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Almost done!
The momentary switches arrived today so I installed them and my handset is working despite the ESP32 development board being the wrong size (it’s still the right chip and pin out). I’ve looked on eBay and AliExpress for the right width NodeMCU 32s ESP32 and they are rarer than hens teeth. Most of those listed as being the correct ones are incorrectly labelled and are also the incorrect pinouts so beware!!! Bending a few pins if one gets the more readily available development boards I have is easy enough. They’re also about half the price.
Assembly of the hand controller is straight forward. One thing I did have a little trouble making was the cable between controller and SHC. They are cross-over cables, not straight through. It’s easy enough to check by inspecting the location of the 5v power supply on controller and handset. I nearly got that wrong and there isn’t much documentation I could find on making the cable. I’ve added a photo in case it’s useful to anyone.
The Onstep controller is working as far as I can tell at this stage. I need to still connect the motors: the only pieces I’m waiting on are the RJ45 connector and molex connectors. Don’t really need the latter as can wire directly from the steppers to the RJ45s so might hack something together over the weekend.
Only one controller board is functional. I’ve ordered more stm32s from a more reputable seller. Figured out the issues with the other boards were just that I got a bad batch of dodgy knockoffs which were not 128kb but 64kb. Reported the seller and got my money back, but it’ll be a few more weeks before they arrive.
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