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Multi MCU Homing

Klipper supports multi-micro-controller (MCU) homing, allowing an endstop on one MCU while stepper motors are on another, which simplifies wiring but may cause overshoot during operations due to message transmission delays. The system is designed to limit these delays to 25ms, and while overshoot can occur, it should not affect precision if the hardware can handle it. Consistent low latency under 10ms is crucial for successful homing, and communication issues can trigger errors.

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4 views1 page

Multi MCU Homing

Klipper supports multi-micro-controller (MCU) homing, allowing an endstop on one MCU while stepper motors are on another, which simplifies wiring but may cause overshoot during operations due to message transmission delays. The system is designed to limit these delays to 25ms, and while overshoot can occur, it should not affect precision if the hardware can handle it. Consistent low latency under 10ms is crucial for successful homing, and communication issues can trigger errors.

Uploaded by

MikelDonosti
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Multi_MCU_Homing.

md 2025-07-20

Multiple Micro-controller Homing and Probing


Klipper supports a mechanism for homing with an endstop attached to one micro-controller while its stepper
motors are on a different micro-controller. This support is referred to as "multi-mcu homing". This feature is
also used when a Z probe is on a different micro-controller than the Z stepper motors.

This feature can be useful to simplify wiring, as it may be more convenient to attach an endstop or probe to a
closer micro-controller. However, using this feature may result in "overshoot" of the stepper motors during
homing and probing operations.

The overshoot occurs due to possible message transmission delays between the micro-controller monitoring
the endstop and the micro-controllers moving the stepper motors. The Klipper code is designed to limit this
delay to no more than 25ms. (When multi-mcu homing is activated, the micro-controllers send periodic status
messages and check that corresponding status messages are received within 25ms.)

So, for example, if homing at 10mm/s then it is possible for an overshoot of up to 0.250mm (10mm/s * .025s
== 0.250mm). Care should be taken when configuring multi-mcu homing to account for this type of
overshoot. Using slower homing or probing speeds can reduce the overshoot.

Stepper motor overshoot should not adversely impact the precision of the homing and probing procedure.
The Klipper code will detect the overshoot and account for it in its calculations. However, it is important that
the hardware design is capable of handling overshoot without causing damage to the machine.

In order to use this "multi-mcu homing" capability the hardware must have predictably low latency between
the host computer and all of the micro-controllers. Typically the round-trip time must be consistently less than
10ms. High latency (even for short periods) is likely to result in homing failures.

Should high latency result in a failure (or if some other communication issue is detected) then Klipper will
raise a "Communication timeout during homing" error.

Note that an axis with multiple steppers (eg, stepper_z and stepper_z1) need to be on the same micro-
controller in order to use multi-mcu homing. For example, if an endstop is on a separate micro-controller
from stepper_z then stepper_z1 must be on the same micro-controller as stepper_z.

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