Estlcam open source hardware

Overview

• Introduction
• Current project status
• Common pitfalls
• Download
• Main Schematic
• Terminal Adapter "XL"
• Terminal Adapter "M"
• Terminal Adapter "Light"
• LPT Adapter "XL"
• LPT Adapter "Light"
• Hand wheel pendant

Introduction:

• The Estlcam hardware designs are a KiCAD 8 project and free for personal and commercial use:
  • You are allowed to manufacture and sell Estlcam compatible hardware.
  • Actually I really appreciate it if you do so:
    • I'm a hardware and software development guy and get my income from the Estlcam software license sales.
    • I'm not much interested in manufacturing and hardware sales, especially not internationally.

• There are only 2 conditions:
  • Your product = your responsibility:
    • Do everything at your own risk and don't hold me liable.
    • Ensuring the products compliance to your intented markets laws and regulations is up to you.
  • Put your company name and address on the finished product:
    • Customers must be able to tell who manufactured the board.
    • Using the Estlcam logo is OK.

• Modifications are welcome:
  • E.g. a board with integrated stepper drivers may be interesting.
  • Or adding actual relays instead of just relay drivers.
    • But consider the safety and regulatory issues this causes if users connect mains voltage!
  • Please make sure to provide your customers with appropriate instructions if your hardware differs from my examples.

• USB CNC control hardware has a somewhat undeserved reputation for being unreliable:
  • Supply (or at least recommend) well shielded USB cables to your customers. Badly or not at all shielded cables are the number one reliability issue.
  • Implementing the USB interface with galvanic isolation makes a hughe difference in electrically noisy environments.

• Support for other control software:
  • I don't mind if you port e.g. "GRBL" to run on this hardware if you like to bundle boards or machines with a free software alternative.
  • But please keep the bootloader so the user can easily switch from one system to the other
    • See bootloader protocol description in the "Bootloader" folder of the project .zip file.

• I may or may not endorse your product. It depends on how much I like your version.
  • You can offer Estlcam compatible hardware without asking me.
  • But it may still be a good idea to get in touch with me.

• Please keep in mind that while personal use and modifications are welcome I simply don't have enough time to assist with personal projects if you run into issues.
  This project is mainly for commercial use.

Current project status:

• This is an ongoing project with some items completed while others are in concept, design or verification phase:
  • Terminal Adapters:
    • "XL" and "Light": completed...
    • "M": completed but no user manual yet...
      • PCBs including assembly available at PCBWay!
      • This one may be the best starting point. Feature rich but not excessively large or expensive and all necessary components can be sourced e.g. from Mouser.
  • LPT Parallelport Adapters:
    • "XL" and "Light": completed...
  • Hand wheel pendant:
    • completed... (but old Sprint Layout 6 instead of KiCAD 8 project)...
  • Stepper Drivers:
    • "M" with TMC2209: concept, no prototypes and no software support yet...
  • Programming and testing boards:
    • work in progress:
      • Programming can be done with any PDI programmer like Atmel ICE using spring loaded pins to contact the 3 programming pads at the bottom of each PCB.
      • But there is no automated function testing yet so you'd have to rely on optical inspection or manual function testing.
      • I'm working on boards with test pins that will provide 100% function testing and programming for each product.

Common pitfalls:

• I prefer sourcing my components from TME as they offer the best value in most cases.
  • The USB-C connector (and some other items) I first selected seem to be only available at TME but no other major distributors like Mouser or Digikey.
  • This proved to be an issue for international assembly services.
  • So currently the PCBs use 2 different USB connectors that are NOT INTERCHANGEABLE as I try to switch to more commonly available components but don't want to drop already verified PCB layouts.
  • Be aware of this and make sure to source the correct components or change the PCB layouts.
• Another thing is soldering the AVR64DB64:
  • Surely no issue for professional manufacturers but the 0.5mm pitch caused me some headaches:
    • Solder paste stencil thickness should be 0.08mm or even less to prevend solder bridges.
    • I tried to reduce stencil hole sizes instead but this caused unreliable solder joints.

