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Grbl and a home made shield

Discussion in 'Controller Boards' started by Jerry Ellis, May 2, 2016.

  1. Jerry Ellis

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    I just finished my c-beam build this weekend. I opted for an arduino with grbl and some cheap tb6560 stepper drivers. With a little help from google and @Metalguru, my drivers are configured and the machine is running.

    I used a proto-board from amazon to build a shield with screw terminals to sit atop my arduino to easily connect to my drivers. However, once I began wiring it all up, I was a little less than pleased. Everything works, but my shield needed a redesign. So designed this. I havent ordered any of the boards yet, but I thought I would share in case anyone else was interested. It is untested, so please verify the wiring would meet your needs, as it is the traditional grbl layout and I left out spindle controls and coolant enable.

    OSH Park ~ tb6560 grbl shield

    If anyone notices any problems or has any suggestions, please let me know.
     
    John Meikrantz likes this.
  2. Metalguru

    Metalguru Veteran
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    Nice Job! But, you could have just bought an arduino terminal shield for $10 and saved yourself a lot of work.:D
     
  3. Jerry Ellis

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    I built what was essentially a terminal shield, but the wiring was too messy for my liking. And $23 for 3 boards (without terminal blocks) from OSHpark is not a bad price :)
     
  4. Metalguru

    Metalguru Veteran
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    Cool. Keep me posted on your build progress. So can anyone buy those boards? Do they have connections for the limit switches?

    (If you don't have limit switches on your build, you definitely will want to add them. The homing function is soooo useful...)

    They are a bit neater and more compact than the terminal shield, and one thing I really dislike about the terminal shield is it is in two pieces and not very stable when mounted on the arduino board.
     
  5. Jerry Ellis

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    Yes, anyone can buy the boards from OSHPark. The catch is you have to buy them in sets of 3, and you're charged by the square inch. The upside is that the cost is $22.10 for 3 boards including shipping. That price doesnt include the headers and screw terminal blocks, its just the board. I have ordered a set of boards from OSHPark in the past for another project (it was not my design) and the boards seem to be high quality.

    Also, I do have the connections for X, Y, and Z limits on the board.

    Again, this is untested as of yet, but If anyone wants to double check the board here is a link to it on 123d.circuits.io: grbl shield | 123D Circuits
     
    snokid likes this.

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