Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: rwf71 on March 16, 2013, 09:39:28 PM
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Hello All,
Brand new to Mach 3 & the forum, this being my first post. I'm also new to home cnc, building a 3 axis gantry engraver, router,mill ? Not sure what to call it yet as it isn't done and as of yet capabilities unknown. I am far enough into it to be stuck though. :-[ I purchased off e-bay a 3 axis cnc "kit" from what seems to be a good seller from Korea. I got used (claimed to be tested GOOD) servo drives & matching 200 watt servo motors,breakout board, e-stop switch,noise filter,parallel to BOB cable and wiring instructions + configuring set-up for Mach 3. I won't mention the seller at this time but if you been hunting e-bay for this kind of stuff you can more than likely guess the one.
I had to add a 24 vdc power supply,non fused breaker, MC contactor, surge suppressor for MC coil,on/off switches + had to make the cables from drives to BOB & from drives to servo motor encoders. The drives came with the proper connectors for the cables but cables had been cut with diagonals. Also rounded up a computer,install Mach 3,run driver test (system excellent), configure Mach 3 as per instructions. At this point I'm excited to finally see motors run but NO, can't get them to do anything. :'(
I've triple checked everything according to the instructions I got from the seller and don't see anything I've done wrong. I've searched high and low for info on the BOB and can find nothing,(the seller still shows this same BOB with kits he's still selling,forgot to mention I bought mine a little over 2 years ago, taken me awhile to get this far,job & life keep screwing with my free time ya know?) Anyway the BOB has LED's on each axis at clk & dir inputs. When system is first fired up neither is lit till the first time I jog an axis in Mach 3, then the clk lights and stays lit until system is turned off, the dir lights when jogging one way & off when jogging the other, I don't remember right now rather it lights on + or - jog but it does change state when jogging back & forth so seems as though it's receiving signals from Mach 3. The first time I powered the drives I didn't have encoder cables yet & got the expected error on the drive for encoder failure but since making an encoder cable I have no errors on drive so I take that as a sign I have the cable made correctly.
I e-mailed the seller over a week ago asking for help or advise (I was nice & placed no blame on him even though at this time I think his instructions SUCK or at the very least are incomplete) I have had no reply from the seller. His claim of including the wiring & Mach 3 configuration instructions were a BIG factor I my decision to purchase from him, at this point I'm not a happy camper. Oh and BTW he was kind enough to include a copy of the manual for the drives, INCOMPLETE & part of what is there is in JAPANIEZE !!
Well there you have it. Now you know where I'm at. I've come here to beg for help from someone who has knowledge of how to get Mach 3 to communicate with Panasonic servo drives. I did contact Panasonic & they were kind enough to send me a pdf manual for this series of drive (it's not for the exact model I have but they said the parameters & setting method are the same). I've gone through the parameters & set all to default except for the ones that seem to do with getting them to accept step/direction inputs. I'm not an expert at this stuff and at this point I've done all I can and I'm afraid to "experiment" much more for fear of letting the magic smoke out. Either the input wiring to the drives is wrong or incomplete or more than likely I don't have some parameter setting correct.
The drives are :
Panasonic MSD021A1XX with the matching 200 watt motors with 2500 ppr encoders
If anyone could offer advise on how I can get these drives to work with Mach 3 I would be Very grateful.
Thank You, Rick
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If you can attach the manual and your xml I will have a look.
Regarding the LEDs that sounds like its probably correct, the one staying on all the time will likely be due to the way you have the active state set for the Step pins.
Hood
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Hello Hood,
First off THANK YOU for your offer to help,I do appreciate it. I'm familiar with you from posts I've read on the Homeshop Machinist bbs. You seem to be very knowledgeable & willing to help a newbie like me, a wealth of information for someone hoping to learn this stuff.OK, enough kissing up(I really did mean what I said though). I'm also inexperienced at internet communication like this as well so please bear with me as I attempt to get you the information you asked for. I think I have the pdf manual attached so hopefully you will see that in this posting but I'm not sure what xml you need or how to get it to you. We'll see if you get the manual & then maybe you could tell me how to get you the xml?
Thank You, Rick
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You seem to be very knowledgeable & willing to help a newbie like me, a wealth of information for someone hoping to learn this stuff.
You ain't seen nuthin yet!.:)
The .xml file is in the Mach3 folder in your c: drive. Look for the one you named when you set up Mach.
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Thanks Dickeybird,
I know you from the HSM bbs as well. The problem I now have is that my Mach 3 computer isn't internet connected so I will have to get the xml from it & try to get it here to send as well, hoping I can use a usb stick for that. Now to see if I can get that done,wish me luck!
Thanks again, Rick
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Ok Hood & Dickeybird,
I've named my machine "The Aluminator"(building the main framework from aluminum extrusions).I copied the aluminator xml file from the Mach 3 folder on the C: drive. I opened it for a look and at this point it's all "greek" to me , hopefully it's what you need.
Thanks Guys, Rick
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:) Yup, makes me happy to be surrounded by good people. Glad you picked up on that so quick Rick. Your definitely in good hands. Great group here.
Copy and pasting your xml to a thumb drive is fine. Wouldn't be a bad idea to copy and paste your entire Mach 3 folder to the thumb drive and update the backup any time you make changes to Mach once you see the changes are what you wanted.
Brett
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Thanks Brett,
Good advice I'm sure. If I ever get this stuff to work I WILL backup & make it a point to do so again any time a sucessfull change is made. I sure agree with the being happy to be surrounded by good people. I've struggled with this ALOT on my own because, #1- I really want to know & understand this stuff, not just have someone else do it for me and #2 it's hard to help someone who won't help themselves & I don't want to be THAT guy.
Rick
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Can you attach the wiring diagram you got from the vendor so I can see if it is correct.
Hood
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Hello Hood,
Kinda thought you would want this,thanks for taking the time to help,MUCH APPRECIATED.
Rick
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Ok on the breakout board, do you supply 24V at the connector beside the parallel port connection?
If you do then can you check that the connection that says 24v over to the right top is outputting 24v.
I think it should be.
Hood
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Yes Hood, the output from my 24 vdc power supply is connected to BOB at connector next to the parallel cable connector. I have used my VOM to check powersupply output at the BOB, 24 vdc as it should be. When I check between 24v & GND at connection from BOB to cable CN I/F it's 21.4 vdc (BOB must be regulating it down?). Anyway the way I read it the drive should be happy anywhere between 12 & 24 vdc so I didn't think that was a problem.BTW when I check between 24v & GND at axis connection point the polarity is correct even though the BOB instructions say polarity doesn't matter at the input point.
Rick
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Ok the instruction sheet you got sent seems to say the 24v should go to pin 12 on CN1 but the drive manual seems to say pin 11 is your 24v input for the drives I/O, also pin 28 is the 0v of the I/Os power.
It would also suggest that you need pin 12 taken via a switch(or just jumpered) to pin 28 and also pins 30 and 31 look like they need to be connected to 28 as well. Or at least it looks like if they are open the inhibits for CW and CCW are in effect.
See pic.
Hood
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Oh also pin 9 looks like it may need connected to 28 as well as it seems to say if its open the drive is inhibited.
Hood
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Well Hood,
Even though I didn't get this stuff to work on my own I am getting some satisfaction in the fact that you seem to be seeing some of the same problems I did. I do have the 12v connected to pin 12 because that's the way I read the supplied instructions as well.The first thing tried was to jumper 28-29-30 while leaving the other wiring as per the supplied instructions,nothing happened good or bad (at least not that I know of). When that didn't work I removed the jumpers and the next thing I tried was feeding 24 vdc to 28 & 11 (11+ 28-) while leaving the other wiring as per the supplied instructions,still nothing good or bad (I hope). That's all the farther I wanted to experiment on my own for fear of cooking something I had to save my pennies up for a long time to get in the first place. That's when I came to the Mach support forum looking for help.Have I mentioned I REALLY APPRECIATE your help? Well I sure enough do Hood. I'm thinking it's time to pitch the worthless supplied instructions & redo things how you suggest if you'd be so kind,PLEASE
Thank You, Rick
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I just noticed an error in my last post, I have the 24v connected to pin 12 (not 12v as I stated in previous post).
Rick
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Ok according to the manual
24+ should go to pin 11
24V - should go to pin 28
Now Pin 12 is the enable for the drive, it should really connect via a switch to Pin 28 or an output from Mach. The output from Mach would likely require you to have a relay so we will not go into that at the moment. So you connect pin 12 to pin 28, either via a latching switch or you could just connect direct for the time being.
Pin 9, 29 and 30 are inhibit, Clockwise limit and anticlockwise limits so you need them connected to pin 28 also.
Your step/Dir you need to connect as in the diagram you were given. Ideally the drive is looking for differential signals but your breakout only supplies single ended signals so hopefully it will work as per the diagram.
You will not get mush velocity in Mach from this setup unless you use electronic gearing in the drive, I have not looked how to do that yet so we will cross that bridge later.
Your steps per unit in Mach will depend whether you have gearing between motor and screw and also the pitch of the screw and lastly whether you are using metric or imperial native units.
Hood
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OK Hood,
It's official, YOUR MY HERO BUDDY !! Sorry, couldn't help myself. ;D At this point I'm happy that all my problems weren't of my own making. With all the help you've offered today I'm now at a point where I have work to do REDOING the CN I/F cables from BOB to drives. That's going to take awhile, hope I can still get by with the cabling I have, it's shielded 3 TP (6 conductors + shield). Soldering these cables is a pain for an old guy with not so great eyes anymore & arthritic hands. Also the machine itself is half done at best so even if the motors were ready to go I don't have a machine ready for them yet.
I was practicing my manual machining skills on building the machine itself until winter came to Iowa.When it did it's just too cold for working out in my homeshop & the shop is too drafty and uninsulated to heat in winter(I just can't afford it). So Christmas eve was my last day in the shop till winter is over. Christmas day I moved my focus to the basement of my house where I decided to start work on the computer & electronics end of the project. It's getting close to spring here (still had snow last week though). I'm hoping to have motors jogging under Mach control before going back to the shop in spring to finish the machine.
