Killed my Longboard

Will it void the warranty if I open the Longboard? Dose the Longboard have stepper drivers that I can swap out? Can I get a replacement MK1 Longboard?

I would say, since Sienci provides instructions for opening up the longboard to reseat the arduino, that opening it up doesn’t impact the warranty. That said, it’s my understanding that the drivers are not replaceable. Now, I do know you can get replacement longboards. The impression I get is the the longboard is the same for the MK1 and MK2 but the firmware is a little differenthttps://sienci.com/product/longboard/. There’s verbiage in there that suggests that the MK1 has to be flashed to match
I would give Sienci a call to confirm.

Thank you, Have not seen the instructions to open the longboard. I use arduinos in a lot of other projects like the DIY home automation system I put together to unlock and lock the front door and change the Thermostat. Well I think I used the Basic Stamp to control the Thermostats. Any way I can handle the arduino side. Thanks for the info. I will open it later today just to see if I can jump the driver. I do have a hot air reflow station and a hand full of drivers from my MPCNC build.

As you can see in the video, I have a plasma cutter on the Longmill. I have been using it for a while. I ran 1 - 17X26 in steel plate last night. Ran fine. I went in the house to grab a bite, came back out to run another. The right servo would not turn.

The only thing I did different on the last 17X26 plate was. I had the positive work clamp around the back of the Longmill. It was close the control cable for the right servo.

It might have pick up some inductive voltage and killed that port on the arduino. I wounder If I change pins on the Arduino if that would work. The I would have to change pins in the Arduino sketch.

Might have to write my own .ino sketch

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I looked back at my YouTube videos. I put this machine together on 10-3-2021. I have had this machine longer than I thought.

If i remember correctly the drivers are soldered in. i have a mk2. i was having some issue with one of my motors and orderd a replacement driver just in case and noticed it when i opened it up.

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@jmaree Have you tried swapping the Y1 & Y2 cables at the controller? I would give that a try and see if the problem switches to the other motor. And like @Fancu12 said the motor drivers are soldered in. I was have X Axis issues and replaced the controller and all is well, Make sure to power down the controller, I disconnect the power cable when ever messing with the cables. Doubt it would have anything to do with your warranty, to really double check the Dip Switches it is easier to get the cover off the controller, while there I would reset and cycle the Dip for the Y Axis motors.

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my motor was stuttering at certain times . i troubleshot it to the board. i ordered a new driver board but tried resetting the dip switches first. resetting the dip switches seems to to have fixed it for now.

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@Fancu12 Nice troubleshooting, at least you’ll have a spare board, which I think is good to have.

BTW when you get the board Sienci includes a new kill (oops) button. On my older MK1 the connector for the switch was slightly different (would not securely plug in) on the new board so swapped it with the connector from the new switch.

Yea that was the first thing I did. Sent in a ticket. They want me to go ahead and open the controller to look for a blown cap. And bump up the amps to the one driver I have them piggy backed on to stop the hum. I guess I can run both steppers on the one driver for now. I think I will build my own controller so I can add a Torch Height Controller to measure the voltage from the tip of the torch so the plasma torch will follow the metal as it bends due to the heat based on the voltage read out.

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@jmaree When I bumped up the amperage the motor (again mine was an X Axis) got hot. I didn’t measure the temp but to the touch it was hot. I have a digital thermometer, whish I had checked that. I replaced the board and good to go for now.

@Fancu12 They are soldered in and upon inspection a lot more precision soldering than I would be comfortable doing.

After opening the Longboard, I see that this is just a big breakout board for the Arduino to connect to the very cheap TB6600 drivers. It will be easy enough to remove and replace the drivers. I just hope if the problem is a bad trace on the board, I can find it and jump the bad section. Then I would not have to replace a driver.

Might even come out better building my own control board with DM556 drivers.

Thanks for all the info. I will post updates.

Update # 2

I reached out to Sienci Labs and they confirmed that the driver is dead. So I removed the bad stepper and ordered a new TB6600 stepper driver from Amazon. I will install the new driver in the next video and test in on the Longmill.

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Update #3 - Fixed the controller

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Nice work! Do you think that if you had to do it again, you might instead solder in the connectors and purchase the wiring so that you have plug in drivers?

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If I had the time, and the headers, I would loved to have the drivers plug in with headers pins. I ordered another control board, but it will not be here till Monday. Got to get this thing working again. Got stuff to make. LOL

So now that I have fixed this one for under $14.00, I still have a new one coming. Maybe I will try to put one on my MPCNC. I don’t like running Marlin on a CNC. Marlin is fine for my 3D printers. But I want GRBL on my CNCs

I happen to now have a second longboard with a presumed bad driver. Now, if only i knew how to do the rest :rofl:

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I was wondering if they are soldered in just to eliminate another point of failure.

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Very well could have been the thought. But the Arduino still uses header pins. So you can still take off the Arduino and use it in other projects if you had to get a new Longboard.

I remember when you could get an Arduino cheap. those days are gone. LOL