Tindie

I am very pleased with my new controller built around Bart's hardware, I was struggling before with an arduino uno based controller for my rather large home made rack and pinion XYYZ milling CNC, it is night and day !
Also, repos have docs and the seller has a great channel for communication where they are really responsive.

Thank you so much !

Josef | Sept. 29, 2021

I am very satisfied with the products from Bart Dring

I use the product to control my cnc. I have already bought the second one and I am extremely satisfied with it. I use it together with raspberry pi and bcnc.
sorry for english translates google

David | Sept. 7, 2021

not received article

For TMC2209 4 Axis Grbl_ESP32 CNC Controller

6 Pack Universal CNC Controller to this date i have not received article from you still stuck in usa

Fraser | Sept. 7, 2021

Great board with a bit of a learning curve

Very good ESP32 board with TMC2209 breakouts that allow for things like sensorless homing. Software has a bit of a learning curve so probably not recommended unless you know your way around arduino's and esp32's. Overall no issues with the hardware and just having a bit of trouble getting the SD card to work due to software bugs with SPIFFS size. Not Bart's fault and it's just one or maybe two people developing an entire GRBL compatibility, GUI software, and web interface so understand that you may end up on your own. Only negative was I found it slightly difficult to reach out to the Bart until I discovered some bug reporting on github.

Romain | June 26, 2021

Probleme....

For TMC2209 4 Axis Grbl_ESP32 CNC Controller

Hello,
I send an e-mail but no response...
I received the 6-Pack CNC Controller quickly in France, but the power supply was shorted, I had to unsolder the IC U5 on the board and re-solder an external power supply instead.
After several days of struggling to read the Github dozens of times, I managed to get ESP3D Web UI for Grbl_ESP32 to work and Upload via OTA.
I have another problem, on Motor Socket # 4, Z_STEP_PIN ....... I2SO (13), there is 4.6V going out continuously and can't find why.
Here, I am not happy and I would have liked to have an answer by email.
The product is promising but with the current state of affairs I am not likely to recommend it ....
😞 😞 😞 😞 😞 😞 😞 😞

Caecilia | June 12, 2021

Well be my top choice for my next Projekt, too!

I bought this board to drive a heavily modified K40. I already have a smaller diode laser running on regular grbl and wanted to keep the easy modifiable grbl but with a faster hardware ( Even with the diode laser Grbl in the original hardware setup was slow) So this board has everything I need and a little extra. If you've worked with an Arduino bevor stepping up to an Esp32 is quite easy and only a few things extra to consider. Bart's board and his grbl Port for the Esp32 really make the transition easy. The Controller makes some ports 5V compliant so interfacing whatever you need is a breeze and you don't need to fiddle with extra logic level shifters. Haven't fully tested the PMW yet but I'am pretty sure it works as well as the rest.

Deveraux | March 30, 2021

Great product, with much room for future upgrades. Seller co

For External Stepper Motor Driver Adapter

Seller help me alot with coding, highly recommend.

One thing I would like to have is a pendant for cnc.

Cory | March 6, 2021

These are awesome products. Very high quality.

Bart Dring makes a flawless cnc router package. These external motor drivers allow me to use large motors with industrial stepper drivers (dq542ma). The connectors are perfect, soldering instructions are perfect, labels are perfect, and it works like it should with no fuss.
Don't hesitate to buy, you won't be dissatisfied in any way.

Alexander | Jan. 20, 2021

Really nice setup

Board is great, repos have docs and the seller has a great channel for communication where they are really responsive.

Nathan | Jan. 20, 2021

Good deal

I'm in the process of using this for more of a robot than a traditional cnc machine. So far, everything is coming together fairly well albeit slow as I'm modifying the webui for my robot's functions. Bart and luc (esp3d web ui dev) have been very helpful in answering questions.