I'm thinking I will try to post some pics of my control system mock-up and maybe some of what I have done machine building wise before I disappear for awhile so you can see I really am trying to work toward having my own DIY cnc at home. When & if I do disappear for a while please don't think your much appreciated efforts today were a waste of your time, I will follow your suggestions on wiring connector CN I/F and report back here on my progress.
Thank You Very Much Hood(& Dickeybird), Rick
P.S. I'm still not going to badmouth the e-bay seller till I have this set-up working but BUYER BEWARE if he says instructions and block diagram for Mach 3 included!
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He also says in the document that you should not take it at face value and should consult the drive manual so he has covered his arse nicely ;D
Hope you get it going :)
Hood
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;D
I wrote Hood in for president last election! Now you know why Rick. :)
Brett
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Oh BTW I would suggest you just test the drives with temporary wiring first before you go to the bother of doing a load of soldering.
Hood
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I second the Hood for president Brett! When I was doing some research on the connectors of CN I/F I found some called them sub D 36, centronics mini D 36 & I also found them called HP 36. Seems some HP printers used this connector and I found printer cables on-line that are this sub D 36 on one end & 25 DB on the other,pretty cheap,$8.00 or so apiece. Could I get away with getting some of these printer cables, cutting off the DB25 and bringing out the wires for connection to BOB ? I was afraid that seeing how they are 25 on one end & 36 on the other (the end I need)maybe wires aren't connected to all 36 pins or maybe something is jumpered internally which would make them unusable for my needs. What do you guys think, worth taking a chance?
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Going to try some pics, I had 4 attached to the previous post & it just would not happen. Any tips/suggestions on the best way to get them here?
Rick
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Rick, make sure they arent to big. The forum will only accept 6000kb per post. Also, be sure they have a unique name. You can only ost any file once with the same name.
There is a good chance on those cables that some of the wires you need will be missing and could well be internal jumpers. If I couldnt get a pin-out/schmatic I would pass as long as you can get the connectors you need to make your own.
Brett
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Well folks,
Just thought I'd let you know I've been trying like heck to post some pics of my project with no luck. >:( I finally saw something in lower taskbar about an error 0X80010108 preventing photo or video from displaying? They display fine on my computer, just can't get them into a post. ???Googled the error code, said to do a syatem restore at the latest restore point.This is a win 7 box,about 15 months old & I've never done a system restore on this machine but started it anyway to see if it would fix the problem. Turns out the latest restore point was like 6:30 am this morning & said something about a windows update at that time. ???I don't know but maybe microsuck causing the problem?Whatever I did the system restore at that point,tried to get a pic into a post & same result as before,same error code.
This had/has been a fun & productive sunday off work thanks to this forum,Hood & others.But time to prep for another workweek of drugdery now.I will be working on the rewire of the servo drives as time permits & will report back here on progress when there is some.Will also be trying to SHOW my progress if & when I can.
Thanks to all, Rick
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Rick,
are you using the additional options button on the reply page to browse and attach the images?
If you are then just make sure they are of a unique name, in other words the forum only accepts a file attachment name once, so if you have previously tried and get a message to that effect just rename the file and try again, often adding something like a 1 or a z or whatever to the file name is enough.
Hood
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Yes Hood,
I'm really having a problem here with pics. I've tried the attach & brouse,renamed the file each time. Forum says I already sent the post but nothing is showing up here, not even the text. I don't seem to be getting the errorr code anymore, I did some more searching on that before work this morning & found it to be a known windows 7 bug when downloading pics & video from certain devices. Was directed to microsoft site to download & install "windows essentials" which is supposed to be the bug fix,which I did.I took the pics with my ole'lady's camera,(first time I ever used it),they look fine in my 'puter,maybe I need to take them over and try all over again after having installed the fix?
Rick
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If you email them to me I will see if I can post, will send you a PM with my email address.
Hood
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Thank You yet again Hood,
I sent ya 1,we'll see how it goes.
Rick
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Ok your pics are quite large in file size so I have taken a screenshot of it and attached, clicking the thumbnail below should show the pic in a reasonable resolution.
Hood
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Man Hood,
guys like you make me feel like such a idiot. Thanks for getting the pic on here.I stated up front in my opening post I'm NOT a computer,electronics or internet communication wiz & I guess the fact I can't even get a pic in a post proves it.I tried a right click on the pic,(seems like I remember an option like "resize"in win XP ?). But I didn't see any option to resize, Hell i don't even know why they are BIG in the first place!When you say you have taken a screenshot of it,got it to show in post as a thumbnail at a reasonable resolution,phew! sailed right over my head?I can't keep asking for help,pretty soon you'll be expecting me to ask how to tie my shoes!!
In the pic you'll notice I only have 1 encoder cable made at this point(Z axis on far right)The r 0 on the display indicates the drive is ready to display rpm's.I can turn the servo motor shaft between my fingers and get a reading so I'm pretty confident the cable is made correctly.The X & Y are flashing Err 22 indicating an encoder or cable problem cause I don't have the cables made yet.
After our correspondence yesterday I believe we think I don't have a power supply connected for signal control. I kinda thought that myself when I read the manual but I also thought to myself "how can I have a readout on the drive and an encoder that seems to be working if the control has no power?" But you have me confident & convinced of what I need to redo as soon as I can get hold of some shielded cable with enough conductors.I need to backtrack this thread and get a list of exactly what I need where & where(those cw &ccw inhibs,etc).
Thanks for getting a pic up for me,(proving it's easy IF ya know how).Now I need to search "screenshot & thumbnail" & see iffin' I can get me some learn'!!
THANKS HOOD, Rick
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Rick, this will help on the screen shots. http://www.wisdom-soft.com/products/screenhunter_free.htm
And you can get good cable by the foot here. http://www.igus.com/default.asp?PAGE=CHAINFLEX
Brett
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No probs and just in case you do need to know how, here is how to tie your shoelaces. :)
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CDgQtwIwAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D38RO7Gu8zn0&ei=d6VHUY2WL8KwOb6KgQg&usg=AFQjCNFK9P4IHvVpRQXVyXNEoJkkl53Zow&sig2=EhU4PzPkqycUUMdQb66nhg
Hood
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Are you kidding me!!
That's crazy,I never seen that trick before,thanks for the good sense of humor Hood.Brett, I haven't checked the links yet but I will. I need the photo education and buying shielded twisted pair cabling by the foot is tough to find,I bought the cable for the encoder used off e-bay cause everybody selling new wanted to sell me a 500' roll, I didn't need quite that much!
Rick
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Bear with me folks.it's an experiment. Rick
[timg]C:\Users\Rick\Pictures\mockup2.JPG[/timg]
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I should've known. I read if I did that it should put a thumbnail in a post,obviously didn't work for me.
Good Nite. Rick
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(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/482f43b9-e265-4527-a334-4d94ed030d7b.jpg?)
Well here I go again! Maybe you see my mock-up & Mach3 computer?
Rick
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Hot Damn,bout time!
I'll try a couple more tonight.Thanks for putting up with my "learning process".
Rick
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;D
Brett
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Here's a shot of the base so far,Y axis rails & ballscrew just sittin' there for now.
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/bth_ba063f65-dcd1-441b-a438-0d8fc7da5a76.jpg?)
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(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/bth_base1.jpg?t=1363727883)
Different angle of base
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(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/gantry.jpg?t=1363727826)
left to right,base-x axis rails & ballscrew-z axis rails & ballscrew-gantry
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(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/thealuminator.jpg?t=1363727768)
overall shot of the whole project & messy basement. ::) Can you tell by the pic sizes I'm still learning?
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(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/base1.jpg?t=1363727883)
Hopefully one last BIG shot of the base. ;D
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Now before somebody freaks about the height of the gantry I've made it what I hope is way too tall at this point. My thinking was to get gantry mounted & running on Y axis rails,get the table for workholding built,get spindle mounted on Z rails. At that point I will bring Z axis all the way down (-Z), measure distance from spindle nose to workholding tabletop, add length of a "shortish" cutter and cut off gantry uprights by that much. Make any sense to you?
Rick
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Looking very nice :)
Hood
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Thank You Hood,
Hey I have another question, I've been looking over the input cable rework & we determined pins 28,29,30,12&9 should be 0 volts (com-). The wiring diagram I got from seller says 3.5&7 are GND (ground). Here's the question, are ground & 0 vdc (com-) the same thing in this application, I mean can/should I tie these ALL together?
Rick
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Looking good Rick.
Brett
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overall shot of the whole project & messy basement.
No fair covering up the stuff you don't want the world to see before taking pics! ;D
I really like the old (Magnavox?) TV console you have your electronic stuff in. They don't make 'em like that anymore. Reminds me of the one I had back in the 70's. When the TV got too expensive to fix, I gutted it and put an aquarium in it's place with a back light. Better'n watching nothing at all! ;)
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Thank you Brett,
For anyone who is interested to know I first started dreaming about this project 4-5 years ago. After 2 years of research and being inspired by other diy machines I saw on the net I started saving my pennies. Seemed to me most (but not all) of what I saw was put together by folks who were strong on computers & electronics but mechanical skills,not so much.Yet the work they were getting done with their machines was amazing although the machines themselves looked a little on the crude side to me.
I'm kinda the opposite myself, I've been building & fixing mechanical things since I was a 10 year old with a go-cart. Wrench turning mechanic, welder, fabricator, amateur machinist,electrical work, but computers & electronics,not so much.
I bought my first parts,(the drives & motors) a little over 2 years ago and have been gathering new & used parts from all over the world ever since,(e-bay & the net). Finally had enough pieces collected that about 7-8 months ago I told myself it was time to see if I was up to the task at hand and started building.The aluminum extrusion stock was purchased used & I've done all the machining myself. All the gussets, angles, even the T nuts I machined in my small cluttered backyard shop after work & on weekends. I still have a long way to go & time & energy is limited. I'm hoping if I'm lucky I may have a machine to play with in another 6-8 months. I'm excited to have it done but I make a living working on filthy junk (poor people have poor ways) and this machine is going to be MY machine ,built by ME & I'm going to take as much time as I need to end up with something I can be proud of.
