CNC Cyclone PCB Factory: control panel and bluetooth – Part 5
With a simple control panel you can stop and resume or block the process, It’s very important expecially If you have CNC far from you, and because of the noise you will want this, maybe with a bluetooth connection.
Buttons
You can add an external set of buttons:
- Abort: stop all operation;
- Hold: is like a pause;
- Resume: you can resume an hold operation;
- E-Stop: hard reset Arduino.
The connection is pretty simple, I don’t add any pull-up pull-down resistor, and they works without problem.
As you can see I use more than one time some pins, I can do that because I create some splitter board, very simple but quite usefully.
You can find here AliExpress
Bluetooth connection
I explain in an article how to connect bluetooth to program arduino remotely, I advise to refer to that article to have more information about configuration of bluetooth module. Remember to configure Bluetooth as the example on the article as serial pass through.
You can find here
You can buy here on AliExpress - eBay
I use wireless connection because I use the CNC in another room, the noise of rotary tool It very hard.
There are 2 service board, the first is a voltage divider (that I explain in an article) that is needed because bluetooth device can support 5v power supply but logic signal must be at 3.3v, a simple solution is tu use a voltage divider in input of RX of the bluetooth device to prevent error on long running communication. I add schema in the next part.
Bluetooth as other wireless device need a quite big power to work so use an externel power supply (78xx described in next part).
Another feature is a led that notify the connection, to activate that led I use a transistor to power with external power supply.
Thanks
In the next part I’m going to show additional service boards and all other little, but usefully, component to add to your CNC.
- CNC Cyclone PCB Factory: mechanics
- CNC Cyclone PCB Factory: CNC Shield, stepper and driver
- CNC Cyclone PCB Factory: limit switch
- CNC Cyclone PCB Factory: probe and relay
- CNC Cyclone PCB Factory: control panel and bluetooth
- CNC Cyclone PCB Factory: boards schema and other
- CNC Cyclone PCB Factory: settings and tests
Hi Renzo, I’ve been folloween your project to build my Cyclone PCB Factory; Renzo Edition ;). I’ve replaced the bluetooh module with a ESP8266 Wifi module flashed with esp-link for transparent comunication and works ok. But I have a delay when I try to control the machine with bCNC. When I inspect the comunication see no delays (Using PuTTY TCP y SERIAL). Do you know why is that?
Hi Aldo,
I think the problem is esp-link, the programmer declare about 63% of efficiency (115200*63/100 of real speed) so you notice the lag.
Some people use a commercial product (TCP COM Bridge) to fix this problem.
Sometime with bluetooth also with effective 115200 I have an imperceptible lag, but with lesser efficiency I think It’s normal.
But If you find a solution write here to let everyone know about it.
Bye Renzo
Hi Renzo, I didn’t read that efficiency value.
I’ts weird, i think the esp is powerful enough to make it faster… I think maybe is for all the stuff the esp-link core is doing beside COM comunication. I’ll try to make a simpler code and test it. Ill update on this when I do it… I didn’t finish my cnc yet so I have other priorities. I’ll keep in touch (And very sorry for my bad english. Obviously is not my first language :D)
Hi Aldo,
look forward to the results of your tests.
Thanks Renzo
could you send me the fritzing part of cnc shield ?
Hi Medo,
you can find it here.
Bye Renzo