The original beta status of the first batch of Smoothieboards led to new users having many of the same questions, which were not fully answered in the documentation at the time.
This is a guide for new users of Smoothieboard in general, with specific information about what was specific to that first beta batch.
When unpacking your Smoothieboard, you’ll see it looking something much like this:
As you can see from historical photos, beta boards lacked most of their connectors.
This was so you had the choice to solder whatever connectors were best for your particular setup.
This also meant you had to solder them yourself.
A great way to see what connector options you have for each connection is to look at reference pictures (see the connector options photo).
You can find links to buy those connectors on the Smoothieboard page, in the “border connectors” section.
The cheapest option is simply to use 2.54mm pins for everything (except power), but your choice really depends on what is at the end of the wires on your printer: screw terminals are a more “universal” option.
To run a 3D printer with Smoothie, you’ll need to solder connectors to the following:
Once the connectors are soldered, you can start actually doing stuff with your Smoothieboard.
Smoothieboard doesn’t come with a microSD card, but it needs one.
If you don’t already have one, you want to get one (they are a few dollars on eBay).
If your microSD card is bigger than 2GB, you have two options:
Now that you have a bootloader installed, you can update the firmware.
Getting, compiling, and flashing Smoothie is well documented. Just remember you want the “edge” branch:
Once the firmware is flashed onto the board (you know it is because the firmware file is renamed on the SD card), you can move on to configuration.
Smoothie gets its configuration from a small file named “config” that you place in the root of the SD card.
You can find detailed information on the Configuring Smoothie page.
Once you have copied the configuration file under the name “config” on the SD card, you can move on to connecting your computer.
If you are a Linux or Mac user, don’t worry about drivers - it’ll all work out of the box.
Now Smoothie is flashed on your Smoothieboard, and your computer is ready to talk to it.
Plug Smoothieboard in using the USB-mini cable.
You will see a USB mass-storage device (much like USB flash drives) pop up.
It shows you the contents of the microSD card. You can use it at any time to access/modify files, drop G-code files, etc.
Now you will want to install a serial terminal program to talk to your Smoothieboard:
Use your program of choice to talk to Smoothie. The interface will be named:
Once the serial terminal is up and running, resetting the board should display smoothie ok in the terminal.
You are now connected to Smoothie and you can start talking to it. Here are a few basic commands:
ls /sd/ - Lists files in the current folder or the “/sd/” foldercd /sd/ - Changes the path to the “/sd/” folderplay /sd/file.g -q - Plays the G-code file indicated. The -q option is optional and makes the play silentG1 X10 F100 - Moves the machine 10 millimeters in the X axis, at 100mm/minute