Question about the usability of the Arduino CNC Shield

Hey there,

I'm pretty new to the Arduino world so forgive me if I forget something important, I'll try to fix that as soon as possible.
I am working on a project where I want to control 4 stepper motors individually. My main problem is the non existence of electronic knowledge, so I want to make the power supply for all the motors as simple as possible.
I managed to connect and use some Nema17 motors with a4988 drivers, but it was getting really messy.

Everywhere on the internet I find the cnc shield. This seems to be the essence of what I need: the ability of connecting 4 motors to the Arduino with 4 stepper drivers and a way to power them all.
I didn't order it yet because I'm unsure about the usage. In tutorials and videos about this motor shield they always use a program wich seems to be made for this shield to use it as a cnc board (logically). Is it necessary to use the software when using this board or am I able to access all 4 motors individually with a stepper library and the Arduino IDE, just how I would do it when I just connect the a4988 drivers to the Arduino uno ?

I. hope someone of you already got this board and could prevent some information for me.
for clearance there is a picture of the board I'm talking about below. Thank you for your help !

If you want to play, get the shield. If you want to do CNC, get decent drivers.

The CNC shield is just a convenient holder for the A4988 (or DRV8825) stepper motor drivers.

As you have not provided a link to the datasheet for your stepper motors I can't say if the A4988 is suitable. If the current required by the motors is 1.4 amps or less the A4988 should be fine.

I don't understand @zwieblum's comment about "decent drivers"

You can use the CNC shield with the GRBL program or with your own program.

...R
Stepper Motor Basics
Simple Stepper Code

"decent driver" is anything that does not get fried by 1A current. Non of the drivers that fit onto the CNC schield will pass that criteria.

I beg to differ. I have DRV8825 drivers in a CNC shield running at 1.6A (with heat sinks and a fan). Been working for over 2 years intermittent use.

You can, as Robin said, write your own code to use the CNC shield. You need to use the pins that the shield is setup for.

cnc shield Uno pins.jpg

To run the 4th motor you jump the pins shown below and Uno pin 12 is step and uno pin 13 is dir for the 4th motor.

cnc shield Uno pins.jpg

zwieblum:
"decent driver" is anything that does not get fried by 1A current. Non of the drivers that fit onto the CNC schield will pass that criteria.

I'm sorry but that's a silly comment. It takes no account of the motor that is being controlled.

A great many 3D printers and small CNC milling machines work very well with A4988 drivers.

...R

On that board you will also only be able to use 3 of the driver slots as the fourth one is simply a MIRROR of one of the other drivers.

A for the 1 Amp comment by zwieblum I strongly disagree, mine run at 1.55 Amps no issue at all.

When you run GRBL, what's your config for $1= ?

zwieblum:
When you run GRBL, what's your config for $1= ?

The OP or me ?

Mine is $0 = 10, $1 = 25

Yours. $1=25 says that your diver does not power the stepper all the time, so you can go over 1A. Grbl v1.1 Configuration · gnea/grbl Wiki · GitHub

On that board you will also only be able to use 3 of the driver slots as the fourth one is simply a MIRROR of one of the other drivers.

I have 4 motors connected to my CNC shield with the 4th motor wired to the A (red) driver slot and pin 12 set as the step and pin 13 set as the dir pins as shown in reply #4. All 4 motors are running fine and independently.

Grbl will not use the 4th motor, except as a mirrored axis, as the control pins for that motor are the spindle control pins.