So for the rest of you who might be dreaming about it, JUST DO IT ! Ya ain't gonna get started no younger!
Rick
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Hey Dickeybird,
I think it was a Zenith,used to lay in front of it watching cartoons when I was a kid. And I didn't cover that stuff, that's my ole lady's quilting machine & frame, she ain't real happy I'm with me in HER space this winter.LOL
Rick
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Thank You Hood,
Hey I have another question, I've been looking over the input cable rework & we determined pins 28,29,30,12&9 should be 0 volts (com-). The wiring diagram I got from seller says 3.5&7 are GND (ground). Here's the question, are ground & 0 vdc (com-) the same thing in this application, I mean can/should I tie these ALL together?
Rick
Pins 3, 5 and 7 etc are for the Step/Dir signals and in reality, according to the manual, they should really be the inverse of the signals, ie differential signalling should really be used. Often drives will work fine being connected single ended like that but I always use a line driver to make the step/dir signals differential as it makes them much more immune to noise problems.
Looking at your BOB I am thinking the 24v and the 5v will be tied together internally, you can probably check with an volt meter between the 24v out and gnd and then also between a Dir pin and that Gnd, if you get 24 and 5v (may have to jog a different dir to get the 5v) then they are tied and not much you can do if you use that BOB.
Most drives I have seen have separate commons for the stp/dir inputs and the logic power but whether yours do I dont know, easy enough to check with an ohm meter between the commons of each on the drive itself (with no plug connected)
I wouldnt like to say for sure whether it would be a problem or not if they are isolated but as said if your BOB is not isolated then not much you can do about it.
Hood
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OK Hood.
I think I followed most of that,getting ready for work now,will use VOM to check tonite. I know I have 24 v between gnd & 24v now so if I have 5v between gnd & dir that means they are tied together on the BOB and I could tie gnd & coms together,correct? I also understand you don't like it that way best but I have no choice if I use this BOB.
Now is where I step wayout of my league, If I understand correctly with this BOB the dir signal will vary from 0 to 5v, but you prefer a line driver (whatever THAT is) because of better noise isolation. Does that mean the dir input receives a wider voltage difference (like 5 to 24v) or just a cleaner 0 to 5v because of the isolation?
I would like to use this BOB to a least get motors jogging and verify the drives and servo motors are OK but I DON'T want to build a problematic machine susceptible to noise issues, If you think there's a better way to do things now is the time for me to change things but I would need your help to know how & what to change. ::)
I don't personally know anyone I can talk to that would even have a clue what I'm talking about, let alone answer my questions.Thank you very much for taking your time to help me out Hood, your a gentleman and a scholar!
Rick
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You can actually still use the BOB and not have to connect the 0v to pins 5 and 7, to do that you need to make your step/dir signal into a differential Step/Dir signal. What that would mean is for every positive positive step pulse Mach puts out there would be a negative one, same with Dir signal. So you would have Step + connected to pin 6 and Step - connected to pin 5, Dir + to pin 8 and Dir- to pin 7.
Line drivers can be bought or made, if making them you would need a line driver similar to this
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/line-transmitters/0630875/
That is a quad driver which means you can have 2 axis of step/dir signals with it, so 3 axis would require 2 of them.
As said you can buy them ready made, I think US Digital sells them but you would need 1 for each axis if going that route as their line drivers are meant for fitting to encoders so only have A, B and I channels.
Hood
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Here is another line driver that might interest you.
http://www.cnc4pc.com/Store/osc/product_info.php?cPath=64_78&products_id=337
Russ
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I was going to link to CNCDrives line drivers but thought as they are in Hungary it would probably not be a great source, forgot though that CNC4PC are a stockist for them.
Hood
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Hey Hood,
I did some checking with a VOM on my BOB. Checks were made on the same axis (Z), gnd to 24v =21,3,gnd to dir = 3.3, gnd to clk =3.3, there is a 5v that seller didn't say to use and there I have ; gnd to 5v =5. I was late getting home tonite so haven't looked into the line drivers that were linked yet. At this time I'm not sure what they are or how to use them.
It does seem gnd & com- are the same on this BOB so all those pins COULD be tied together for a test but is 3.3 V going to be a good enough signal at the dir & clk inputs?
Rick
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OK guys,
I checked out the line driver links. Hood, the one you linked looks a little to sophisticated for a non electronics guy like myself and I presume you need a socket for that IC to make connections?
After looking at the one Overloaded linked (thanks) I think I get the idea & use. I already have some RJ45 modular plugs and the stripping/crimping pliers for them so I have the output end covered and I like the screw terminal inputs. Would it be OK to get the ground & 5 V inputs from the axis outputs on the BOB? BTW those CNC4PC line drivers look pretty small and I didn't see any provision for mounting them, do you just let them "hang" in the wiring or is there a proper mounting method?
Rick
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Hi Rick,
You can connect the wires to the screw terminals, then slip a length of heat shrink tube over the unit extending slightly beyond each end. Trim if necessary for the RJ 45 plug then just let it dangle or tuck it into the ducting.
Russ
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OK thanks Russ,
I would already have them on order but website says they are on backorder,none in stock, not even one for me to try. I emailed them to see if they have an idea when they are getting them, I don't want to "lock in" with an order then find them elsewhere faster.
Rick
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Bummer, the chip Hodd referenced is not too difficult to fix up on a small board. He even set me up with one so you know it's simple.
Got some pics somewhere, will find them later.
Good thing is, you can possibly arrange the screw terminals on the board to match the BoB and use 14 ga solid copper in short length for mounting.
Later,
Russ
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Around page 7 of this post has some pretty good info.
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,22480.60.html
Russ
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Shuuuuuuuuu, I thought RC had fell of his rocker..................... again. ;D Its page 3 of that thread if you view last on top. Here is a link to the post I thought most important and will always be good no matter how many more post are made in the topic.
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,22480.msg157149.html#msg157149
Brett
Thanks RC! Had to pick at you a little. Sent you a PM.
Brett
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Cool Brett, thanks.
Here is the pic of the one Hood helped me set up.
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,22480.msg157044.html#msg157044
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Ok gentleman,
I've looked at the threads linked related to making your own differential line drivers. Looks to me like the ones made by Hood were custom PCB's MADE by Hood,same for the one from BR549,way outta my league. BTW, the one Hood showed with the DB 25f connector & everything labled on the board is as "factory made" & professional as anything I've ever seen,WOW,impressive indeed. But I don't know squat about making a custom PCB, ugly or otherwise.
If I see correctly the one Overloaded made seems to possibly be on some kind of "off the shelf" universal type board. If that is the case where does one get such a board,the screw terminal connectors,sockets for the chips, etc. How would a know nothing about electronics guy like me come up with a ''stock list" of componets needed so I would be ordering everything I need the first time & nothing I don't need?
I'm a diy & save a buck kinda guy & if I can't get the drivers from cnc4pc I guess I'll have to attempt to make my own but I gotta tell ya, for $4.25 each this is one diy project I'd be fine with side stepping.(;-)
Rick
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UGLY ! ! ! ! >:( Hey ... it works. ;) ... and I was pretty proud of it, being I was more intimidated than you at the time. :D (just funnin', no offense taken.
Mouser, Digikey or Allied for the IC's, Radio Shack for the board and screw terminals. The shack can get the IC's too if you want them to, here anyway.
It's really simple after studying the data sheet of the IC. I didn't use any sockets, just soldered the IC directly to the board.
Russ
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They appear to be IN Stock over yonder.
http://www.shop.cncdrive.com/index.php?productID=259
Might check, the shipping is not to bad ... sometimes.
Just an option,
Russ
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I think I may have one of the ones I made up that I probably will never use again, if interested give me a PM. It will be one of these ones, see below.
Hood
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You betcha I'm interested, PM sent.
Rick
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UGLY ! ! ! ! Hey ... it works. ... and I was pretty proud of it, being I was more intimidated than you at the time. (just funnin', no offense taken.
I don't want to or intend to insult anyone but YOUR'S ain't the one I was thinking of. ;)
Rick
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CNC4PC said they shipped me two out yesterday but I haven't gotten them yet.
I know they were expecting them in when I ordered them maybe they have them now.
Ray
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Hey Ray,
I emailed them yesterday about expected delivery date & got no reply today. I think I might have another option working now. But thank you for the info on CNC4PC, hope you get your drivers soon.
Rick
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Another question.
While waiting for the differential line drivers,which I hope will actually get my motors moving, I've been looking at the rewire of the servo drive cables. On the same connector where the step/dir commands are input I see an output labeled "ALM" ,servo alarm output, pin 26. If I should have a drive fault I would like Mach 3 to halt operation until the Alarm can be corrected. I've read that Mach doesn't use encoder feedback, but if a drive should alarm because of say a following error that drive would stop working, but if Mach doesn't know or acknowledge this alarm I presume it would continue to run the program which I bet would get ugly (expensive) with only 2 of 3 axis responding. :o I'm thinking the servo drive alarm output should operate a relay with Mach E-stop circuit going through a set of n.c. contacts so a drive alarm, (ANY drive alarm) would halt Mach operation.
Is my thinking correct on this, and if so what is the best way to let Mach know there is a drive problem and stop operation ?
Rick
P.S. I tried to do a search on this & didn't get any matches. But I DID stumble across a thread about encoder feedback where the poster was WARNED about being an illegal user of Mach 3. I'm just using the Demo version at this time which I thought was recommended until my machine is working and I'm sure Mach 3 does run my set-up. If it does then I WILL purchase Mach 3. I'm I using Mach 3 correctly or illegally?
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Rick,
that is correct regarding your thinking on the alarm signal. Nowadays I am using the CS-Lab controllers for my machines and they make things simple, For example they have 24v I/O so hooking to an Industrial servo drive is easy as normally they have 24v I/O. The next thing is it can take signals in as alarm signals so if one alarm is seen it stops Mach and also all other drives that it is controlling.
However you dont have that luxury and I never used to either when using the SmoothStepper or before that the parallel port. What I did was have a series of relays, each drives fault signal was to the relays coils and the contacts of the relays were all in series, this if one opened it would break the circuit. I also had the E-Stop switch in that series connection and it was hooked up to Mach as the E-Stop input and when Mach saw no connection it would E-Stop and that would take away the enables from the servo drives so stop them, in addition to stopping the pulse train.