Download:

• Here you can download the complete project as .zip file.
• Folders:
  • Main Schematic: main schematic explaining all available options - but no specific implementation or PCB layout.
  • PCBs: contains subfolders with different implementations of Terminal- and LPT / Parallelport adapters with schematics and PCB layouts.
    • Check the respective "Release" subfolders for Gerber files, bill of materials and pick and place instructions.
  • Bootloader:
    • Contains the necessary bootloader firmware and EEProm configuration files.
    • Plus batchfiles and AVRDude for easy programming of Bootloader, EEProm and Fuses.
    • Subfolder EEProm_Tool: contains a software to customize the EEProm configuration for modified PCBs with different capabilities.
  • KiCAD Libraries: custom symbols and footprints you need to add to your KiCAD installation if you like to modify the designs.

Main Schematic:

• The main schematic gives you an overview of all available options.
  • See Main Schematic folder in the project .zip file for the KiCAD files.
  • Download Schematic.pdf
• From the main schematic 2 different products can be derived:
  • "Terminal Adapters": the Terminal Adapters are CNC control boards with screw terminals.
    • All components like stepper drivers, limit switches, relays and sensors can easily and reliably be connected to them by screw terminals.
  • "LPT / Parallelport Adapters": the LPT Adapters are CNC control boards intented for use with machines and other controller boards that offer a parallel port connector.
    • The pinout of the connector can easily be configured in Estlcam.
    • There can be additional screw terminals to overcome the limited capabilites of just a parallel port connector.
• Those 2 products can then be implemented with more or less features.
  • There is for example a Terminal Adapter "XL" with 16 digital input and a "Light" version with just 4.
  • You can create your own variations or select one of the predefined variants.

Terminal Adapter "XL":

• The Terminal Adapter "XL" offers the most features and galvanically isolated USB but is quite large and expensive.
  • See comparison chart in the introduction section.
• See "PCBs\Terminal XL\" folder in the project .zip file for the KiCAD files.
• Download Schematic
• Download Gerber files
• Download Bill of materials
• Download Pick and place position file
• Download Pick and place overview image
• You can order the PCB at PCBWay

Terminal Adapter "M":

• The Terminal Adapter "M" is closest to the old, "classic" Terminal adapter I offered for many years.
  • It offers some additional functions like analog inputs but is smaller and uses less terminals to save cost.
  • All parts are available from major distributors like Mouser or Digikey unlike the other PCBs that use some hard to source parts.
  • For this one I also ordered a fully assembled prototype instead of just the bare PCB from PCBWay.
• See "PCBs\Terminal M\" folder in the project .zip file for the KiCAD files.
• Download Schematic
• Download Gerber files
• Download Bill of materials
• Download Pick and place position file
• Download Pick and place overview image
• You can order the PCB at PCBWay

Terminal Adapter "Light":

• The Terminal Adapter "Light" is a low cost solution offering only the most basic functions.
• See "PCBs\Terminal Light\" folder in the project .zip file for the KiCAD files.
• Download Schematic
• Download Gerber files
• Download Bill of materials
• Download Pick and place position file
• Download Pick and place overview image

LPT Adapter "XL":

• See "PCBs\LPT XL\" folder in the project .zip file for the KiCAD files.
• Download Schematic
• Download Gerber files
• Download Bill of materials
• Download Pick and place position file
• Download Pick and place overview image

LPT Adapter "Light":

• See "PCBs\LPT Light\" folder in the project .zip file for the KiCAD files.
• Download Schematic
• Download Gerber files
• Download Bill of materials
• Download Pick and place position file
• Download Pick and place overview image
• You can order the PCB at PCBWay

Hand wheel pendant:

• The hand wheel pendant is a very comfortable option to control machines.
• This project is quite old and created with Sprint Layout 6.
• It is still up to date and no functional changes are planned.
• Porting it to KiCAD has low priority at the moment.
• Download Schematic
• Download Gerber files, BOM and pick and place information
• Download Firmware
• Download mechanical data
• Additional instructions including assembly pictures can be found here.
• You can order the flex PCB at PCBWay