New MKS SBASE Smoothieware-compatible board from China

Does it make any difference, if you use the sd-card slot on the SBase instead of the TFT?
-Olaf

I tried to update TFT by inserting TFT update sd card to the sd socket on the TFT28 and
update SBASE by inserting sd with SBASE update in the sd card socket on the SBASE PCB.
SBASE sd card is acessible in PC when USB is connected but the TFT sd card is not.
The interface cable between SBASE and TFT has uart connection with handshaking but
not SPI. So I dont imagine how the SD on TFT could be used for updating SBASE without
additional SPI cable, but Im very new to this

Problems solved. One of my SD cards (256M didnt work for some reason and the oher one was formatted as NTFS.
Now it updates fine

I would like to recommend that people NOT buy the MKS SBASE. Here's why:

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arthurwolf
The SBASE is a closed-source clone of open-source hardware, which takes everything from the community, and doesn't contribute anything back ( not even it's own documentation … ). It's generally considered a nasty board, and it's likely you won't get as much support for it from the community as you would for other boards.

The general idea for closed-source boards like this is : if it doesn't work, contact the seller, you shouldn't expect the community to get it's work stolen *and* have to provide support for the stealers … Sorry if I sound rude I don't mean to at all, but lots of people don't actually know what they are buying when they get a SBASE so I just wanted to make that clear.

Taken from a post on the smoothieware.org forum by arthur wolf who is the smoothie creator. [smoothieware.org]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2015 09:29PM by HylandSquid.

What is exactly closed? Is github repo missing something?

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HylandSquid
I would like to recommend that people NOT buy the MKS SBASE. Here's why:

Quote
arthurwolf
The SBASE is a closed-source clone of open-source hardware, which takes everything from the community, and doesn't contribute anything back ( not even it's own documentation … ). It's generally considered a nasty board, and it's likely you won't get as much support for it from the community as you would for other boards.

The general idea for closed-source boards like this is : if it doesn't work, contact the seller, you shouldn't expect the community to get it's work stolen *and* have to provide support for the stealers … Sorry if I sound rude I don't mean to at all, but lots of people don't actually know what they are buying when they get a SBASE so I just wanted to make that clear.

Taken from a post on the smoothieware.org forum by arthur wolf who is the smoothie creator. [smoothieware.org]

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o_lampe
Does it make any difference, if you use the sd-card slot on the SBase instead of the TFT?
-Olaf

BTW is there easy way to connect AZSMZ grafic display to SBase? I like this display more then ReprapDiscount because of smaller size.

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karabas
BTW is there easy way to connect AZSMZ grafic display to SBase?

AFAIK the TFT28 has a dedicated firmware flashed to work with SBASE.
You'd have to check the AZSMZ display for compatibility or write your own display firmware to handle the datastream of the SBASE.
-Olaf

AZSMZ is claimed to work with original smoothie but no info about how to connect.

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o_lampe

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karabas
BTW is there easy way to connect AZSMZ grafic display to SBase?

AFAIK the TFT28 has a dedicated firmware flashed to work with SBASE.
You'd have to check the AZSMZ display for compatibility or write your own display firmware to handle the datastream of the SBASE.
-Olaf

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karabas
What is exactly closed? Is github repo missing something?

Open-Source is not about what you *show* it's about whether or not you allow the community to re-use your work and in particuliar modify it ( the license, essentially ). They don't allow you do do that.

Reprap is what it is because it is Open-Source.

By the way, my comments about closed-source derivatives of Open-Source work, is not really aimed at SBASE, it's just my general feeling about what's currently going on in the community with people ignoring whether something is Open-Source and helps the community, or closed-source and just profiting from the community, and just going for whatever's cheapest.

Hi,

I'm interested about buying the MKS SBASE V1.2.
I was wondering if you know where I can buy that model
Could you please tell me where can I buy that board "MKS SBASE V1.2" (without LG1 component)
I want to build a SmartRap CoreXY, is this board a good option?
I'll appreciate so much that you send me the link where I can buy it.

My doubt is because this version V1.2 it is not in the official webpage
It isn't in the official store

But I could find it in eBay here


Best regards

I got mine from eBay... took a bit of time as the version changed from 1.1 to 1.2 but about 3 weeks overall to the west coast of the US. As far as I know there isn't an official store.

Hi, as far as I understand the SBASE already has an SD slot. Is an LCD screen of any use while you can connect to it via ethernet (from any phone/etc if the ethernet connection is done via a router) and plug the SD card with gcode files when printing?

Moreover, if you are in another room watching a movie or playing with the kids or outside in the garden doing whatever and you want to start a print you wouldn't mind if it takes 1min or 10mins to upload a file via the ethernet interface...right?

