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Compute Module 4 Powered 3D Printer Board -- Episode 496

We asked Clem to do something simple..so he went over the top again. In this episode, Clem leverages on the Raspberry Pi Compute Modules Form factor and Power to integrate it on a 3d printer / CNC / PNP mainboard, tightly packed with Trinamic Stepper drivers and two (!!) real-time processors! that allow him to take direct control over the machines inputs and process it on the Fly! Someone should drag him out into the daylight soon. We want your input for further development!

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DIY3DPrinterBoard_Resources.zip
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Compute Module 4 Powered 3D Printer Board

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  • Hi Clem,

     

    Loved the video, but one thing, I found to be a let down, the Raspberry Pi has a UART built in, so the USB hub chip (in my opinion) is not required, this is how my RUMBA32 is connected to my Pi4 over the UART, running at 1 mega baud.  Using the USB chip limits your communication speed to 250kbaud.

     

    GRBL has also been ported to the MEGA2560, so you wont need both controllers on it. And another piece of software you can look at using on the Pi side is Universal GCode sender, works a treat, just dose not have a display of current progress due to 3d render support on the Pi

     

    Also I've started a personal side project to port GRBL to the RUMBA+ board, as it has a much better board layout for use in GRBL machines and 6 stepper driver support, so it can potentially be utilised on a 6 axis machine.

     

    But I have to reiterate, you do not need the USB hub chip as you can use the inbuilt UART on the Pi to communicate directly to the controller.  Apart from a logic level adapter, as I believe the ATMega2560 is 5V logic, unless a 3.3v version has been made.

     

    Regards

    Paul

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  • Hi Clem,

     

    Loved the video, but one thing, I found to be a let down, the Raspberry Pi has a UART built in, so the USB hub chip (in my opinion) is not required, this is how my RUMBA32 is connected to my Pi4 over the UART, running at 1 mega baud.  Using the USB chip limits your communication speed to 250kbaud.

     

    GRBL has also been ported to the MEGA2560, so you wont need both controllers on it. And another piece of software you can look at using on the Pi side is Universal GCode sender, works a treat, just dose not have a display of current progress due to 3d render support on the Pi

     

    Also I've started a personal side project to port GRBL to the RUMBA+ board, as it has a much better board layout for use in GRBL machines and 6 stepper driver support, so it can potentially be utilised on a 6 axis machine.

     

    But I have to reiterate, you do not need the USB hub chip as you can use the inbuilt UART on the Pi to communicate directly to the controller.  Apart from a logic level adapter, as I believe the ATMega2560 is 5V logic, unless a 3.3v version has been made.

     

    Regards

    Paul

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  • in reply to celcius1

    Hi, Paul,

    The intended concept is to integrate the functionality you would have run on an external PC directly on the machine including its input methods (mouse keyboard cameras, Screen etc.)(mainly for CNC, openpnp and so on)

    The port for GRBL to the 2560 is know to me but its not recently maintained so for testing purposes I always want to use a well mantained fork on the most used MCU just to be sure its not some firmware bug but a design issue when I encounter problems.

    The usb hub chips main function is not communicating with the Motion controller but to provide more than one USB port for outside peripherals like mouse keyboard and cameras (nneded for the intended use as all in one controlle for PNP for example)
    I also use it to communicate tioe the esp32s2 on the native usb port and use that chips uart to pass on the signals to the 2560 in an altered form.
    the Compute module has only one USB port and the otg port exposed so a hub chip is needed to support mor than one usb device at once.

    Universal Gcode sender is mentioned in the episode in the lower thirds texts btw.

     

    the 2560 can be run at 3,3V,(that also switches to that logic level) which is what I do to ensure compability with the esp32s2.
    So the USB hub chip is needed for my intended use but it is not for your different use case.

     

     

    cheers Clem