New MKS SBASE Smoothieware-compatible board from China

Yep, that V2 board. Lets hope some nice stepper drivers are used on that. I do like the DRV8825 over the A4988, as well as the way lower price of this unit, but there are better drivers available. To be honest, this LAN thingy is in contrast with the rest of the board, which is perfect! placement is top-notch (except for the crystal) the used power fets, heatsink, it's too good to be true, for that price.

Mine doesn't have a capacitor though, there is another part crossed over..

Right now it's too flawed to make an actual product (if ethernet is required, like in my case) I bought it through aliexpres, at the makerbase store itself. The pictures on that site do appear to look descent though (other crystal, C's in place), so i'm positive they are aware of the ethernet curse.

Here is how i received my board;

Yuck, that looks awful! The resistor is workable but the resonator doesn't even look like it's making contact on at least 2 of the 3 pads. Does it look the same on the other side of the resonator too?

Yup that's a 1MEG resistor in parallel with the resonator. Mine was the same way, but appeared to be done in production and not a bodge job like yours.

When my 2nd board arrives I plan to test with a range of load capacitors to try and "nudge" the resonator to operate in a tolerable range that might help. It may be an easier way to get it working without having to replace the resonator. Tacking on a pair of SMD caps on should be doable for anyone handy with a decent soldering iron and steady hands.

I'm curious to hear how your seller handles it.

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w3drk
It's frustrating because using Ethernet with Smoothieware rocks. I bet the issue is exactly the same as mine was. Replacing the resonator with a quartz crystal would probably fix it, but without the proper tools it's not exactly trivial without risk of damaging the board.

Hopefully they make things right for you...did you get it on EBay? The seller has actually been very understanding and is sending me a 2nd board to experiment with, but at the moment it seems sticking with an official Smoothieboard is the only safe option unless you don't mine tinkering like me.

To support Arthur's earlier points, this is one reason why these closed source copies are bad. Cost savings backfired, QC missed it, and customers who think they are getting a great deal end up stuck with a flawed board. If Makerbase properly licensed the board as Open Hardware and provided all of the supporting documents (not just schematics...KiCad/Eagle/whatever files, bill of materials, etc. too) issues like this could be avoided because the community would hold the fundamental design to a higher standard and not only focus on profit.

Unfortunately I bought mine before I fully understood how the SBASE came to be. I wanted 1/32 microstepping and liked how it would be a drop in replacement for my MKS-GEN since the sockets are identical, so I chose it over the Smoothieboard. Fortunately I was able to correct the Ethernet flaw and the board works fine now, but next time I'm sticking with an official board. Needless to say I'm looking forward to Smoothieboard v2.

From what Arthur said above I can't wait for it to come out either but in my case adding 3 more endstops is not going to happen (at least not on this machine) so I hope they get the soft max/min limits integrated.

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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
From what Arthur said above I can't wait for it to come out either but in my case adding 3 more endstops is not going to happen (at least not on this machine) so I hope they get the soft max/min limits integrated.

Put the feature request in on GitHub. I was planning to but haven't gotten around to it yet. I did report another issue and it was fixed in like an hour. Personally I think they've been great so far.

I agree that a machine should be aware of its maximum X/Y/Z travel, and require a homing sequence before anything else. Although you can work around/with it; in slic3r for example you can also set these limits. From my CNC machining experience, i'd say it's mandatory for a machine to know its x/y/z limit. On my CNC it just slows down when i reaches its limits. (it's using and edingcnc usbcnc controller). I can imagine that a conventional x/y/z design is easier to be configured for this x/y/z software limits than a delta, on a delta it's pretty pointless, since you are not using a closed loop setup, a dropped step can always lead to a crash. Just something you got to deal with running a delta

I did found a 3com NIC i can use. It's using an SMD crystal, but that should be doable. Which C's do i need? can you tell, W3drk? Or should i just measure to which one the crystal is connected?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2016 11:26AM by to3dornottobe.

C62 and C63. I'd suggest leaving the 1meg resistor on the SBASE in place too, I did for mine and it works just fine. It may depend on the ESR of the crystal and impedance of the PHY input though, so you may need to remove it if it doesn't work. EDIT: I just did a bit of research, the 1meg swamping resistor is needed to bias PHYs internal clock inverter to a linear range when using a ceramic resonator. It shouldn't be necessary with the quartz crystal so you can probably remove it. Odds are it wouldn't hurt to leave it there though.

BTW, is that a 3C905?

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2016 11:53AM by w3drk.