That is not an ideal setup as you are relying on Mach to stop the other drives but it is still a lot better than nothing. I also in addition to this had another relay that was connected to the NO contact of the relays and that was then hooked in line with the enables to the drives, that way if a drive faulted it would take away all enables even if for some reason Mach didnt.
Regarding Mach and Demo, you can use in demo mode as much as you like no problem, it has some limitations such as max of 500 lines of code but most other things work. The poster you are referring to was very likely using a pirate licence rather than just using Demo.
Hood
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OK thanks Hood,
Great tip on another relay to take away drive enable in case Mach doesn't cover getting things stopped , I like redundancy where safety is concerned. Now I have to do some research on relays, I'm thinking a small "ice cube" relay is the ticket but drive manual says 50ma max on the alarm output and I have never had reason to know how much the 24v coil on an ice cube relay draws.
Thanks for clearing up the other issue, I was hoping I wasn't a Mach 3 crook !
Rick
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I use these relays quite often, coil resistance on 24v coil version is 3k8 which is 6.3mA.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180801697672
Hood
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Hood,
Are you saying that with the CSMIO you're now merely relying on it stopping the drives on fault/Estop? A relay still seems more reliable to me...
Dan
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No Dan, I am also using a Telemecanique E-Stop safety relay module, see arrowed in pic. This sends a halt signal to the drives so they stop under power (Cat1 E-Stop) and then the timed relays on that module takes away the Power A and Power B input signals to the drives 0.5 seconds later effectively disabling them.
Hood
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That's only for the Estop or a drive fault also? And where does it get its signal from?
Dan
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Thanks for the link Hood,
But DAMN, looks like I really need to learn to make a pcb as the componets you suggest seem to always need one. ::) BTW, that is a really neat, clean & professional looking electrical cabinet you showed Dan there, looks like I'm getting advise from an EE, I better pay attention!
Thanks , Rick
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;D
Rick, something like this may help. http://www.ebay.com/itm/2x-Double-Side-Prototype-PCB-Board-5x7-cm-Tinned-Universal-Board-FR4-/130647464585
Not as neat as custom but as long as the spacing is right for your components, should work and be fast enough. I don't think etching your PCBs would be that bad though. I think Radio Shack has everything you will need. You can also have them made with the silk screening and all pretty cheap but for just 1 or 2 it's a lot more expensive than larger quantise.
This is a pretty decent link on etching your own. http://www.jameco.com/Jameco/PressRoom/makeoneetch.html
You can also machine off the cooper clad insted of etching it off.
Brett
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Yea Brett,
I've seen that done by folks that have a diy cnc machine that works, sure wish I had one. ;D
Rick
Just a little joke,please don't take offense.
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Rick, I don't even know what your talking about.................. everything looks fine to me.
Yea Brett,
I've seen that done by folks that have a diy cnc machine that works, sure wish I had one. ;D
Rick
Just a little joke,please don't take offense.
;D I know, my point exactly, that's why you've got to hurry up! You need a CNC to help you build more CNCs. ;D
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So does this mean I'm not the only one thinking of machine #2 before #1 is finished?
Rick
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That's only for the Estop or a drive fault also? And where does it get its signal from?
Dan
Dan I am planning to also use the No Fault Out signals on the E-Stop relay Inputs so if a drive faults it calls an E-Stop. I have not got as far as wiring that section up yet but I think it should work fine. Below is a pic of how this module can be used for multiple E-Stops inputs
Not sure what signal you are referring to in the latter part of your question.
Also the CSMIO monitors the positions of each axis and if one is not where it is meant to be it will call a PID fault and E-Stop all motion, so hopefully I have got a lot of bases covered in the unlikely event that one goes awry.
Hood
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Just to add another wee bit, you may see the other safety relay at the side of the red one, it is powered from the start/stop button on my panel, below the E-Stop, see pic.
What that button does is start the contacters for Drives and coolant however the power for the red E-Stop module is via the relays on it and also the E-Stop to CSMIO/Mach is via the red one. So I can start the computer and have Mach running but I can not take Mach out of reset unless the drives contacters are powered.
Hood
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Thanks for the link Hood,
But DAMN, looks like I really need to learn to make a pcb as the componets you suggest seem to always need one. ::) BTW, that is a really neat, clean & professional looking electrical cabinet you showed Dan there, looks like I'm getting advise from an EE, I better pay attention!
Thanks , Rick
I am no EE, I learn every day of new ways and hopefully I will never stop learning. Regarding the PCB's, I often just use vero board to do the wee boards I need then maybe at a later stage I will route or get a board printed. Pic below of one of the relay boards I made up the the wee lathe.
Hood
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So does this mean I'm not the only one thinking of machine #2 before #1 is finished?
Rick
Absazactly! ;D
Brett
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Bretts been thinking about that for Years Rick, just he has not managed to complete the 10 million spreadsheets he feels compelled to do before a project ;D
Hood
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Bretts been thinking about that for Years Rick, just he has not managed to complete the 10 million spreadsheets he feels compelled to do before a project ;D
Hood
But I'm at 327,638............ means I'm not too far off from finishing one of them. ;D
Brett
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;D
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Hello All,
To anyone who has followed this you know I followed the instructions supplied by the seller of my servo drives & motors & had no response from the motors when I thought I was good to go.After a lot of help and advise from the GREAT members of this forum it was determined the drives don't play well with the single ended signals supplied by BOB to drives, really need differential line drivers.Was also determined the BLOCK WIRING DIAGRAM for drives & Mach 3 were INCOMPLETE AND INACCURATE !! Power was not being supplied to the drive control,the drive inhibit,cw inhibit & ccw inhibits were ALL active,(hard to get anything out of drives with all those inhibits activated). And the "servo on" input was not being powered. HELL, no wonder it didn't work,the control wasn't powered and if it had been the drive was 'turned off' about 4 different ways.Them there was some mighty fine instructions I got with the drives. ::)
Well I still don't have the line drivers yet but not seeing these motors work was driving me NUTS,(some would say that's a pretty short drive). So I reconfigured the inputs and decided to see if anything would happen given the single ended step/dir signals.
Progress Update
I Have motors that move !!
At this point I have seen all 3 motors work and one drive seems OK. I only "rigged" one input cable and thus far only have one encoder cable made and didn't swap them to the other 2 drives for a test but I have more confidence now that they are OK. I connected all 3 motors (one at a time of course),jogged them with Mach and ran each one through the "auto gain tuning" routine built into the drives.YIPPIE! ;D I do have a problem though, when jogging in Mach the motors only rotate one way. The auto gain tuning routine rotates motor 2 revs each way back & forth several times at increasing speeds and that worked as it should so I know motors CAN rotate both ways, just isn't doing it through Mach jogging. The motor does rotate when jogging either way, but it's the SAME direction for pgup/pgdn and also the same way when using Z+/Z- on the MPG flyout. Any ideas what's going on?
Rick
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Might double check with a meter that the dir signal is actually changing at each termination point while changing jog directions.
Also, good to see it's moving, but, mine looked real good initially single ended also. Actually ran very well until I noticed it missing position randomly by about .001 - .002". The line drivers made it rock solid.
You'll git er',
Russ
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also, be sure the drive is configured for s&d and not cw-ccw.
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Howdy Russ,
I'm looking over parameters now to see if I can notice a problem. When you suggest checking with a meter at termination point am I understanding that the com & + should switch places where they leave the BOB. What I mean is if I connect meter to gnd & dir at BOB, jog one way meter would read say, 5v,then when jogging the other way without moving meter leads it should read -5v?
Rick
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It will read 0v the other way as you are just single ended, so 5v or 0v.
Hood
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Thanks for clearing that up Hood,
As I mentioned before the BOB is only outputting 3.3v on the dir out. So with meter connected I see 3.3v when jogging one way and 0.12v when jogging the other.
Rick
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Ok, its a shame the BOB is not buffering the paralell ports output as the nearer to 5v you are the better but differential should help with that anyway.
Regarding your signals, that should be fine but there will likely be specs of min and max voltages in the manual for your drives for the step/dir inputs. It looks likely that what Russ said about the CW/CCW mode may be your issue.
Hood
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OK Hood,
I'll hopefully have a better look through the manual tommorrow evening after work. I've had a pretty good day today by finally getting so see motors run. But sadly now my weekend of play must end, time for supper,shower and off to beddybye so I can be up early bright eyed & bushy tailed for another fun workweek. Least this one is a short one, Good Friday is paid day off for me.
As always thanks, Rick
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OK guys,
Here's what I think is going on. I have spent the evening looking the manual over, checking parameters, made some changes,same result,changed them back,read Mach manual,read servo drive manual some more,,,My conclusion? I don't think it's a parameter problem, I think it comes back to the crappy instructions and the way the step/dir commands are being input to drive. Page 24 of the drive manual deals with position command input (pulse), it shows two ways to do it, A-by line drivers which they recommend (Hood did as well) or B-by open collector which I think is what Hood & some others have called single ended. Well I still don't have the line drivers so at this time the signals are single ended (open collector) BUT the way the instructions had me hooking things up I'm putting single ended signals where the line driver signals should go. so in effect the drive is seeing "half" what it should one direction & the other half when jogging the other direction. That sounds clear as mud even to me but if you would care to look at page 24 of the manual and then look at the connection instructions (all have been attached to earlier posts) maybe you can see the problem I think I see.
Rick
p.s. I REALLY need those line drivers. ;D
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USPS said you should have some line drivers Thursday or Friday. They weren't real clear which Thursday or Friday though. I'm hoping they were meaning this Thursday or Friday. I have my fingers crossed for you! ;D
Brett
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;D
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What Great folks there are on this forum! Hey Chaoticone, pm sent.
Rick
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What Great folks there are on this forum! Hey Chaoticone, pm sent.