Samuel | Jan. 18, 2021

Best controller for unique (or any) CNCs

I have a kind of unique cnc machine and I could not find a controller to do everything I needed until I found this one. It is perfect for mine (or any) machine. It controls my 2x 1y and 2z 48v external drivers with auto squaring, switches between router and laser, auto turns my router and dust collector on, has plenty of inputs for my switches and shutoffs. The esp32 is fantastic, 32bit, it creates a wifi point that you connect your phone, tablet, or laptop to and the webui (control software) starts. It's very easy to use, you can craft macros for frequently used commands, the settings are easy to change, real time overrides and nice jogging interface. It's well made and Bart is a great guy to deal with. I've been recommending this controller to everyone that is researching controllers to use. Thank you!

Steve | Dec. 18, 2020

Perfect replacement for my machine.

I have scratch designed / built a laser plotter / cutter and even went to the trouble to writing my own controller code on a PIC but, like Arduinos, it was too slow. The ESP32 running at 240MHz seemed like the perfect solution as a replacement for my own board.

Like others have also said in comments, communications with Bart have been excellent and he answered a few of my queries before buying the board and helping me choose the right daughter boards to meet my needs. I got him to program an ESP32 with the correct code based on my stepper config. Shipping was great and I got my new board in good time.

Opening up the box, the first and overriding feeling that you get is that this is a board that has been well thought out and done by someone who has done a few of these before. The daughter boards were shipped fitted in the correct slots which made it easy. With excellent connectors on it and clear PCB annotations it seemed pretty clear. I did have to grab a few pin jumpers to set the voltages but fortunately I had a bag of them on hand - but it might have been useful to have had them included for people who do not keep a stock of bits about the place. I had to build the external stepper driver boards but was pleased to see in the documentation a picture of the wiring up to reasonably similar external stepper drivers to the ones I was using. Soldering up the external stepper driver boards was easy and uneventful.

Documentation overall is good but I could not find just a couple of parameters like the maximum motor voltage allowed to power the whole board so I used a buck converter to 12V to power it and it has been fine on that. My motors are running on 28V and I was not sure if that was too much. Its labled as an open hardware project and I am sure it exists, but I have not found the schematic for it. CNC is always complicated but overall there is a lot of documentation and for all that exists it is very clear and unambiguous. Bart also sent a forum link in case I wanted to ask anything else.

I looked at the stepper driver's IO line ICs and found that the maximum allowable current on them for all IO pins is 70mA. My external drivers having 3 lines to run appeared to have about 120R input resistance to their opto isolators on each so I decided to add 100R in series with the stepper IO's to the external driver modules. It has been running fine with that and that works out at 18mA LED drive per opto isolator for a total of 54mA for the driver IC instead of what would have been about double that without the resistors. I dont know if thats required but I thought it safer - depends on your particular external drivers.

Running up the board it provided the required WiFi access point straight away and I could connect to it. I got good motion on the steppers first time and it sounds smooth. I had one axis being driven in the wrong direction but the GRBL settings allow you to invert them with a bit mask. Trying a few times it did not work but when I set AND rebooted it worked great. More of an issue with GRBL than with the board but something to be aware of. I added an SD card and I think that is more required than the documentation says because if I ping the board then it can get a little slow on the ping times when running. But when driving the CNC from SD card programs, it has been flawless - again YMMV as it could be my other WiFi end.

The laser drive PWM has been great and GRBL has a laser mode with dynamic adjustment on the PWM vs head speed and as far as I can tell this supports it. So far all of my cuts have been clean and even so I guess that has been working well.

I opted for an RC servo board too and this has not worked because I can see on my scope that it is running at the default PWM 5KHz instead of 50Hz. The nice thing about buying from Tindie with open source is that I can opt to recompile the code and set this correctly. The RC servo was an optional thing that has yet to be fitted to the machine so it was no bother. Something I can fix up later if I need to.

Overall I have been very pleased and my laser cutter is working just great now. Thanks Bart !

Aaron | Dec. 16, 2020

Amazing Board Quality

For External Stepper Motor Driver Adapter

This was my first buy from Tindie and I have no regrets at all. I didn't know what to expect but this board has turned out to be way better than I could have hoped.

Bart even answered all my questions personally, which was much appreciated. If Bart comes out with a newer version of this board, I'll buy that one too.

If you're thinking about buying this board, what are you waiting for. Do it already.