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RepRap Lander concept on Concept Forge
RepRap Lander concept on RepRap Forums
My Things, mostly experimental stuff

I have had the mks sbase 1.0 for a bit of time now. I am running into a issue where the printer will just suddenly stopped printing. I have tried a bunch of stuff to get it to stop doing this and noting seams to help. It does not have the heatsink on it and I hand a fan that blows on the bottom of the board. Has any one had this problem

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Quvit
I have had the mks sbase 1.0 for a bit of time now. I am running into a issue where the printer will just suddenly stopped printing. I have tried a bunch of stuff to get it to stop doing this and noting seams to help. It does not have the heatsink on it and I hand a fan that blows on the bottom of the board. Has any one had this problem

Any other information you can provided?
Is it happen randomly or it happen to any specific point of printing?
Is it happen to every STL files any specific one?

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PartTimeRonin

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Quvit
I have had the mks sbase 1.0 for a bit of time now. I am running into a issue where the printer will just suddenly stopped printing. I have tried a bunch of stuff to get it to stop doing this and noting seams to help. It does not have the heatsink on it and I hand a fan that blows on the bottom of the board. Has any one had this problem

From the Smoothieware site:

USB can be finicky

Contrary to Ethernet, USB can fail due to EMI and ground loop problems.

Those problems will mostly manifest as your board "disconnecting", this means it would become un-responsive, the machine would stop moving, and sometimes your host computer may indicate that a USB disconnect occured.

Ways to fight those problems include :
•Make sure your USB cable is as short as possible
•It should be shielded
•It should have ferrite at one end, or even better, both ends
•The machine shouldn't be placed in an electromagnetically noisy environment.
•The machine, and the computer controlling it, should be connected as close as possible in the electrical installation, ideally they should be plugged in the same power strip.

Perhaps if you are using USB try the Ethernet suggestion?

It happends to long prints. If I am working on it for more then 4 hours then it will stop. I put some heatsinks on it last night and had no problem at all. When it happens it is never in the same spot. Tryed printing from sd card could not get that to work. Put new firmware on it and it still does it. Got a better usb cable did not help. Some times it happens be for the 4 hour mark. It was cold in the room a few days ago and printed for about 10 hours and had no problem. So that is y I thank it is a heat problem.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2015 09:07AM by Quvit.

Sounds like a heat problem... try mounting a fan near the bottom of the driver boards (the top isn't really the best place to place a fan) and see if the air flow under the driver boards helps keep the driver cool while printing.

I did that butt it is driven by the board. I am going to plug it in to the 12v power supply. On a switch

I've got one of these on the way to use on a heavily modded Sunhokey Prusa i3. I created a simple adapter bracket which allows an SBASE to be mounted to an MKS GEN hole pattern so I wont need to drill new holes in the frame.

The Smoothieware config file is already ready to go, so I'll report back once the board is installed and running.

Since my printer originally came with an MKS GEN all the motors, end stop switches, and thermistors are already terminated with connectors that plug right into the SBASE. Makes for a nice clean swap. The MKS GEN has been a rock solid board for me, hopefully the SBASE v1.2 lives up to it.


Dieter



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/11/2015 12:26PM by w3drk.

My new SBASE showed up yesterday and was essentially a plug and play upgrade from the MKS GEN-2Z. The adapter bracket worked out great and I was able to fasten the SBASE right into place where the MKS GEN was. Just as with a Smoothieboard, using a simple 4-conductor jumper from the Z stepper driver to E2 driver was all it took to drive the 2nd Z-axis stepper.

I still have some dialing-in to do, but so far its running the current Edge and I've got it configured and printing.

Except for one issue I'm having, the board seems to work perfectly. I can't get the Ethernet working right...when configured either statically or with DHCP, it occasionally responds to ping but telnet doesn't respond at all. The embedded web server sometimes responds enough to show the title and a button or two but that's about it...most times the browser will time out before displaying anything. So I'll have to look into this a little further.

Otherwise everything else seems to work just fine.

UPDATE: I uploaded the adapter bracket to Thingiverse, here's the link. Adapter



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2015 09:55AM by w3drk.

Might be the webservice is messing it up? did you tried deleting the index.html and see if it's pingable then?

BTW! have you seen octofab? (octopi for the smoothie!) NICE!!

Actually, I think the Ethernet PHY or magnetics in the Ethernet socket might be flaky...

Most times when I plug in an Ethernet cable the activity LED on the socket will blink rapidly as if there is a lot of broadcast traffic on my LAN, which there isn't. When that happens I have the packet loss problem i mentioned above. If I remove and replace the cable a few times, it eventually links normally and works fine until I power-cycle the board. I've tried connecting it to an old 100 megabit switch instead of gigabit in case it's a port speed/duplex negation issue but that doesn't seem to matter.

