Originally shared by John Davis
@Synthetos tinyg cnc controller enclosure ready for initial testing.
That box looks awesome.
Thanks @Dat_Chu ! I just needed something for EMI reduction, but decided if I was gonna do it I should do it right.
EMI reduction? These boards have EMI?
@Dat_Chu Electro-Magnetic Interference. I wasn’t able to run long gcode scripts unless the spindle was turned off (not a useful way to run a CNC) so I assume that EMI is the issue. Shielding and grounding the stepper cables (and adding ferrite beads) helped a bit, hopefully the metal enclosure will get me the rest of the way there. Fingers crossed.
How long is your gcode file? What program did you use to send the gcode? I have a grbl shield and wonder about the limit that you have encountered.
What is the test program you have planned?
@Dat_Chu The file I’m trying to run is only about 440 lines of code. This is a TinyG V.6 with old firmware, so that may be a factor as well (I’d update the firmware, but this board is old enough not to have a bootloader either - I probably will send it in to have it updated at some point).
@Dipankar_Bhattachary I’m not following you. Do you mean how to I plan to test it?
Hmm, I have had my grblshield run more than 400 lines before. I do notice that it cannot run lines that are too long, but short lines at more than 1000 lines are doable. Given that an Arduino Uno is super cheap on ebay, you can get a replacement grblshield+uno for not too much. Unless you definitely want 4 separate axis.
I wired two stepper motors to the same x-axis output and it works well 
@Dat_Chu Well, I am using all 4 axes (Sherline with rotary table) so I’d rather like to keep using them (especially now that I’ve built this fancy enclosure for it). If I simply cannot make this thing work the way I want I may consider a Smoothie Board, but I’m still hopeful.
Smoothie Board?
Very nice. Interestingly all these boards go up in price of ~$30 per axis. 3axis grbl = 100. 4 axis tinyg = 130, 5 axis smoothie = 170