Category: General LinuxCNC Questions
Hey brains trust!
I'm currently restoring an old dental mill, converting it into a small envelope 5/6axis CNC machine for soft metals. Likely going to be put to work on making small plastic injection moulds and other little projects here and there.
I initially started down the path of getting a Mesa card, but here in Aus the prices are insane - between the USD conversion rate and the freight I'm basically going to spend more on getting it here than I would on the board itself. I did the ring around some of their suppliers closer to home and while they were super helpful, they couldn't help me get around those two issues. Oh well, on to the next solution.
I'm super impressed with the Remora firmware, noting Scott sounds like a fellow Aussie (G'day mate if you happen to read this!). I see that these can be flashed onto Mach cards like the EC300, EC500 and the NVEM. I had a bad experience trying to buy an NVEM from a local supplier, fortunately got my money back and now I'm back to square one with trying to get a controller. This part of the project has been the most difficult, beyond the steep learning curve of learning HAL!
My enclosure won't fit an EC500, I was going for an NVEM, but an EC300 could also fit the space I have left in my electrical cabinet. I have an STLink already that I bought years ago when I was flashing STM32 boards so I'm already pretty well across the process. I see Scott even has a few helpful videos too! I was hoping you guys might be able to guide me on a few things:
EC300: I see on the supported hardware page that the EC300 is compatible, but I can't seem to locate any info on what's in them, are they also STM32? and can I flash them with my STLink? Assuming they also work with Remora. And if this works, are there particular versions of the board that I should look out for?- NVEM: I notice a few threads hinting that the wiring is the same between the 4/5/6 axis boards of NVEM, but haven't found anything concrete. Is this true? In which case, the suppliers on Ali Express seem to charge an extra $20-$30 each axis I add. I'd love to just buy a 4 axis for cheaper and when I rip the Mach firmware off it in favour of Remora, I understand this will override the coding telling the device how many axes it has? Does this differ between V2 through V5?
NVEM: I notice that the V5's seem to use something other the ST microcontrollers, in which case I'd probably need to re-tool which may not be ideal depending on how much their debugger/programmer units cost. I note that V2 has the STM32 chip in it, which other versions use STM chipsets? - In general, if I do have the choice between the two, what's better? I'm happy with stepper rates offered by NVEM, 200Khz is fine, my steppers cap at 500Khz so the Mesas would have been overkill. Both have the IO I need.
- NVEM/EC300: It seems I need to buy from AliExpress if I want one in Aus, does anyone have experience with particular suppliers that aren't likely to rip me off or sell me the wrong thing?
Cheers guys, apologies if some of this has been covered, I did make quite the effort to read historical threads before posting, I did find clues but hoping to get some concrete confirmation.
EDITS: You'll see I've struck out a few items above. I found the video guide on Scott's channel converting an STLink to DAPLink which helps me get around the issue of ST vs NXP chipsets in either EC300 or NVEM units, no longer worried if I don't get an ST chip. Thought I'd document this here in case anyone else has the same question in future and may find this clue helpful.
