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Anyone here know if the X-Controller will work on an old Shark CNC, specifically the white 13” x 24” model. I know, I know, I should have bought an X-Carve (the community is second to none), but with the Canadian exchange rate, shipping, duties, and taxes, it was just out of reach right now. Got a deal locally on this Shark unit I couldn’t refuse. Had my heart set on the X-Carve 750mm model, even started creating models in Easel. I figure I can put it together one piece at a time. Anyways, any info will be very much appreciated.
Should work, the X controller does not know where the wires go. Easel will send a command to the X-controller about how much the axis need to move, Grbl inside the X-Controller will translate that to a number of steps to be moved and send the steps to the motors.
The stepper motors will have 200 steps per revolution (or 400 but less likely), inside the X-Controller there are jumpers that define microsteps (std is 2 for Z axis and 8 for X and Y) I suggest you change that to 2 for each axis. See instructions here
You can use machine setup for the initial setup and configure it like an X-Carve with ACME rod, that will configure the direction of your axis but the number of steps per mm will be wrong. The Z may match or be off a little when the pitch of your ACME rod is not the same as on the X-Carve and the X and Y will move less.
The number of steps per mm on the X-Carve differs from the number of steps you need to move your axis 1mm, this setting can be found in Easel Machine Setup or directly in Grbl with UGS.
For calculating the number of steps for your setup learn how to calculate that on: how to calculate number of steps here you find examples in mm and inches.
Thanks for all your help. It looks like using the X-Controller on the Shark will work after all (with a little tweaking of course). The replies are very much appreciated.
I am very interested to see how this turns out. I have an old CNC shark with parallel port interface. I’ve considered ditching the old controller for the X-Controller. Any success to report or setup tips?
Hi Bill, sorry for the delay in responding, a workshop mishap has kept me out of commision for a awhile. I have not yet purchased the controller as I am patiently waiting for either a sale or a more palatable exchange rate. My plans are to eventually move towards an x-carve, but i do not have a time frame right now.
So in the mean time I just grabbed an X-Controller, recovered my CNC shark from a dark corner of the workshop and went to work. We had literally not touched this unit in close to a decade. Last time I visited it we had it running on Bob CAD and Mach… it either had a serial interface or a parallel interface… I can’t recall. I picked it up when the business had some spare cash to burn but our shop quickly went all Macintosh and we brought on a few laser cutters which were better suited to our processes. While I understand that NWA offers an upgrade for our tired controller (upgrade to USB) my opinion of the unit in it’s original form was that it wasn’t intuitive to use. So there it sat until I loaned it’s use out to a local club, it was later returned to me without the controller or power supply - as they had tried hacking something more modern together scavenging parts from the working controller. Enter the X-Controller.
When I saw what Inventables had done with packaging on the X-Controller and the simplicity of Easel I thought I might just put it back into service. I have some summer work coming up that is going to require cutting thicker / harder stock then my lasers can do (cleanly).
Long story short as I’ll probably start a more in-depth thread on the conversion… I couldn’t be happier with the X-Controller driving the NWA CNC Shark. The most time consuming (and fruitless) part of this process was scouring the internet for the specs on the shark NWA does not provide the motor / lead screw info… Not to mention the specs have changed over the years… and for some reason it appears that NWA holds these specs as a closely guarded “secret”. Ok… enough of that… it occurred to me… I should just measure it - duh! Here’s a shot of the Shark and X-Controller after proper Grbl setup and knocking out a test draw using Easel.
I’ll get into the specifics later as I’m pressed for time today! Bottom line - the crew here at Inventables is to be commended on a fine product!
I tried that at first after I confirmed that the motors were NEMA 23 - then I just fired up Easel and went for it but it was moving crazy fast and in the wrong way. Went for the big red kill button before I crashed the gantry… then grabbed the caliper, ruler, and dial indicator.
As I needed a new waste board I pulled that up and proceeded to measure the ACME leadscrews. Diameter / pitch / and #starts. I used a formula from the Grbl wiki to come up with the steps per revolution… attached is the output from a spreadsheet I made - this has the specs of the leadscrews for my vintage “White” CNC Shark.
I was still having some issues with accuracy but after reducing the micro stepping values in the hardware (x-controller) and dropping the acceleration and feed rates a bit everything was spot on… I then used your help document on placing a long metric ruler along the travel axis to double check that everything was moving the proper distance over longer distances… it is dead nuts on. I need to go back and monkey/fine tune a few of these things… I’m not certain I need such high micro stepping on the Y axis either.
Here’s a shot of the X-Controller hardware switches as I left them.
Folks, I sold my X-Controller powered CNC Shark and moved on to a larger more industrial machine. The X-Controller ran that Shark far better than the old parallel port driven clunker that NWA supplied. Anyways… I figured I’d leave the basic details and settings here just in case someone else comes along with the same machine and controller application.
NWA White CNC Shark - Motor and Lead Screw Details:
X Nema 23 (269 oz./in.) 3/8 in. dia. 10 tpi 2 start
(X - as measured: 3/8 in. diameter / 2 Start / 10 TPI)
Y Nema 23 (289 oz./in.) 1/2 in. dia. 10 tpi 5 start
(Y - as measured: 3/8 in. diameter / 4 Start / 8 TPI)
Z Nema 23 (269 oz./in.) 1/2 in. dia. 10 tpi 2 start
(Z - as measured: 1/2 in. diameter / 2 Start / 10 TPI)
NWA CNC Shark Travel:
X: 13” 330mm (13 in. is optimistic at best… 12.5 is safer 318mm)
Y: 24” 610mm
Z: 4.5” 114mm
Note with the initial default settings - I had some missed steps and dropped the max rate and acceleration (see settings below) to more conservative numbers. I had begun working these back up but forgot where I ended up before I got pre-occupied with my new larger machine. I don’t think you can go wrong starting out with what I’ve posted below:
Suggested Initial Settings:
$100=78.740157 (x, step/mm)
$101=125.984252 (y, step/mm)
$102=78.740157 (z, step/mm)
$130=318.000 (x max travel, mm)
$131=610.000 (y max travel, mm)
$132=114.000 (z max travel, mm)
$110=2500.000 (x max rate, mm/min)
$111=2500.000 (y max rate, mm/min)
$112=500.000 (z max rate, mm/min)
$120=50.000 (x accel, mm/sec^2)
$121=50.000 (y accel, mm/sec^2)
$122=50.000 (z accel, mm/sec^2)