Rick
Look Hood............. Hes talking about you..................... and I think I'm in trouble.... :(
;D
Brett
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Why I outta'.....................you guys are lucky your so far away or I might have to..............oh,nevermind. ;D ;D
Rick
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Just thought I'd post an Easter update, good & bad. :-\
I have the differential line drivers in hand,pretty sure I have the installation figured out and got an "all good" from Professor H. ;D
I still have to make 2 more encoder cables & install line drivers before next test. Now the bad news, I have just spent the better part of 4 hours making ONE of the encoder cables,(soldering all those tiny wires into an even tinyer connector is some of the most aggravating work I've EVER done) getting every connection shrink tubed and buttoned up looking good. Put cable on for a test and I STILL have the encoder error just like it isn't even connected. >:( The cable I'm using is used cable so at this point I don't know if I made a mistake or the cable has a broken wire? I should have continuity tested before putting it together I reckon but it's the same cabling I used for the first encoder cable I made and it turned out great. 8)
Oh well, taking a lunch break for now, get to checking it over after I cool off & fill up.
Rick
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Ha ha I have soldered quite a lot of encoder cables up but every now and then I still wire things round the wrong way or to the wrong pin. I always try and check before I plug in though as the drives I use most have 5v and 9v feeds depending on the encoder and 5v encoders dont seem to like 9v very much :D
Hood
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Well damnit,
I double checked the cable and found nothing wrong. ??? I had first tried it on the same drive and motor as the first cable I made,(which turned out fine) so I figured the cable had to be the problem. When I couldn't find a problem I decided to try it on a different drive and motor, it worked fine there. ??? So I put it back where I had it in the first place and it's OK, WTF ::) Now here is the depressing story. When I installed it the first time I tightened the retaining screws cause I was confident the cable was going to stay there, (first one was fine so this should be too, right?). When I double checked and found nothing I tried it on a different drive and it was ok,(no screws). So I put it back where it was in the first place and it's fine?(still no screws yet). Puzzled over why it didn't work the first time I decide to secure it and move on, as the upper screw is beginning to snug up I hear a "click" and drive alarms with an encoder error. >:( So I slightly loosen screw and drive resets, encoder error gone.
Now I'm NOT tightening these screws like the lugnuts on a dump truck, just snug. I guess I could just leave the screw a little loose and move on but I'm afraid the board in the drive has a crack and tightening the screw must be warping the board enough to cause the crack to cause an "open" in the encoder circuit.
I got the connectors with the drives and think they have been together since day one. The screws look original to the connectors so I don't think it's a case of wrong screw or screw too long. I've attached a couple pics of the connector for the last cable I have to make yet.
So what ya think? should I leave the screw a little loose and forget it for now or do I need to open the drive and hunt the problem? Seeing how I'm NOT an electronics guy I don't know if I oughtta' open the drive or not. ::)
Rick
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BTW,
The good news is that as long as I don't tighten the retaining screws the drive seems OK other wise. I ran the servo motor tuning routine and that seemed to go properly.
Rick
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Ah mini centronics connectors, really nice to solder the way the pins are arranged compared the high density D-Subs :)
I have an Allen Bradley drive on the manual lathe, I use it for the spindle motor I fitted so I could bypass the noisy headstock, anyway I had a similar issue with one of them, tighten the screws and the drive doesnt work as the enable wont make contact. Could never work out why but I got round it by just not tightening the screws ;D
I recently renewed the wiring but this time the connector shell I used had the clips instead of the screws and its been fine so it may be a problem with that type of connector.
Hood
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Hello Hood,
I took a vacation day for tomorrow (today) so I would have a 4 day weekend, so I'm burning a little midnite oil working on the last encoder cable. ;D Well If you got bye without fixing your drive I think I'm going to just let it ride for the time being, just hope it doesn't cause reliability issues later, I guess if it does I'll deal with it then. Soon as I finish the encoder cables the line driver is next. ;D ;D Then I get to make cables for the signal input to drive. ::) I will be happy to see these cables done so I can move on, this isn't the most enjoyable part of the build I must say. ::)
Rick
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You could always get a backshell that uses the clips rather than the screws, assuming of course your drives connector supports the clip type shell. I think it would as I dont think I have seen a mini centronics on a servo drive that doesnt but then again I have only seen a few drives with them.
Hood
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I'll keep that in mind if it gives me trouble, most of the Fanuc drives I swap out at work use the clip type shells. Do you know if the "guts" from the one I have will fit in a clip shell? Sure would be nice to skip the soldering. ::)
The good news for me is, drum roll, the encoder cables are done!! I just installed and tested the last one. ;D 3:30 am here, Think I'll call it a night for now.
Later, Rick
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Yes the shells fit on the connectors no problem :)
Hood
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Well I thought I'd post a progress update. Last Friday I received the Scorpion differential output board, after talking it over with the manufacturer I decided it should get a hillbilly reconfiguration to better match the rest of the system the hillbilly put together. ::) When I got it the input was by ribbon cable which was a little short for how I plan to use it , plus all those wires "stuck" together and the same color wasn't very easy on the old half blind man.
Scorpion as received ;
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/bth_DSCI0498.jpg?t=1365072309)
Scorpion after hillbilly rework ;
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/bth_DSCI0518.jpg?t=1365072502)
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/bth_DSCI0516.jpg?t=1365072366)
I didn't have the connectors for the outputs so I removed the headers and soldered my output wires directly to the board, manufacturer said that was OK. ;D I'm currently attempting to construct a 3 axis machine but am already dreaming of a rotary 4th axis so I took care of in/out for A axis as well. ;)
I double continuity checked everything over and it checks like I intended it to, now time will tell if my intentions were correct. ::) I think I'm ready to begin a temp installation to see if it works. At this time I only have one of the drives inputs jumpered properly to get it to run motor self tuning routine so I'm going to see if the Scorpion gets the motor jogging cw & ccw as it should, I was getting cw in both jog directions as it is now. If this part works out I will be looking into a proper rewire of all 3 drive input cables.
As part of the input rework I want to use the alarm out from drives to operate a relay with contacts in the Mach E-stop circuit so a servo alarm will trigger an E-stop in Mach & stop all motion. It was suggested by Hood to also have the relay cut drives directly just in case Mach drops the ball or doesn't catch it quick enough. I think that is a great idea as I'm a belt & suspenders kinda guy for safety. But I do have a question, I have a drive input for "servo on" and also a input for "inhibit", Any thoughts or suggestions as to which one of these inputs would be best to have the alarm relay cut (servo on) or activate (inhibit)?
Waiting for your much appreciated input, Rick
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I would think if you used the inhibits it would do as you want, the only thing would be the servo drives power stage would still be enabled but it should stop failry fast even if Mach/CSMIO doesnt stop things. I would imagine there will be deceleration settings in the drive for the inhibits but maybe not.
Boards looking good :) You going to mount it with the holes? They were originally for the DB25 connector but are not being used now so should be a reasonable place to mount with standoffs.
Hood
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You going to mount it with the holes? They were originally for the DB25 connector but are not being used now so should be a reasonable place to mount with standoffs.
Hood
Good day Hood,
Yes I thought the db25 holes would be a good place for the standoffs as well, glad you approve. I couldn't decide between the servo on deactivate or the inhibit activate, I will take your advice to activate the Inhibit. I still have a little research and experimenting to do on the relay and how to implement it, drives say 50 Ma max draw on alarm out. I have a "ice cube" relay that specs coil at 36 Ma so could probally safely use drive to operate it directly,I have the proper diode to reverse bias across coil to shunt emf. But I have been looking into using a transistor as a switch, let drive trigger transistor and transistor carry/switch coil current. As I've said I'm NOT an electronics guy but I'm interested and want to learn, have been reading about the transistor as a switch deal and may do some bench testing just for the experience and education. I've always wanted to know more about electronics and I have a large box full of old boards I've saved just for harvesting parts. If I let some of the magic smoke out ,no biggie. ;D
Rick
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DAMNIT !!
I just made the temp install of the Scorpion, Good news ; I now have the single ended outputs from the BOB feeding the driver board inputs, differential outputs from driver board going to servo drive inputs, NO SMOKE and it works. BAD NEWS; works the same as before, motor cw rotation in BOTH jogging directions. :'( WTF !!! I read the servo manual AND Mach manual last week, tried changing a couple drive parameters, same results, changed them back. There is something I don't see or understand somewhere, starting to pi** me off! I wanna see these motors rotate both ways when jogging different directions but just can't get it to happen :-[ I guess I need to read some more but not now , too damn mad.
Rick
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OK, thinking about it some more. You guys are Mach 3 experts, if a Mach setting could cause this you would have seen it before and told me where to look or what to check. Gotta be a parameter, but between the goofy wording in the translation of manual and my inexperience at setting up servo drives I just aint seeing it yet. :(
Rick
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Parameters:
28=0
29=3
Just to verify, is this what you have set ?
Russ
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THANK YOU RUSS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't believe my luck at finding such a GREAT bunch of people on this forum. I've just added another to my list of hero's and people I owe. I'm VERY thankful that you would take the time to look through the manual and spot possible parameters that could cause the results I was getting. I did have #28 at 0 but I had #29 set at 1, changed it to 3 as you suggested and It works correctly at last. ;D ;D YIPPIE!!
Not only have I been helped so much here, but another thing that gets me is that this is a MACH support forum and to the best of my knowledge I haven't had a Mach problem yet. ::)
All my problems have been because I bought the drives and motors from ebay seller FA Parts, they came with what was supposed to be a block wiring diagram and configuration to make them work with Mach 3. Well the instructions were/are CRAP, I shoulda' just thrown them in the trash and came here in the first place but I would have never guessed such a generous and helpful bunch of folks existed. I'm not a computer or electronics whiz and knew I would have a hell of a time making this work on my own which was my reason for buying from a seller who claimed to include instructions to make it all work together. :-\
Now I can't really say I feel like I was ripped off because all the componets I bought seem to be good quality and it works when configured correctly. ::) Considering the prices I'm seeing asked for this stuff today I feel like I got a good deal pricewise on the componets but the instructions are worthless and I'd probally been less frustrated had they not been included at all.