LOL! A 3C905C indeed. That means your past mid 20's too! Sourced it from an old server i used to run, but with the cloud it's obsolete.. Thanks! i'll try to recover the parts this evening!

I've been doing this a LONG time! My first "PC" was a Commodore VIC-20...

If you have a heat gun, you can heat the back of the PCB evenly until the components literally fall off the front. That will make it tricky to keep those two caps from getting mixed up with the others, but maybe marking them with a sharpie or something first would help with that.

That was a time where you could record games from FM radio, at least in our country.. Try to explain that in a few years. That and needle pressure..

Thanks for the tip..
Too bad it's needed though. I guess makerbase will take care of this rather sooner than later.

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to3dornottobe
That was a time where you could record games from FM radio, at least in our country.. Try to explain that in a few years. That and needle pressure..

Yep! And don't forget borrowing a book from the public library that was full of BASIC programs you could type in yourself and enjoy. If you were lucky it worked on the first (or 5th) try! That's actually how I learned to type...

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Thanks for the tip..
Too bad it's needed though. I guess makerbase will take care of this rather sooner than later.

I imagine we will see v1.3 in the not to distant future. Hopefully they fix it right and switch to proper quartz rather than bodge the ceramic resonators into submission. Considering how nice the rest of the board is, that would be a shame.

It would also be nice if they would conform to the license Smoothieboard is released under...then the community could help. I'd have a revised PCB ready to roll already...with a few other tweaks I'd like to see as well.

No need to add a feature request as it is already on the list of things to implement according to Arthur. I also would like 1/32 stepping but that is just a want (or even higher as Tom on youtube showed one with 1/256 stepping I believe) but the soft endstops is mandatory for me. I do agree

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to3dornottobe
I agree that a machine should be aware of its maximum X/Y/Z travel, and require a homing sequence before anything else.

but apparently the people at Smoothie didn't and from what Arthur said it hasn't been requested much. I bet you because the people who use these expensive boards are mainly Delta bot users and not we Cartesian users. Just a hunch.

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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.

@w3drk! THANKS! it works! I just got home after a good run, soldered the capacitors and crystal in place and it worked immediately. (not using the resistor)



Octopi isn't capable of remembering any of the changes, so i'm unable to change the storage folders Arthur created. (they are still directing to /home/arthur/.octoprint/uploads) Must have something to do with access rights. slic3r is also unable of connecting through the API. It gives a 404 error when trying to connect.

@Dark Alchamist; you can set your table limits up in octopi, don't know if you are aware of this?

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w3drk
It's frustrating because using Ethernet with Smoothieware rocks.

Ethernet on Duet rocks even more. You get the DuetWebControl interface.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

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dc42
Ethernet on Duet rocks even more. You get the DuetWebControl interface.

duet_web_control.png

I've been wanting to try that. Would Arduino Due, RAMPS-FD, and an Ethernet shield work with that firmware?

@to3dornottobe That's fantastic news you fixed yours as well! Glad I was able to help...

That duet webinterface is ok, but nothing more; I prefer the octoprint interface, because of the nice(r) features. (api for directly uploading gcode to the printer using slic3r), and the drag and drop feature is also nice; it enables you to use plugins to directly upload STL files and slice them using the build in Cura engine. Don't know what makes you say the duet interface rocks even more? I'd say you haven't used octoprint yet, or you would not be saying that? (sorry for my answer, didn't catch much sleep this night, youngest one has growing teeth, while the other couldn't sleep due to growing pains in his legs, so you better come with some right arguments ) Just grab a pi and test octopi, it's well, well worth it. Also capable of wifi printing when hooked up to a pi with a wifi adapter plugged in. Also tried astroprint, which is dream to configure, but it's a bit too much cloud for my likings. Not my (current) style of working

@w3drk; Stay away from the ramps fd. Initial creator (bobc IIRC) turned away; long story short, he uploaded schematics of a proto in his github (v1), china copied (geetech) sold, and it turns out to be a faulty breakout.. Bob turned away from it. V2 is uploaded in his github but it didn't see the daylight.

This is what needs to be done to get it to work; [forums.reprap.org]

I've sourced a duet for about 60 euro, incl. shipping. But configuring smoothie is just a dream. That txt file rocks. Smoothie with a working octoprint environment, that's a good combo. Would be nice if you could adjust the config.txt from within a webinterface/UI type of thingy to make it even more user-friendly.

