thanks, I’ll check around. Worse case I order on line.
Home depot has the very same wire inventables sells. Its called security wire and its about 66 cents per foot, you will find it on the big racks they got to buy sell by length.
great, that save me some time. HD near by.
If you want to go that route. Yet Belden brand wire is great for reducing noise. It is what people use in the pro audio field. Noise is noise. Just like the USB glitching people have been reporting with there machines. In my opinion it’s better to get the higher quality wire. But the other stuff works. I just think people should be informed.
I hope it did not sound like I’m stepping over your advice. When I got my xcarve wiring kit was backordered so I had to figure out what to use and someone in here pointed me in that direction.
No not at all. I just want everyone’s x-carve to be the best it can be with knowledge.
Deepnoizer, I’m just applying my knowledge of over 20 years in the pro audio design field in electronics. Back on topic. Are you sure you have your gear mounted in the right direction. I could be wrong but when I put mine together it looked like the mount holes for the power supply to the case were not 100% centered. Which might cause the issue of the power PCB to line up with the case fully. It looked like it only went in one way to me?
Its to cold now for more garage sessions for me, ill double check tomorrow. The only issues I remember while mounting PCB on the power supply was annoying orange shield that was bit in the way.
My power supply doesn’t even have the orange shield like it states in the instructions. 
Aaron, I am aware of potential noise problems having worked as a controls engineer in industrial turbine controls for 20 years. I have not seen any issue with noise so far. I do know if you don’t treat the grounding correctly you will worsen the noise problem. Being that all my wiring is OEM wire, if I decide I have a noise problem I will need to change it all.
For people out there who are seeing a noise issue there needs to be a detailed wiring procedure on handling shields to assure proper handling for noise reduction.
Thanks for your comments, I only have a few hours on my machine so I’m working through any and all issues.
My X-Carve has been waiting for the X-controller since Sept, so I have had a long time to build, mod, tweak, and square things up. Got the X-controller assembled in about 2 hours. Noticed the same instructional differences as others here, shorter power supply screws, no orange cover on power supply, e-stop reversed. My rear fan is a little noisy, even after a few attempts to resolve it. Fan is nice and quiet when the rear panel is removed (but still running). The ribbon connectors were a pain in the butt, very tough to get the wires to seat fully. Was a little confused about were to wire my power relay for automatic spindle control for the Dewalt 611 (SPINDLE PMW or SPINDLE 0-10v). Went with the PMW connection, it worked. Gotta say I was intimidated at first when I learned that I had to assemble the X-controlller, but wasn’t that bad.
My very first project with the X-Controller and X-Carve, sent threw Easel.
2 Likes
Yes, cranked mine up today and sure enough fan was hitting panel they need thicker or more washers… Wired as I could see in picture and in Easel all movements where reversed, so instead of resetting
grbl I reversed my wiring. I called Inventables today to find out about the the spindle control and she said to hook to PWM. I asked some other questions and it seems they are a bit behind on the operation of the xcontroller. I think they need a team meeting, but it is nice to talk to someone quickly, hope they keep up the good support
1 Like
Frank you are exactly right. That was what I was saying. I do not know your professional background so I was trying to help out if needed. But you should know that cutting corners on quality control is always a problem. Especial in a product like this with its price point. So double checking and doing upgrades is productive. Especially on something as open source as this with the knowledge of professional in the electronic fields.
I was really excited that it came unassembled. I was really nervous they were going to have a tamper proof sticker on it. I plan an adding some LEDs for x y and z motion. This went together easy enough. the directions are far from perfect but there isnt a whole lot of parts to mess up. I am hoping they put out more documentation on adjusting the pots and using the z probe and PWM though. I also want some documentation on using accessory outputs and maybe using them to run an LED light or a relay for a vacuum
I also plan on adding an E stop off the 24v side of the power supply and extending it to my table top
x-controller built, pc recognizes it, but will not install driver. have installed easel local already. any ideas?
What driver?
X controller shows up in device manager with a yellow exclamation, driver was not found. Does the xcontroller come preloaded with arduino, or is ir necessary to load? Or is it another problem. Tried on two pc’s
You may have to load the Aruduno IDE software.
Had the same thing happen to me. Also, it was unclear if grbl is already loaded or not. Arduino IDE software is on PC and in device manager one USB serial converter shows up when the x-controller powers on as FTDI. And further up the list another device shows up with an exclamation mark. Just select properties of this one and update driver. Let the OS search and install. Make a note of that COM port number and select that COM port in Arduino. Open the serial monitor, select 115200 baud and carriage return. If all is well, you should see "Grbl 1.0c [ $ for help]. Good Luck!
FYI there is no guess work if GRBL is installed. If you get this from the Serial Montor, then 100% GRBL is installed 
As for people with issues connecting, like others have suggested, sometimes installing the Arduino IDE helps, because this includes the FTDI USB device driver. This USB device driver is what allows the X-Controller to show up as a COM port. Technically, Arduino IDE is NOT required. Only the FTDI USB device driver. But the IDE is nice to have for future hacking and upgrades!