I may have gotten frustrated and given up,(or at least had to walk away and take several breaks in progress) had it not been for the GREAT support I found here! This truly IS a support forum. ;D
Thank You to All who have held my hand to this point, especially Hood, Chaoticone & Overloaded. Now I'm on to the alarm circuit, probally end up needing help with that as well, Hope I haven't got you guys burnt out on me yet. ::)
Thanks All, Very greatfull, Rick
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That's great news Rick, one step at a time.
You'll be knee deep in chips before you know it. ;D
Happy I was able to help,
Russ
:)
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:)
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Good news :)
Hood
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Well i sure am glad I got the post from Russ early this morning. I changed the parameter before I went to work, saw the motor jog properly at last and left for work feeling great. Then today at work got involved in an accident caused by a co-worker and smashed my middle finger on left hand. Swelled to about 3 times normal size now, throbbing like a toothache, black, blue, purple, bloddy etc. At least I left work with a finger in perfect condition for telling him he was # 1.
May be broke, filed accident report and decided to let it ride a day or 2 and see if it gets better or worse. Finger messed up bad enough to pretty much make whole hand unuseable and can't get much done with only 1 good paw.
Really glad to see it work right this morning because now I can't do much on the project for a while, (day or 2 at least). Even hunt & peck typing tough with 1 hand.
Rick
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:( Get better soon.
Brett
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Dang the luck ! :P
I hate to hear that Rick.
You were on a roll too !
Hope you bounce back very soon.
Co-workers ... sometimes a blessing, often a curse. >:D
Get well soon,
Russ
:)
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Thanks for the good wishes guys.
He made a mistake, I paid, stuff happens, wasn't on purpose.
Come to think of it, I made a mistake myself once. ::)
Rick
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Well guys,
With my finger banged up I spent my time yesterday reading & figuring on how I should do the "safety circuit" so drive alarms bring everything to a stop. You know, the system I hope is never needed or used but when it is I'll be glad I took the time to do it. ;) I was thinking about using an ice cube relay because I already had 1 on hand & I'm cheap. But coil draw was close to drive spec of 50Ma max and don't want to risk doing damage to servo drives. So I thought maybe a transistor taking signal from alarm output and transistor switching coil in ice cube relay, again cause I'm cheap & I have several transistors on hand I could choose from. WELL NOW, I read a bunch about transistors yesterday, learned a lot I didn't know & decided I wasn't going to learn enough fast enough to put a circuit together that I'd have confidence in using just because I'm cheap & wanted to use what I already have. ::)
So, I have been looking at "perf board" & "vero board" you guys showed me & I think I'll try making a board using some proper pcb relays. I'm not ready to learn the etching process yet just for a board or 2 and as Brett suggested If I ever get to the point of having a diy cnc of my own I could mill a board and skip the learning & chemicals altogether. ;D I gained some confidence at possibly using some type of prototype board after the rework of the Scorpion differential output board which seems to have turned out well. 8)
So this morning I was going back through this thread to take a look at the pcb relays Hood had suggested and said he used before in a safety circuit like I want in my machine. Now I must say I'm embarrassed to discover that Russ had told me to check cw/ccw parameter in post #93 and in #97 Hood had confirmed & agreed that my problem of only getting motor rotation one way was probally related to cw/ccw parameter as well. I guess my only excuse is that I thought I had always heard that Mach3 output step & direction commands so when I looked at parameter #29 and saw I had it set for cw/ccw in my pea brain cw/ccw are "directions" so I just flew right by thinking that was correct even though you guys told me that could be the problem. :-[ Thankfully Russ looked at the manual himself and asked "hey dummy do you have #29 set at 3 like we told you". Of course he didn't say it like that cause you guys are to nice for that but you had to be thinking it! ::)
Sorry I was too dense to get that on my own and Thanks again for sticking with me long enough to get that problem fixed, I sure appreciate it!
Rick
P.S. Finger is only double size today and at least I have enough grip strength in my hand to button my pants without too much pain! That's an improvement over yesterday.
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Ha ha its all part of learning a new discipline, when you stop learning is when you want to be worried ;)
Glad to hear the finger is getting better :)
Hood
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Update so ya know I'm still kickin'. ;D
My finger is still about double size, when I went to work Monday the powers that be said gotta have it looked at. So they get me an appointment with company work comp doctor at 2:00 pm. Doc checks it out, tells me I did good by putting a splint on it Saturday, agrees it's more than likely broke, need X-ray to confirm, sends me to hospital for pic. They take X-ray late Monday afternoon, nobody in our little one horse town/hospital to read it so it gets sent 150 miles away to be looked at by someone who is supposed to know what they are looking at. ::) All day Tuesday goes by, still no word. ??? Oh well, even doc said "yes,probally broke,need X-ray to confirm then you can come back so I can take your splint off and replace it with mine". :-X
Tough to get much done with a bum hand but I am working on a proper installation of the Scorpion driver board and Monday morning I placed the order for parts to build the servo alarm safety relay board. Also been putting some time into making some decent/better electrical diagrams of the build so hopefully troubleshooting problems will be easier down the road after I've forgotten how I put all this stuff together. ;D
Hoping to have some progress to show soon, still plugging away slowly one handed. Rick
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I have just been doing the electrical drawings for the Chiron I am retrofitting, as usual I do things ar*e for t*t and do the wiring first then do the drawings after ;D
A guy posted a link to an electrical drawing package and I have been using it and it seems to be making a decent jbb and the learning curve isn't that bad, which is lucky as help is in French :D
You will find the link here
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,24184.msg171175.html#msg171175
Hood
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Thanks for the link Hood.
I'm currently just hand drawing and making notes on notebook paper, you've seem them before. ::) Probally tough for someome else to follow but I think at least good enough I can go back, look at my scratchin' and figure out what I did. Would be nice to have some "pro" looking schematics, might lessen the hillbilly factor a tad. ::)
Rick
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I often do rough sketches as I am wiring then later on I will write up a file with where things come from and go to as sketches tend to get lost with me ;D
Below is an example of part of the way I did it for the Bridgeport when I did it. This worked well but nothing beats a real schematic.
Hood
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Spread Sheets!!!!!!! I see Spread Sheets!!!!!!! ;D
Brett
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Yes, you see more than your fair share of them, you are almost as obsessed, with them, as you are silicone enhancements ;)
Hood
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Well Hood,
your spreadsheets look pretty pro compared to my hand scratched notebook, but I'm pretty good at keeping track of my notes and so far I've never had THAT notebook crash and loose my information. ::) But enough about that for now, I'm interested in hearing (seeing) more about these silicone enhancements Brett is obsessed with. You know what they say, once you've seen a couple, you pretty much want to see them all! ;D
I did take a quick look at the schematic software before work this morning, I've not used anything like that before. My learning curve allways seems pretty steep with software in general even with instructions that are supposed to be in English cause it never seems to be in the plain, common sense English a hillbilly easily understands. I also saw it's free public/GNU, which is something I really like but seems the author and main force in it's development officially announced he has no time for it anymore and dropped the project about a month ago, so probally not going to get instructions I can read well enough to not understand.
I did take a short go at a Linux software package called "electric" awhile back for electric schematics but it seemed geared toward electronic schematics and not electrical drawings I'm more familiar with. I have an old pc running Unbuntu just for play/education, I like the idea of linux, free, GNU but I didn't find enough clear, organized info for a nongeek like me to get a good grip on it. ??? There's a ton of info but it's everywhere and I found much of it conflicting. No two "experts" seem to do things the same so a guy like me who don't know squat doesn't know who to believe?
I have many reasons for building my diy cnc but one of the main ones is I want to learn CAD. At this time I know basically nothing so even if/when I have a working machine I have a big hill to climb there before I'll be able to actually MAKE something with it. Before I started this cnc adventure I questioned myself as to if I was taking to big a bite, sometimes I think maybe so, but I sure as hell ain't gonna learn no younger so with help like I've found on this forum I haven't had sense enough to give up yet. ;)
Rick
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Making a little progress,
I had the Scorpion hanging by the wires on the one drive I have jumpered to run just for a test and after Russ got me straightened out on the drive parameter I FINALLY got to see a servo motor properly jog in both directions. So now I'm working on getting all the drives jumpered and fed by the Scorpion so I can see all 3 working correctly, I hope. ::) Even my more permanent installation is still a temp mounted on the mock-up board, whenever I some day get a working system built I will still have to move everything one last time into a proper metal electrical cabinet. For now I have the Scorpion mounted and bout half hooked up.
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/DSCI0522.jpg?t=1365861774)
But now I'm shifting gears again because I received the parts I ordered for the "safety circuit" relay board.
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/DSCI0519.jpg?t=1365861659)
I'm way outta' my comfort zone here, The switch I ordered has .050 pins but the proto board has .037 holes. :-[ Can I get by with drilling the board to accept the switch pins? Also the board isn't quite what I expected, I think I ordered the wrong thing there as well, was expecting Both sides to look like this.
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/DSCI0521.jpg?t=1365861716)
But the board is described as "through hole plating with one plane", didn't notice that when I ordered but now that I have it I see the back side looks like this, I guess this must be the one plane?
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/DSCI0520.jpg?t=1365861626)
If I use this board,(I hope I can) should I insert the componets from the shiny, (one plane) side or the other way around? Any advice or suggestions you board building experts have for me would be VERY welcome.
Thanks, Rick
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Its quite hard to see from the pics but is there copper on both sides?
Hood
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Hello Hood,
I'll try to describe it because I don't think I'll get any better pics. The board "core" is yellowish FR4 fiberglass .064 thick. On what I'm calling the front,(because the manufacturer name & model number are on this side)the board is mostly yellow with a small ring (pad) of silver,tinned copper around the holes. The backside is All silver tinned copper but around the holes there is a circle of the yellow core showing which is the only thing creating separation between holes. Even though the holes are not all "shorted" together now, it looks like a if a guy got sloppy soldering and used too much solder it could bridge over that small separation ring and make all that tinned copper on the backside conductive to the sloppy bridged pad, do that TWICE and I think a guy would have a shorted mess.