Jay | Dec. 6, 2020

Excellent

Great execution on these boards. They are rigid and well designed. No issues whatsoever. Very happy.

Taylor | Nov. 30, 2020

Blown way

Blown away by the quality of this product and the thought behind it. I bought one of my first products from Bart about a year ago for a 2 axis CNC controller and it has been amazing to watch the products, documentation, and support grow. This controller was used to bring a very expensive industrial machine into technology 3 decades newer.

David | Nov. 9, 2020

Great Controller for replacing X-carve controller

I've been looking for a CNC controller for my X-carve and found this project. I had already started using GRBL-Esp32, so it was great to find a board that was tightly integrated with that software. This board is exceptionally flexible and has a number of features that make it very useful. In particular, it supports pluggable daughtercard modules that add extra interface options, as well as a number of different kinds of stepper drivers, including external stepper drivers, which is very useful if your motors are larger than normal and need more current.

I've integrated this controller with my x-carve and successfully cut with it.

Mark | Nov. 8, 2020

Great product, fast shipping, full documentation

Wonderful board and great documentation. I had some pre-purchase questions and post-purchase questions. All answered in a timely, friendly manner.
I have more to learn about grbl32 before I can fully put this board to use in a sand plotter.

If this board fits your needs, buy it. You'll not be disappointed.

Daniel | Oct. 23, 2020

glad I chose to use this board as I move away from Arduino

I added one of my ESP32's, loaded grbl_esp32 added some a4988 drivers, connected three steppers and that was it, worked first try! tweaking the grbl config and adding end stops next but my experience so far has been really good.
I'm very glad to have found this board as I start learning more about using ESP32's for different applications. The effort Bart Dring put into creating this shows and for me is well worth the price. Saving my pennies to buy the MPCNC CNC Controller to upgrade my mpcnc.
Update: ended up using the first board to fix my goofy little 3018 it actually works now without having to mess around with it for longer than the work takes :)
Bought two more for my original project and a spare....thanks for your effort Bart!

Daryl | Oct. 10, 2020

Excellent, well designed and made!

For 4x Input CNC I/O module

Fantastic product, works perfect. The module works seamlessly with the 6 pack controller which is another excellent product. Thank You Bart Dring for your excellent products.

Eric | Oct. 7, 2020

Exactly what I needed

For 4 Axis Trinamic CNC Controller for Grbl_ESP32

Works great with the MPCNC. I upgraded from an UNO with a 4-motor driver board. Having the 5th motor driver and using auto-squaring gives me much more accurate results. Support is very responsive and the active Slack channel is great.

Sergei | Sept. 14, 2020

I'd wish i just got mach3 board from ali

Bad:
1. Wifi is working like a garbage, hard to tell if this is signal issue or the board itself. I suspect it's a board, but i could be wrong as i don't have tools to investigate this. It's just "this thing is not working" condition.
2. Not all g-code senders compatible. At least i failed to get it working with j-cnc - the esp-32 board just crash after few attempts to connect with j-cnc. Needless to say there is no tools to debug this?
3. Very basic functionality may not work even from master branch, like i spent few days trying to figure out why spindle is not working. Apparently it was broken in a code.
4. The board may just crash wo any reason. I figured out that chance of this is higher when web UI is connected, so the only way to get it working is to: open webui, quickly start gcode file, quickly close web browser tab. You want to check status of a job? You can open the browser, but you're skating on a thin ice. And web-browser is the only way to get it working, due to #2 you cannot use TTY and due to #1 you cannot send via TCP port.
5. Needless to say that i screwed up tons of stock material?

Good:
1. Developers really responsive - i have managed to get answers and attention for moderately complex problems within one day. For bigger problem most likely noone will want to investigate these kind of problem unless there is critical mass of people with same issue
2. Uniq set of features - that is the only board that support for stall guard

Ken | Aug. 13, 2020

Great board just plug and play

Fast shipping. Great board just plug and play. Hooked it upand had it running in 5 minutes. Thanks

Kirk | July 26, 2020

Works Great!