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to3dornottobe
That duet webinterface is ok, but nothing more; I prefer the octoprint interface, because of the nice(r) features. (api for directly uploading gcode to the printer using slic3r), and the drag and drop feature is also nice; it enables you to use plugins to directly upload STL files and slice them using the build in Cura engine. Don't know what makes you say the duet interface rocks even more? I'd say you haven't used octoprint yet, or you would not be saying that? (sorry for my answer, didn't catch much sleep this night, youngest one has growing teeth, while the other couldn't sleep due to growing pains in his legs, so you better come with some right arguments ) Just grab a pi and test octopi, it's well, well worth it. Also capable of wifi printing when hooked up to a pi with a wifi adapter plugged in. Also tried astroprint, which is dream to configure, but it's a bit too much cloud for my likings. Not my (current) style of working

@w3drk; Stay away from the ramps fd. Initial creator (bobc IIRC) turned away; long story short, he uploaded schematics of a proto in his github (v1), china copied (geetech) sold, and it turns out to be a faulty breakout.. Bob turned away from it. V2 is uploaded in his github but it didn't see the daylight.

This is what needs to be done to get it to work; [forums.reprap.org]

I've sourced a duet for about 60 euro, incl. shipping. But configuring smoothie is just a dream. That txt file rocks. Smoothie with a working octoprint environment, that's a good combo. Would be nice if you could adjust the config.txt from within a webinterface/UI type of thingy to make it even more user-friendly.

I prefer to have just one piece of electronics to wire and maintain instead of two, and a single power supply. As far as I can see, the only significant advantage of Octoprint over the built-in web interface provided by the Duet is that it can support a webcam, and I can buy a separate WiFi enabled camera if I want that. I slice on a PC, and last time I tested Cura I found it was generating buggy gcode leading to print artifacts, so I abandoned it in favour of S3D.

I use one of my Duets over WiFi too, using a WR710N Ethernet-to-WiFi adapter.

The firmware configuration via a text file is not unique to Smoothie, Duet/RepRapFirmware does that too. However, with RRF the configuration commands are all gcodes, which means that all the parameters except network addresses can be configured on the fly without rebooting the controller. This is handy when doing test prints and calibrations.

Don't get me wrong, I think Smoothie is a well-designed board, it's just that for 3D printer use, the firmware is in some ways not as advanced as RepRapFirmware for the Duet. I suspect that part of the reason for that is the limited RAM (64K on the Smoothie vs. 96K on the Duet) makes it difficult to support a good enough web server. Hopefully this will be sorted in the Smoothie 2.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2016 06:42AM by dc42.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Granted, the octoprint webinterface doesn't load too fast on the sbase-board, but it might have got something to do with the SD cards speed between NIC and the SD card, i don't know.; it seems to be rather slow while loading, but once loaded it's fast. Transferring files to it is slow too (before the error arrises)
That camera might sound nice, but i never took the time to use it on my other printers Pi. To be honest, i'm not a fan of cura either. I always get better results with slic3r, plan is to buy simplify3d once i have my other printers finished.
So far my imperfections are more the result of the printer IMO than the slicer. (using a K8400, which is a good printer but i'm rather critical) and i'm in the works of making a delta and a corexy using some nice linear slides) I just fancy octoprint, as well as the android app. It's just more complete.

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to3dornottobe
I just fancy octoprint, as well as the android app. It's just more complete.

Can you tell me in what way it is more complete?

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Plugin support
Drag and drop support for gcode files
More convenient ui
Easier on the eye
cam integration
Api support for slic3r, among others
Broader support for more printers (considering the plans i have, i do like a generic ui)
User rights assignable features

I've considered the duet, but it didn't do it for me.

If you like to discuss this further, please contact me by pm in order to keep this thread on topic.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2016 08:17AM by to3dornottobe.

From what I understand Duets are not so easy to come by in the states...but it's good to know RAMPS-FD is a mess, so thanks for the heads up! I have a BeagleBoneBlack so maybe I'll eventually get a CRAMPs board instead and give MachineKit a try.

Duet does not have a US distributor yet but they are quite easy to order from Think3DPrint3D and have them shipped to the US.

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w3drk
From what I understand Duets are not so easy to come by in the states...but it's good to know RAMPS-FD is a mess, so thanks for the heads up! I have a BeagleBoneBlack so maybe I'll eventually get a CRAMPs board instead and give MachineKit a try.

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WZ9V
Duet does not have a US distributor yet but they are quite easy to order from Think3DPrint3D and have them shipped to the US.

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w3drk
From what I understand Duets are not so easy to come by in the states...but it's good to know RAMPS-FD is a mess, so thanks for the heads up! I have a BeagleBoneBlack so maybe I'll eventually get a CRAMPs board instead and give MachineKit a try.

