Smoothieboard V2 Unboxing and setup warnings.

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Please pay careful attention to these warnings as they greatly affect the performance and safety of your device. These are not complete instructions but are device-specific warnings to make note of when operating your Smoothieboard v2.

Handling

  • Pay attention to all wires and power supply connections. As there are a lot of connections it’s easy to confuse them. Do not hold up the board or pull it by any wires attached to it.
  • Make sure wires are not powered when connecting, disconnecting, or rewiring them
  • Open the package while observing safe static procedures. (i.e. ANSI/ESD S20.20-2021 ) while at a well lit and clean workspace.

Power Inputs

  • Read the board markings and verify polarity of all preassembled polarized connectors before and after wiring. (XT30 connectors). Do not rely on the color coding of the wires unless you have verified the connector is correctly assembled.
  • There is no reverse protection on the power inputs other than the polarity protection offered by the keyed connectors. Please double and triple check all power connections before powering up the board.
  • 5vreg is powered from the Motor power input
  • Vfet is supplied by the 2 connectors. Only 1 is needed if the total current usage is below 15A. If you have reason to expect you will need 15-30A combined FET current, a second connection must be added.
  • The absolute maximum current rating is approx 15A for each FET. The Bed FET is capable of switching up to 30A. The operational current is limited by the connector to 15A.
  • The onboard high side control FET limits the sum of the currents of the 4 individual FETs to a max of approx 8.5A. If >8.5A is needed combined on the individual FETs an alternate wiring configuration which bypasses the Highside FET is required (i.e. Connecting the + wire to the PSU and the device – to the FET)
  • The Bed FET is not connected to the High side control circuit.

Probe input

  • The probe input has a High Voltage pin labeled as “++” This pin is at the same voltage as Vmot. Be very careful when wiring the probe. If you do not plan on using a high voltage probe it may be a good idea to simply remove this pin entirely from your board. That will be at the discretion of the user.
  • If using high voltage on the probe input the jumper on JP7 must be cut for proper operation up to 24V. If you are using below 5v on the probe input leave JP7 intact. (JP7 is on the bottom side of the board near the probe input)
  • The probe input should function with a passive low voltage switch or BLTouch type probe with default hardware.

5v power

  • There are 3 different ways to get 5v power: USB, onboard 5vreg powered by Vmot, and external 5V supplied to the 5vin connector.
  • Each input is isolated from the others via ideal diodes. If more than one input is provided the source with the highest voltage will autoselect.
  • The onboard 5v @3A regulator can be disabled by bridging the jumper at JP16 (JP16 is on the board top side near the OSHW logo)
  • The USB input can be disabled by bridging JP15. (JP15 is on the board bottom side near the 5v input). Or it can be disconnected entirely by cutting JP17 (on the board bottom side near USB connector)
  • Disabling USB 5v is recommended if using a 5v USB device that cannot supply much power, such as a Raspberry pi.
  • The 5v output header has no current limit. It will supply up to 3A @ 5V safely and it can supply more than that if shorted, causing damage to the board. If you use this output, adding a fuse to devices using it is recommended.

Flashing the board

  • The safest way to update the firmware is to use the network connection and simply type “update” in the console.
  • Adding a firmware image to the SD card and naming it flashme.bin also works as does using a Stlink debugger/programmer via SWD
  • Do not interrupt the flashing process and please be patient..it may appear inactive for an extended time while running the process.
  • While flashing, disconnect or disable the FET power. If you have an external 5V supply, do not connect any other supplies. If you have no external 5V supply, connect Vmot power only.

Expansion headers

  • The expansion headers all follow a standard known as Gadgeteer.
  • All connectors have 3.3, 5v, GND, and 7 various GPIO, some of which have other functions.
  • Pinouts listed here https://github.com/Smoothieware/SmoothieV2/blob/master/pins.md
  • Warning, the SWD header is populated. It is a through hole version of the same type of header used for expansion. Near the SD card socket. It is not an expansion header. Do not attempt to use this for GPIO. It is for initial flash and will be unpopulated in later production boards.

Initial configuration and debugging

  • For initial setup, we recommended using a UART connection to the board. The information provided on the UART may be required in order to get the necessary support you may need. There are error and debug messages on boot which only go to the UART and otherwise cannot be read. Instructions for use are the same as V1 https://smoothieware.org/uart
  • Sample configurations are supplied on the SD card or https://github.com/Smoothieware/SmoothieV2/tree/master/ConfigSamples

Host

The recommended Host is Smoopi. https://github.com/wolfmanjm/kivy-smoothie-host

Other topics

Other than these board-specific warnings most connections are similar to those used on the Smoothieboard V1. Endstops, motors, thermistors and DC devices should largely be able to simply be connected and configured. Those who have used Smoothieware/Smoothieboards in the past should have a minimal learning curve.

For more assistance you can email me directly at [email protected] or visit us in IRC: #[email protected]

These are the fastest methods of communication at the moment.

More to come….

Chris Cecil,

Robosprout