I ordered this board with the ESP32 module and 3 DRV8825s to replace a Gecko G540/LinuxCNC PC on a 2008 vintage Zenbot Mini that's been sitting idle for many years. The biggest installation issue was converting the bare wire stepper connections to dupont connectors, configuration was straightforward, and it's worked fine through it's first few projects. One of the included DRV8825 boards (set at 0.75V Vref, 1.5A for the 2A motors) erupted in the usual flames and cloud of smoke after a day of use (I've had several fail on other CNC devices, seems to be a common problem) but a generic Amazon replacement hasn't had any issues. I'm controlling a Paul Jones ER11 spindle through a DC to AC SSR, had to use the 3.3V spindle output since the 5V (no USB connected at the time) didn't work. No attempt to try PWM since it's an AC spindle, with the speed set to 1 as stated the spindle turns off and on as it should.

The onboard web server made testing and tinkering with the config easy, gcode uploads and runs from an SD although I use USB for actual routing jobs via a laptop. Grbl works as expected, no glitches.

Overall I'm favorably impressed, and would use Bart's Boards on future projects.

Carl | July 23, 2020

Great quality product

I've installed the board on my mpcnc router/laser. High quality PCB. Adding the power of esp32 to my cnc is a must.

Steven | July 22, 2020

Great product

I use my MPCNC mostly for 3d carving, i wanted to use Universal Gcode Sender and GRBL and this board fits the need perfectly. The auto-squaring works very well and has good repeatability.
I would buy another if needed.

Joe | June 21, 2020

Absolutely Awesome!

For External Stepper Motor Driver Ver 1.1

This is a great product from an outstanding supplier! Customer service is 5 stars!!!
Still getting my system worked out but the board and parts work as advertised, I’m NOT disappointed!

Tom | May 29, 2020

Excellent product

I purchased these drivers to allow me to connect NEMA 23 stepper motors (through external drivers) to my controller designed to operate NEMA 17 stepper motors.
There is excellent support for understanding how to I stall these on your controller online using the Slack app (buildlog.net).
Now I have the torque needed on all axes of my CNC. A clean, simple solution. I could not be happier with them.

Tim | May 23, 2020

Great product and service

After a few initial errors on my part I needed serious assistance in fixing my own stupid errors.
Bart was responsive, and sent a link to slack, where he showed unending amounts of patience in talking me through repairing my own mistakes.
Outcome is I now have the pen plotter fully functional, and working silently.
This video a great for a simple laser diode machine and I'm getting great results using this board.

Great service, unbeatable support.

Mike | March 8, 2020

Highly recommended

This controller is a perfect fit for the MPCNC router. I have experience with 2 of these and they are both working great. Auto-squaring a cool feature for gantry style cnc’s works well and in my opinion GRBL is a better choice than Marlin for a router. The documentation is excellent though a little spread out and the support has been excellent. I had a problem that turned out to be a wiring issue but Bart worked hard to help me resolve it. Be sure to use shielded cable for the home/limit switches and you will not have a problem.

Matt | March 6, 2020

Arrived in good time

For midTbot ESP32 V2 Controller Kit

Small mix up with some parts missing, but was resolved quickly. Friendly service and all parts arrived in good time. Parts appear to be of a high quality.

Andy | Feb. 18, 2020

Very impressed! Will definitely be ordering again!

Bought this to remove the mandatory PC component of an old SharkCNC. Mr. Dring has been extremely available and helpful along the whole adventure. Highly recommend this (when it becomes available again)!

Robert | Feb. 14, 2020

Exactly what I was looking for

For me, this is a sweet spot for DIY CNC applications.
The ESP32 is an amazing device in terms of built in capability and overall performance. While it would be nice if it had a few more GPIO pins available, this control board does a great job of optimizing available GRBL capability within the inherent constraints of the ESP32 architecture.
The firmware was easy to configure and customize and works great.
I am currently using it on an MPCNC and would not hesitate to buy more for other projects or recommend to others.

Taylor | Feb. 14, 2020

Awesome Product

Using to replace the awful controller on a stock k40 laser. Bart is incredibly helpful and knowledgeable. Loved the quality of the kit. It is all very well thought out and look forward to getting some custom work done for some industrial projects in the future.

Mike | Jan. 26, 2020

Great board and well thought out