And Replikeo does the 0.6 version for $50 now as well www.replikeo.com

Doug

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2016 10:31AM by dougal1957.

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WZ9V
Duet does not have a US distributor yet but they are quite easy to order from Think3DPrint3D and have them shipped to the US.

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w3drk
From what I understand Duets are not so easy to come by in the states...but it's good to know RAMPS-FD is a mess, so thanks for the heads up! I have a BeagleBoneBlack so maybe I'll eventually get a CRAMPs board instead and give MachineKit a try.

Remember the British pound seems to be the most valued currency in the English speaking world so pretty much 1.5 times the prices you see for USD (it once was 2x then settled around 1.6-1.7 and I see today it is 1.46 times so all currencies are taking a beating lately as we begin to enter a global monetary depression but that is another topic) plus VERY expensive shipping as I have been told England rapes with the shipping prices.

If we had a USA distributor the prices would be much much better but I wonder why we don't have one after this amount of time?

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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.

My beef with the Duet is in my case both my printers use dual Z steppers and I don't like the idea of splicing two motors to a single driver. Last I read it wasn't possible to use the 2nd extruder driver on Duet v0.8.5 for the Z axis like you can a Smoothieboard (via simple 4-wire jumper)...is this still the case?

$50 for v6 sure is temping though...even if just to mess around with to familiarize myself with yet another solution. But I've got 2 printers and once the 2nd SBASE arrives I'll already have more controllers than printers...I probably shouldn't get carried away.

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w3drk
My beef with the Duet is in my case both my printers use dual Z steppers and I don't like the idea of splicing two motors to a single driver.

Why not? There is absolutely nothing wrong with running two series-connected motors from a single driver. Why waste a driver that is better employed to drive a second extruder? The add-on 5V regulator board that RepRapPro shipped (and Replikeo still ships) with their 0.6 Duets includes 3 extra connectors to make it easy to series-connect two motors. From the photo, it looks like Replikeo doesn't actually fit those connectors, but the pads for them are still there.

OTOH connecting two motors in parallel as is typically done on RAMPS is a bad idea, for the types of stepper motor typically used in Repraps.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Did you get a change to run octofab on the sbase W3drk?

I just never liked the idea of splicing two steppers into one, but I suppose with a nice clean solution like those 3 connectors on the 5V regulator board it does keep things sane. So...I'm considering trying a Duet. Does the Duet support both min and max endstops? I built my Ord Bot with endstops on both ends which is nice to have, but looking at the pictures it seems like there's only connections for one endstop per axis.

As for Octofab, nope not yet. Tonight I have some time so I may give it a shot. I currently run Octoprint on a BeagleBoneBlack which works great with Merlin on my Prusa i3, but Smoothie pauses between layers when printing over USB from Octoprint...at least last time I tried. I wanted to try configuring it to print over Ethernet but haven't had time to get into that yet. Using Octoprint on the BBB is nice because I'd have a single UI for both printers.

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dc42
Why not? There is absolutely nothing wrong with running two series-connected motors from a single driver. Why waste a driver that is better employed to drive a second extruder? The add-on 5V regulator board that RepRapPro shipped (and Replikeo still ships) with their 0.6 Duets includes 3 extra connectors to make it easy to series-connect two motors. From the photo, it looks like Replikeo doesn't actually fit those connectors, but the pads for them are still there.

OTOH connecting two motors in parallel as is typically done on RAMPS is a bad idea, for the types of stepper motor typically used in Repraps.

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w3drk
I just never liked the idea of splicing two steppers into one, but I suppose with a nice clean solution like those 3 connectors on the 5V regulator board it does keep things sane. So...I'm considering trying a Duet. Does the Duet support both min and max endstops? I built my Ord Bot with endstops on both ends which is nice to have, but looking at the pictures it seems like there's only connections for one endstop per axis.

The Duet provides one endstop switch connector per motor, including each extruder motor. The endstop switches are used only for homing by RRF and can be configured to be high end or low end. Once the printer has been homed, software endstops are enforced, unless you choose to override them.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Curious to know if you are able to upload anything to the sbase with the use of octofab. You need to edit the index.html in order to have the folders changed. It won't save anything on my board, must be a user-rights thingy,

Those endstops on the extruder motors can be used for an 'out of filament' pause?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2016 03:48PM by to3dornottobe.

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to3dornottobe
Those endstops on the extruder motors can be used for an 'out of filament' pause?

Yes, when I get around to writing the firmware support for that. I intend to have them run user-definable gcode macro files, so that you can use them to trigger whatever action you want.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].