Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Connecting MRR ESPA to Labists Mini 3D printer (aka Easythreed X1) part 2

Connecting MRR ESPA to Labists Mini 3D printer (aka Easythreed X1)

So I did a bit more testing since I managed to get it to work with the MRR ESPE. Could it be the use of 3.3V on the STEP/DIR? It should not be, since the MRR ESPA has been working fine in that past.

I know that the stepper routines were given quite a bit of changes recently (see PR #16128) and that led me to think: could it be that the new changes to the stepper routines have affected the MRR ESPA? I went to flash the old Marlin fork by luc-github, and lo and behold, it worked just fine.



Hopefully, someone on the main Marlin team is able to help with this issue. I don't know if it affects others using 12V systems with A4988 stepper drivers. Another hunch I have is the high clock speed of the ESP32. Of all the microcontrollers being supported in Marlin, the ESP32, with a clock speed of 240 MHz, probably has the highest clock speed. This may be why any attempt to tune the stepper routines for slower clock speeds will likely end up affecting the MRR ESPA. The MRR ESPE is likely not affected because while it has the same CPU clock speed of 240 MHz (being based on the same ESP32 microcontroller), this is scaled down to a much lower frequency when shifted through the I2S stepper stream.

Anyway, I am keeping track of the issue here.

Get the MRR ESPA board here.

MRR ESPA and MRR ESPE related social media:
Facebook page
Facebook group for users

Affiliate link to Labists mini 3D printer on Amazon.com

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