Does that help you see what I tried to show? I've googled this "one plane" thing a little and I think you could for instance bridge over the ground connection in one spot,(pad) and then any other componet that needs a ground could also be bridged over which would eliminate a lot of the point to point wiring for ground. This would make the back a "ground plane. Same thing could be done with Vcc if you wanted the back to be a common buss. Not both on the same board but you can make this "plane" a buss of what ever you want as things are being built up. I think I'm understanding this correctly and the idea SOUNDS good but it looks to me like an amateur like myself could easily create an unintended bridge and end up with a shorted out mess. :o
I hope this helps clear up what I tried to show in the pics.
Rick
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Oh yea, forgot to say the board is a TWIN INDUSTRIES model 8100-45. Even on thier website it doesn't have a data sheet, it's just described as a proto board with through hole plating and one plane.
Rick
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I think you are going to have problems using that board, especially if you have to drill out the holes as they are plated through holes so you will drill out the plating.
I think you would be better off trying to get the normal type of board, heres a link to what I am meaning, its copper one side only and the tracks can be easily separated by using a 4mm drill by hand just to cut the track., Just put the drill in a hole, rotate by hand and the track is cut.
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/stripboards/0433826/
Hood
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Well CRAP,
Here I go having troubles again. While I wait for a proper board to build the error monitoring relay set-up I'm working on getting all 3 axis' wired to BOB and Scorpion output board, also adding a pair of wires at servo drive connector CN I/F which are to go to the relay board.
I brought out a wire from pin 9, this is the one that has to be grounded for drive to accept pulse & sign input, when ungrounded it activates the drive "inhibit". This wire is to be ungrounded by the relay board at the same time as an E-stop in Mach 3 for the "double safety" effect. That seems to be working as expected because I have the first (X) axis wired and even though the drive isn't alarmed it doesn't respond to jog commands with the wire from pin 9 ungrounded, but when it is grounded the servo motor jogs as it should, so far so good.
I also brought out a wire from pin 26, the drive manual says this is the error/alarm output. The way I read the manual it says this output should be "hot" (Vcc) when drive is OK but transistor turns off when drive is in an error/alarm state. This is the output that is to be the "key" to the relay board, Vcc when drive is OK and 0V when drive is alarmed. Well, it's hot all the time no matter if drive is alarmed or not! ??? I can check between ground and pin 26 when drive is OK and get 21.5 vdc, (still don't know why BOB is getting 24 vdc but puts out 21.5 vdc but so far it hasn't been a problem) but if I disconnect an encoder cable the drive alarms with error 22, (as it should) but the output from pin 26 is still 21.5 vdc !! The alarm out of the drive doesn't seem to be working as manual says. I've double checked to be sure my wire is on pin 26 (it is), if this alarm output doesn't change state I don't have anything to "operate" the safety relay board so no need to build one. >:( I really want Mach 3 to HALT when a drive is in an error state and I think this is a necessary thing but if the alarm output of drive doesn't work I don't know how else to pull it off. >:(
Just in case any of you servo drive experts should ask this is how I have connector CN I/F wired ;
pin 5 to S+ from Scorpion
" " 6 to S- " "
" " 7 to D+ " "
" " 8 to D- " "
" " 9 to safety relay board (ground to run, open to inhibit)
" " 26 to safety relay board (should be hot with no drive alarms, 0V when alarmed)
" " 11 to BOB 24V
" " 3,12,28,29 & 30 + cable shield all tied to ground at BOB
Just to sum up, the alarm output from pin 26 is NOT turning on & off depending on drive being alarmed or not. Is it possible the transistor in the drive is bad or do I have something wrong again?
Rick
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Have you tried connecting the coil of a relay between 26 and your 0v of the supply you are powering the drives logic from?
Hood
EDIT
Just looked at the manual and the relay should be connected between pin 26 and the +24V
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Thanks for the reply Hood,
To answer your first question, No, I haven't tried a relay between pin 26 and ground. But after reading your post I tried checking between 26 & 24V and I get nothing, alarmed or not. The way I see it that's checking 24v against 24v which should read nothing because of no difference in voltage potential, but I could very well be wrong. Do you think a relay would act differently than what I see with VOM between 26 & ground?
Oh, BTW, could this be controlled by a parameter? Seems dumb to me to want to make alarm output ineffective but maybe a parameter could do that?
Rick
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The Outputs sink according to the manual so testing with a meter will not show you anything. If you put the relays coil between +24v and pin 26 it should work.
Hood
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Alright Hood,
I have to get a flyback diode across the coil on one of the relays then I'll give it a try. Thank You AGAIN,
Rick
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Well I'm confused as hell now. :(
I tried a relay between 26 and 24v, had VOM set for continuity on a set of the relay contacts, contacts never changed state weather drive alarmed or not. I did the same test with relay between 26 and ground, contacts never changed state. The VOM I was using has been known to screw up on continuity checks before so I got a different VOM, tried it both ways again, still no change in contact state. So then I use VOM #2 to check voltage, 26 to 24V =1.2 vdc, 26 to ground = 7.5 vdc, voltage never changed in either test weather drive was alarmed or not. At least with the first VOM I was seeing 20 something from 26 to ground. I'm really confused now, Don't understand why voltage is so different. I also don't understand what you said about not being able to check with a meter in the first place, if a meter can't see the 24V needed to turn relay on/off how can the relay possibly work? Please don't misunderstand me Hood, I'm not doubting you, I just really don't get it.
Sorry, Rick
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The drive has sinking outputs, ie instead of the drive providing 24v at the output it needs 24 into the output. When the output is active it provides a path to 0v internally.
I will have a look through the manual later on to see if there is a parameter to set the output up for the laarm but I would think not as it seems to be a dedicated output.
Hood
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Well Hood,
I have the relay and diode on a breadboard, was checking voltage with VOM #2 at the breadboard. Since my last post I took relay and diode out of system and used VOM #2 to check voltage at wires with nothing else in the system and at least the 21.5 vdc between 26 and ground is the same as it was in the first place with the other meter so at least I don't think I "hurt" or changed anything in the testing.
So if relay is to be hooked between 26 and 24v, when I had it like that with the relay and diode in the system I only saw 1.2 volts or so rather drive alarmed or not, don't seem like that is gonna close a 24volt relay. :( I'm gonna take a look at the parameters too but like you I don't think the problem is very likely there, would be dumb to disable the alarm output IMHO.
Rick
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Looked at the manual and although I didnt read from end to end I dont see any mention of a parameter for setting the alarm output. It would be unusual for that to be the case as mentioned its a dedicated output and not configurable so no need to have parameters.
Maybe it is blown :(
Hood
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Thanks Hood,
I haven't had a chance to look myself yet but I'm betting your right about no parameter, Probably right about blown as well. Do you reckon I blew it by checking/hooking relay between 26 and ground? Seems like we agree that 26 should be the alarm out I wanted to use so I'll get another axis done and hook 26 to 24v first next time and see what it does. If I'm understanding you correctly now, 26 is just a ground anyway so hooking ground to ground should not have caused any harm, if it is blown hopefully I didn't do it. ::)
AS ALWAYS, THANK YOU for your time & patience, Rick
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According to the manual you put 24v in to the output and the output completes the circuit to ground when active.
Dont know enough about electronics to say whether you could damage by connecting to ground :(
Hood
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Hi Guys,
Rick, you might try your relay on the Servo Ready output on pin 27 as a test. :)
It will operate opposite of the Alarm, ie: ON when ready and OFF when not but it might verify that you are wired correctly and that the Alarm output opto has in fact popped.
The notes on page 22 are key also .... the load limit, snubber (which I see you have) and damage from reversed polarity.
Russ
:)
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Thanks for the reply Russ,
Still getting my head around this, I may have even had the snubber diode the wrong way round as well. I think I'm getting it but just seems wrong to put power into a pin labeled as an output. :-\ I,m not saying you guys are wrong, no way!, I'm saying it's wrong/misleading that Panasonic calls pin 26 "servo alarm output" but what it really does is provide a ground for completing the circuit. In this hillbillies mind you don't put power into an output, ::), I guess it's because I didn't know about or understand this "sinking" & "sourcing" stuff.
When I put the diode across the relay I had it reversed biased for power to come out of the output, apparently power flows the other way so diode was forward biased. I know it's wrong now, but still seems right to me that power should come OUT of a pin labeled output, not go IN. >:(
Rick
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Yes it does sound strange but that is the way it can be. The Allen Bradley drives I use have sinking Ins and Sourcing outs, the Samsungs have Sourcing Ins and sourcing outs, however the outs have both positive and negative sides to the connections coming out the drive so you can supply 24v to the positive terminal and connect to the negative terminal and thus basically you are getting a 24v out. The Telemcanique you can choose with a jumper whether you want sinking Ins/Sourcing outs or the other way round.
Confusing stuff indeed, electronics is a strange world ;D
Hood
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My Grandpa used to say, "you learn something new everyday". I like learning new stuff and consider it a good day when I do,but I just hate learning from a mistake though :-[. I guess it's OK as long as you LEARN and not repeat them! After Russ used the term "optocoupler" I read a little about them, seems a lot of them are built in a dual inline package (dip), I would like to replace the optocoupler because I really want this alarm monitoring capability in my system but considering what a servo drive and electronics expert I am I'm not sure if I should try it or not, chances and pretty good I could make things worse instead of better :o.
Rick
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Quite possible to do and I suppose also quite possible to make it worse, risk you take ;D
You will need to look inside and get the part number off the opto and get one the same, you will likely find its a surface mount device and it will likely be small so you need to have decent soldering skills. I have replaced line drivers and such on some drives and it was fairly straight forward but plenty of flux and also solder wick make things easier. After you have it done look very closely to make sure you have no solder bridges before you put power to it or you may release the magic smoke.
Hood
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I've got a Hillbilly view of this here stuff myself ... try to look at it this way.
You have to supply 24V I/O power for this unit to its + and - terminals.
The output opto's in the drive simply open or close the circuit from the output terminal to dc+.(-50ma load)
The drive is in essence just a relay to toggle the output pin ON and OFF.
Look at your external relay as a LED or light bulb instead, (drawing - 50 ma). The drive would just turn it on and off.
So, you are not really applying power IN to an OUTPUT, you are applying a LOAD to the output and the drive is completing the path to ground for you ... with it's opto (acting as a relay coil internally)
The fact that you are operating a relay coil instead doesn't really matter (as long as the load is low and the diode stops the surge.
