How To Use The CNC V4 Board (Despite Its "Quirks") : Instructables
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How to Use the CNC V4 Board (despite Its "quirks")
by matthieu.lemaitre.1994
This cheap (can be found under 10€ with arduino and I am actually not sure if the things I will talk about are
stepper drivers) board is perfect numerically true for all of those boards, because of the minimal
controlled machinning tools like CNCs or laser documentation, but it seem unlikely that there are
engraver/cutter ... or is it? different designs of this board.
In theory yes, and in practice with enough time too, I will go through all the problems I encontered and
but this board seem to have weird design errors and how to fix or circuvent them, and the last step will
mostly a lack of documentation that makes it non summarize all the connections on the PCB.
trivial to exploit.
How to Use the CNC V4 Board (despite Its "quirks"): Page 1
Step 1: Power Input
When you first try this board, your reflex is to just plug the label under it say "M .... 2v" ... yes most of the
a 12v power supply to the power jack, as you can see label is hidden under the plug, but It's probably written
"Motor 12v" ... the holes on the motor plugs side labeled "Mot-vcc"
and "Mot-GND".
(actually, I removed the plug and it's written "Max-In
12V" so it's a hidden warning) and choose a way to power the arduino :
But doing this will in fact only power the arduino, -7 to 12v power supply plugged the the jack.
because you need to place a jumper on "Mot-VOT-
Sel" to propagate the power input to the drivers ... -step down taking the motor voltage and giving it into
and no jumpers are included with the board, so you the pin on the top of "Mot-VOT-Sel" (closest to "Sel")
will need an extra one. and one of the GND pins
If you want to power the motors with a higher voltage, -just use the USB plug of the arduino itself, easiest
don't use this plug and jumper because it goes to the and enough if you need to have the machine plugged
"Vin" of the arduino which is connected to an LM1117 to a computer to control it anyway
rated for 7 to 12v. Instead, solder your power input to
How to Use the CNC V4 Board (despite Its "quirks"): Page 2
Step 2: Micro Stepping
This is usefull is you use the A4988 drivers, not the meant to be connected to 5V, but on this board they
fancy TMC2130. (but if you bought this board you are on GND
probably don't intend to use expensive drivers on it
anyway) Because you already don't have enough extra
jumpers, and there isn't much reasons to don't want
Once again, no jumper included, but in fact here, micro stepping, the best way is to solder all of the
even if you had jumpers, they wouldn't do anything. micro stepping pins to one of the 5V pins.
This look like a design error : the jumper pins are On the pic you can see in green everything that need
to be connected together, and the lines showing the
shortest wire to achieve that.
Step 3: Step and Dir Pins
The pic on this step is one of the rare documentation I to recap :
could find about this board
Xdir --> D2
And it shows that X, Y, Z dir are connected to D5, D6,
D7 and step to D2, D3, D4. Ydir --> D3
WRONG Zdir --> D4
it's the other way around... Xstep --> D5
There are other errors on this schematic, like Vin Ystep --> D6
shown to not be wired to anything, but the last step
will summarize everything Zstep --> D7
How to Use the CNC V4 Board (despite Its "quirks"): Page 3
Step 4: Summary
So I tried to redo the real schematic over a pic of the board here
First pic showing power distribution (+3 unused pins)
Second showing digital and analog wiring (+3 unused pins)
Third showing the physical dimensions of the board (all in mm)
How to Use the CNC V4 Board (despite Its "quirks"): Page 4
How to Use the CNC V4 Board (despite Its "quirks"): Page 5
