Looking for an CNC xPro controller board

[Boyan Silyavski]

I'm fed up with Customs pouncing on me every time I buy something abroad.

I'd be grateful for any help with this inquiry.

Thanks a lot.

Mike
(centurian)

Hi Mike,
The customs here in Spain pushed me. So i push now all people i buy from. "Please could you state it lower than 20EU?", that before buying / or i don't buy from you / . And it works. I wonder why i have never done it before.
I buy ALL stuff i need from the net, so we are talking $$$$ here

[Neale]

Ian - the grbl wiki seems to suggest that even the uno (328P based?) can get up to 30KHz, which is pretty good going. Quick back-of-the-envelope sums suggest that with a 5mm pitch ballscrew and 800 microsteps, a 16KHz pulse rate would give 6m/min. That's a pretty good performance per pound out of the little 328P chip and even in terms of absolute performance is close to what I get from my LinuxCNC machine. Be interested to hear your findings.

[IanS1]

Arduino Uno with GRBL firmware controlling 3 AM882 drives with 3 NEMA 23 steppers.

It's a first test but it seems to be working very well.

Oh, I know, I know excuse the crappy wiring !!!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/43493290@N06/15837471613/

[Neale]

Good stuff. Any idea what kind of pulse rates you can achieve, and what kind of stepper rotation speeds that translates to with microstepping in place?

[IanS1]

No idea yet. Need to get into GRBL and work out it's settings. Micro stepping on the driver is currently set at 400. Will have another play around with it over the weekend.

[grennak]

I'm in the process of building an OX cnc router from Openbuilds in America, but didn't purchase the control board at the same time as they were out of stock. I have since bought a Synthetos gShield (grblShield) V5 from Adafruit which I received damaged in transit. It was sent in a jiffy bag with bottom pins sticking through the bag and when I opened it all the top pins were bent to one side.

Adafruit saw the error of their ways after I photographed the bag before opening it showing the pins sticking out and another when I'd opened it. They refunded the cost of the board and the UPS costs.

They wanted to replace the board but I said no as I'd have to pay another £25 for Customs import charge.

Anyway I'm looking for an CNC xPRO control board (see attachment) from either a UK or a European supplier. I'm fed up with Customs pouncing on me every time I buy something abroad.

I'd be grateful for any help with this inquiry.

Thanks a lot.

Mike
(centurian)

hi,

i may have a spare brand new one of these, give me 2 days and ill let you know once my cnc is together as i got 2 xpro v3 controllers with my system and i only need one.

[Clive S]

hi,

i may have a spare brand new one of these, give me 2 days and ill let you know once my cnc is together as i got 2 xpro v3 controllers with my system and i only need one.

Hi Welcome to the forum are you aware that you are answering a post that is more than 3 years old.

[cropwell]

As an addendum to this old thread:- If goods are marked as 'Zero value - Warranty replacement' could HMRC disagree and charge what they like ?

I have had goods (10 electrical sockets from China, which I paid $15 (£12)) and then customs wanted £8 Import charges and VAT and Royal mail added £7 handling charge. I refused the goods and they went back to China, who sent another lot, which came straight through.

[rashedi]

May I ask if you used the xPRO controller as an Arduino board to control the stepper motors? I think the board itself can be identified as an Arduino UNO in IDE. Isn't it?

[m_c]

As an addendum to this old thread:- If goods are marked as 'Zero value - Warranty replacement' could HMRC disagree and charge what they like ?

I have had goods (10 electrical sockets from China, which I paid $15 (£12)) and then customs wanted £8 Import charges and VAT and Royal mail added £7 handling charge. I refused the goods and they went back to China, who sent another lot, which came straight through.

In short, yes. If they deem something to of been under/wrongly declared, then they can charge duty to what they deem to be a realistic price I.e. if something is commonly sold on websites for say $100, but it's only declared as $10, then they can apply duty to $100. The only way you could appeal it, is if you had proof that you only paid the declared amount. The same applies to warranty replacements, in that HMRC could ask for proof that the original was in fact faulty, and you didn't pay for the replacement.

Ultimately, it's a numbers game. Customs don't have the manpower to check everything, so they just check anything obviously wrongly declared, along with a random selection. I'm sure they will have some algorithms to seek out certain items/known offenders, but chances of getting something checked is slim.

I know personally, I've only ever had one parcel opened by customs (they have customs tape to let you know it was them that opened it for inspection), which I suspect was due to the size/weight of the parcel compared with the declared value.