The New Hotness

Being a big fan of having a CNC machine know where it is, adding endstops (pronounded “home switches” in CNC parlance) to the Mostly Printed CNC axes seemed like a good idea:

MPCNC - X min endstop - actuator view — MPCNC – X min endstop – actuator view

All the mounts I could find fit bare microswitches of various sizes or seemed overly complex & bulky for what they accomplished. Rather than fiddle with screws and nut traps / inserts, a simple cable tie works just fine and makes the whole affair much smaller. Should you think cable ties aren’t secure enough, a strip of double stick tape will assuage your doubts.

A snippet of aluminum sheet moves the switch trip point out beyond the roller’s ball bearing:

MPCNC - X min endstop — MPCNC – X min endstop

I’m not convinced homing the Z axis at the bottom of its travel is the right thing to do, but it’s a start:

MPCNC - Z min endstop — MPCNC – Z min endstop

Unlike the stationary X and Y axes, the MPCNC’s Z axis rails move vertically in the middle block assembly; the switch moves downward on the rail until the actuator hits the block.

Perforce, the tooling mounted on the Z axis must stick out below the bottom of the tool carrier, which means the tool will hit the table before the switch hits the block. There should also be a probe input to support tool height setting.

The first mount fit perfectly, so I printed four more in one pass:

MPCNC MB Endstop Mounts - Slic3r preview — MPCNC MB Endstop Mounts – Slic3r preview

All three endstops plug into the RAMPS board, leaving the maximum endstop connections vacant:

MPCNC - RAMPS min endstop positions — MPCNC – RAMPS min endstop positions

Obviously, bare PCBs attached to the rails in mid-air aren’t compatible with milling metal, which I won’t be doing for quite a while. The electronic parts long to be inside enclosures with ventilation and maybe dust filtering, but …

The switches operate in normally open mode, closing when tripped. That’s backwards, of course, and defined to be completely irrelevant in the current context.

Seen from a high level, these switches set the absolute “machine coordinate system” origin, so the firmware travel limits can take effect. Marlin knows nothing about coordinate systems, but GRBL does: it can touch off to a fixture origin and generally do the right thing.

The OpenSCAD source code as a GitHub Gist:

	// Tour Easy Fairing Endstop Mount for Makerbot PCB
	// Ed Nisley KE4ZNU – 2017-11-07

	/* [Build Options] */

	Layout = "Build"; // [Build, Show, Block]

	Section = false; // show internal details

	/* [Extrusion] */

	ThreadThick = 0.25; // [0.20, 0.25]
	ThreadWidth = 0.40; // [0.40]

	function IntegerMultiple(Size,Unit) = Unit * ceil(Size / Unit);

	/* [Hidden] */

	Protrusion = 0.01; // [0.01, 0.1]

	HoleWindage = 0.2;

	ID = 0;
	OD = 1;
	LENGTH = 2;

	/* [Sizes] */

	RailOD = 23.5;

	Screw = [3.4,6.8,8.0]; // thread dia, head OD, screw length

	HoleOffset = [2.5,19.0/2]; // PCB mounting holes from PCB edge, rail center

	SwitchClear = [6.0,15,3.0]; // clearance around switch pins
	SwitchOffset = [6.0,0]; // center of switch from holes

	Strap = [5.5,50,2.0]; // nylon strap securing block to rail

	Block = [16.4,26.0,RailOD/2 + SwitchClear[2] + Strap[2] + 6*ThreadThick]; // basic block shape

	//- Adjust hole diameter to make the size come out right

	module PolyCyl(Dia,Height,ForceSides=0) { // based on nophead's polyholes
	Sides = (ForceSides != 0) ? ForceSides : (ceil(Dia) + 2);
	FixDia = Dia / cos(180/Sides);
	cylinder(r=(FixDia + HoleWindage)/2,h=Height,$fn=Sides);
	}

	//- Shapes

	module PCBBlock() {
	difference() {
	cube(Block,center=true);
	translate([(SwitchOffset[0] + HoleOffset[0] – Block[0]/2),SwitchOffset[1],(Block[2] – SwitchClear[2] + Protrusion)/2])
	cube(SwitchClear + [0,0,Protrusion],center=true);
	for (j=[-1,1])
	translate([HoleOffset[0] – Block[0]/2,j*HoleOffset[1],(Block[2]/2 – Screw[LENGTH])])
	rotate(180/6)
	if (false) // true = loose fit
	PolyCyl(Screw[ID],Screw[LENGTH] + Protrusion,6);
	else
	cylinder(d=Screw[ID],h=Screw[LENGTH] + Protrusion,$fn=6);
	translate([0,0,Block[2]/2 – SwitchClear[2] – Strap[2]/2 – 3*ThreadThick])
	cube(Strap,center=true);
	if (Section)
	translate([Block[0]/2,0,0])
	cube(Block + [0,2Protrusion,2Protrusion],center=true);
	}
	}

	module Mount() {

	difference() {
	translate([0,0,Block[2]/2])
	PCBBlock();
	rotate([0,90,0])
	cylinder(d=RailOD,h=3*Block[0],center=true);
	}

	}

	//- Build things

	if (Layout == "Show") {
	Mount();
	color("Yellow",0.5)
	rotate([0,90,0])
	cylinder(d=RailOD,h=3*Block[0],center=true);
	}

	if (Layout == "Block")
	PCBBlock();

	if (Layout == "Build")
	translate([0,0,Block[2]/2])
	rotate([0,-90,0])
	Mount();

view raw MPCNC MB Endstop Mount.scad hosted with ❤ by GitHub

The New Hotness

Mostly Printed CNC: Endstop Mount