liked it.