I asked the EBay seller what he thought and he promised me the boards are thoroughly tested. I didn't peruse the matter with him any further since I'm not 100% certain it's a hardware issue. A new PHY and socket are only a few bucks so I'm tempted to order replacements with my next Digikey order to see if that fixes it...

I've heard of Arthurs work on Octofab but not tried it yet, I should check it out!

Have you tried hooking it up to your laptop directly? Perhaps a wireshark tells you what's going on. It's most likely calling back to China, to inform the Chinese government about your 3d printing behaviour, or it's a proxy for the Chinese internet.. Either that, or it's google gathering big data. Better start folding that tin foil hat..

So, anyone know of a link to the latest version as I am done with RAMPS and only stayed with RAMPS 1.4 due to its price but too much hassle after the latest issue.

The people running it how hard is it to wrap your head around it coming from a RAMPS mindset?

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_______
I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

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Dark Alchemist
So, anyone know of a link to the latest version as I am done with RAMPS and only stayed with RAMPS 1.4 due to its price but too much hassle after the latest issue.

The people running it how hard is it to wrap your head around it coming from a RAMPS mindset?

V1.2 is the latest that I know of.

V1.2 indeed. Configuration is al set in a single file, active after an upload/reboot. Just go through the smoothieware wiki (and donate if you find help there)
What issues with the ramps 1.4 are you talking about?

I got my SBASE 1.2 on eBay and it took about two weeks to arrive to me in the North East, US.

Coming from Marlin, I find Smoothieware to be a piece of cake. Like the other poster said, to make configuration changes just update the config.txt and hit the reset button. I transplanted my SBASE from a Prusa i3 to a new Ord Bot I just built and had it running in a few minutes. I can also verify that the SBASE works perfectly with a RepRapDiscount "Full Graphic" LCD control panel.

When switching from Marlin to Smoothie my only gripe -and this is with Smoothieware and not the SBASE- is Smoothieware doesn't support software end-stops. So if you don't have limit switches at both ends and not careful, you can easily jog your axis's past their mechanical limits and break stuff. Other than that it's been great.

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w3drk
I got my SBASE 1.2 on eBay and it took about two weeks to arrive to me in the North East, US.

Coming from Marlin, I find Smoothieware to be a piece of cake. Like the other poster said, to make configuration changes just update the config.txt and hit the reset button. I transplanted my SBASE from a Prusa i3 to a new Ord Bot I just built and had it running in a few minutes. I can also verify that the SBASE works perfectly with a RepRapDiscount "Full Graphic" LCD control panel.

When switching from Marlin to Smoothie my only gripe -and this is with Smoothieware and not the SBASE- is Smoothieware doesn't support software end-stops. So if you don't have limit switches at both ends and not careful, you can easily jog your axis's past their mechanical limits and break stuff. Other than that it's been great.

Alright that has to be retarded for them not to add that since most printers only use 3 mechanical endstops not 6. Are you positive?

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_______
I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

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Dark Alchemist

Quote
w3drk
When switching from Marlin to Smoothie my only gripe -and this is with Smoothieware and not the SBASE- is Smoothieware doesn't support software end-stops. So if you don't have limit switches at both ends and not careful, you can easily jog your axis's past their mechanical limits and break stuff. Other than that it's been great.

Alright that has to be retarded

Well thank you for that ... That's nice.

I'm going to try to explain why, I hope I'm not so retarded that you won't be able to understand.

There is a process to adding things to Smoothie, which involves making sure we implement things *the right way*, rather than implementing it whichever way we think *might* work, and then fixing problems when they appear.

Smoothie is more abstracted than other firmwares. It turns out implementing soft endstops is more complex than it seems in that context.

I think soft endstops is the only significant basic feature Marlin has that Smoothie doesn't. We'll implement it at some point, but not before we figure out how to do it *right*, which we haven't yet. It doesn't really help that we only get asked for the feature very rarely : some things have a higher priority than others ... I get several emails a week asking me for the v2 version, or 6-axis support, or for a given safety or abstraction feature ... not so much for soft endstops.

I'll go back to porting Smoothie to a whole new microcontroller familiy, with my retarded friends, now. Thanks.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/28/2015 12:40PM by arthurwolf.

I'm 100% positive it's not supported.

I posted a question directly related to this on the Smoothie forum a week or two ago and Arthur responded that it's not supported because it's apparently difficult to do correctly. I don't understand why it would be any more difficult to evaluate the current axis positions in addition to the limit switch states, but I'm not a firmware developer so I didn't push the issue.

Sometime soon I plan to look at the code to try and get familiar with it so I can understand what might be involved in getting software limits supported.