The illustration on page 22 looks a bit deceiving at a glance as it shows what looks to represent SPST switches .... where in actuality, I think it is just illustrating that the outputs are normally ON or OFF as depicted.
That's my unofficial Northern Appalachian view,
Russ ;D
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was looking at the manual on a small laptop and the illustration shifted. >:(
Ignore the "illustration" statement above. ::)
sorry,
Russ ;D
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Hello Gentlemen,
The few things I read about optocouplers seemed they were in dip packages so I was hoping it might be in a socket where I could lift one out and press a fresh one in, shoulda known it wouldn't be that easy. ::) Even without a socket I could desolder and resolder a new one if through the board. I've never messed with anything surface mount and from what I've read they are VERY tough for a rube like me to deal with, especially the first time or 3. :o Heck,I wouldn't even know what I was looking for, kinda hoping for a dip, google the part#, then hope I was messing with the correct one. ::)
For now I think I'll try to get the other axis wired and see if I can get a relay to work properly in an alarm state and then maybe come back and try to repair this first one that doesn't seem to work anymore. Still trying to fool myself into thinking that my used drive must have been bad BEFORE I got it. ::) If I did make a mistake (kinda looks like it but I'm still in denial), I'd really not like to do it again. So I wanna understand how you knew this was a sinking output. On page 18 of manual I see a symbol that looks like a coil with a snubber diode connected to pin 26, did you know by the way the diode is biased? Or was it because the coil connection opposite the drive ties into Vdc. Maybe both are clues? I want to make sure I can read this right so I don't screw up again,(some more ;D).
Thanks for trying to get this through my thick head, Rick
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Well the big clue is it shows the positive 24v (or 12 or whatever you have for the i/o logic) going into the Output and it shows internally that it passes to 0v side. The diode also shows the correct way for that configuration.
Hood
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This is about the most basic explanation I've seen.
http://support.motioneng.com/hardware/io/slice-io/topic_sink_source.htm
Russ
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Thanks guys,
I think I got it now. I checked your link Russ, Basic is what I needed. You suggested checking pin 27 for servo ready, which if I got it now means I want to hook up my relay 24v to pin 27, and relay should energize when servo isn't alarmed and denergize when drive has a alarm.
And if I REALLY am getting it couldn't I use this output for the "trigger" for my proposed "safety circuit"? I did plan to have the relay only operate when drive was alarmed, but would it hurt to always have the relay on until a alarm and then turn off? I could run the Mach 3 e-stop circuit through a set of n.o. contacts on the relay and accomplish the same goal I had in the first place without having to repair the alarm out? Sounds good as long as there isn't a problem to have a relay on pretty much all the time the drive is powered.
So what do you men think?
Rick
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That might just work ... you'd have to verify that it does in fact toggle when alarmed.
Might be a valid work around.
Hopefully, the other drive will work normally so you can verify for sure.
I'd also wait for Hood's confirmation on the proposal.
Quite intuitive thinking though.
Curious,
Russ
edited for spelling
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Well, my cnc project has been on the backburner for a few days. We are having a very wet cold spring in my part of the world, came home from work a week ago to find a large tree on my property that is very close to the street leaning at about a 20 to 30 degree angle over the road! :o Ground to wet to hold it up. I called a couple tree guys with bucket trucks about having it taken down, they were busy, can't get here for a few days. When I get up next morning it's raining hard and the tree is down completely blocking the street. :'( Had to take the day off work to play chainsaw in the rain all day clearing the road. Then spending all my free time cleaning up and removing the mess, cleaning the property in general in prep for first mowing of the year which by now was overdue thanks to a wet, cold spring. I got most of the tree removed now and the first mowing is done, still lots of rain and cold, many area roads closed due to flooding. I'm less than 1/2 mile from the Mississippi river but thankfully on high ground, many friends and neighbors not so lucky, lots of sandbagging and levee watching going on here now. :(
I have managed to get the safety relay board built and bench tested, seems to work as I planned on the bench so now I'm working on getting it installed in the system. I added a couple LED's and a switch to the relay board, green led when no alarms, red led when any of the alarm receiving relay's are energized. When an alarm relay is energized it opens the Mach 3 E-stop circuit and activates the "inhibit" to all drives to bring things to a stop. I added a switch that when on lets the board monitor the system and stop all motion in the event of an alarm, but switching off completes the Mach e-stop circuit and re-enables the drives so all axis's but the one with an alarm can be moved in manual for diagnostic and repair purposes.
That's how I think things should work and so far it looks like the board I built should give me the features and functions I wanted. I might not have needed the red led because if the green is off and a drive has an alarm the problem is obvious, but if things stop moving and I don't have a drive alarm the red led should tell me if the board I built is the problem. ::)
Wish me luck, I'll post a pic if and when I get it installed and working,
Rick
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Sounds like you are having fun, not only with the chainsaws but also electronics ;D
Weather has been the same here, hopefully things will improve.
Hood
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Project update;
Well, I put some more time into this project today, wish I could say this was a progress report but my latest results don't feel like progress. :-\ I made up the 2nd servo drive I/O cable (Y axis), installed it and my "servo drive watchdog" alarm monitor board. When I fired things up for a test the first thing I find is the alarm out from pin 26 works opposite from expected, the circuit is completed when drive is NOT alarmed and open when alarmed. This is how I (we) thought the servo on from pin 27 would work, I still haven't done any testing of pin 27 to know for sure how it works but I did carefully continuity test the cable before install so I'm positive I'm taking the output from pin 26 and NOT 27. With the output from pin 26 working opposite of expected this means my "servo drive watchdog" has the Mach3 e-stop circuit open and the inhibits activated to the drives when there are no servo alarms. This condition did allow me to test the over ride switch on the watchdog board, when I flipped the switch off I could reset Mach3 and jog the X & Y axis (the two that I have I/O cables installed on so far). When I disconnect the encoder cable on Y servo motor the Y drive alarms "22" and the watchdog goes to what should be it's normal run state. So I had to remove the pin 26 wire from the watchdog to get the green LED and be able to jog both X & Y.
So now I have a X drive where output from pin 26 does nothing and on the Y drive it works backward of what was expected, ain't that a kick in the butt! At this point I'm going to make the Z I/O cable to see what results I get from it before a rework of the watchdog board.
I only had 3 drives but hope to have a 4th axis someday, and a spare drive for parts/repair would be nice to have. So with that in mind I picked up a couple more drives on ebay this week for what I think is a good price. When they get here I'll have 5 Panasonic drives of the same model, I've put so much time into trying to figure out how the first 3 work I figured I'd stick with the same drives. ::)
I know this post is long winded as usual but I have another confusion to ask about. Now that I have 2 axises that I can jog I notice something else I don't understand. When I only had the X to jog I noticed it wasn't turning very fast but figured it had to do with motor tuning. Now that I can jog the Y axis I see it turns faster than X. The parameters in both drives are the same, everything in the Mach motor tuning is the same for both axises, and I have run the drive self tuning routine for both axises. I don't understand why the motor jog speed isn't the same when EVERYTHING about both axises is the same? Also when I was in Mach3 >config >motor tuning, I found the up/down arrow keys would jog both X or Y depending on which tuning page I had up, is that normal?
Sorry about the long post but I'm confused again (some more ?)
Rick
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Ok on the relay board you made, should just be a simple case of changing from NC contact to NO contact.
Check that you do not have any electronic gearing set in the drives, its sometimes called that and sometimes something else, maybe gear ratio. Basically wha it is, you can set up say 2:1 or 10:1 or whatever and when the drive sees one pulse from the computer it multiplies it by the amount set in the gearing, so in the case of 10:1 you would get the equivalent of 10 pulses worth of motion.
That is normal for motor tuning, you use the Up/Down arrows irrespective of which axis you are testing.
For a servo you should know two things in Motor Tuning, you should know the steps per unit as that is derived from the encoder count x 4 (divided by any electronic gearing) and multiplied by your screws TPI (if using Imperial which I presume you are) . Say for example your encoders are 2500 count and you dont have any electronic gearing and your screws are 5 turns per inch, that would mean 2500 x 4 = 10,000 multiplied by 5 = 50,000 steps per inch. This may be problematic if you are using the parallel port as it can only puslse so fast, so say at 25KHz kernel the max velocity you could get would be 25,000/50,000 x 60 = 30 IPM, at 45KHz kernel it would be 54 IPM
This is where you can use electronic gearing in the drives, that would mean if you had 10:1 set in the drives the steps per unit would be 10 times smaller and thus your velocity could be 10 times greater for a given kernel in Mach. Personally not a huge fan of electronic gearing but if using the parallel port then likely you wont have much coice.
Ok so the other thing you know about a servo system is the max velocity you can achieve, this is because you know the max continuos rating of the motors, so just divide that rpm by the turns per inch of your screws and you have the velocity. That of course is assuming the kernel will allow you to set that.
Hood
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Thank You Hood for continuing to reply to my questions and problems, I REALLY DO APPRECIATE IT!
I will definitely be referring back to your last post when I get a machine finished to hook these motors to in reference to the math and methods of calibration and motor tuning. But for now what had me baffled was I knew all parameters are the same on all drives and when I looked on the Mach motor tuning pages everything was identical as well from axis to axis but the motors were jogging at different speeds. ??? Just for the heck of it I changed the "steps per" field on the Mach3 motor tuning pages, they were all at 2000 when motors were jogging at different RPM's, I changed them to 3000 and now the motors are jogging at exactly the same RPM. ;D I still don't know why they were acting different at 2000 but changing and saving at 3000 seems to have them responding the same and also quite a bit faster RPM. :D
And of course you are correct about changing the contact configuration of the "Watchdog" relays to get the board to work as I want, (believe it or not I knew that), but it just gripes me to have to keep doing things 2 or 3 times to get them right :-[
Well I'm off to work on the Z axis I/O cable, when finished I hope to see all 3 axises jog for the first time. Wish me luck, I don't seem to be having much GOOD luck the first time around on this project thus far! ::)
Thanks, Rick
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If things were done right the first time you wouldnt have nearly as much wiring and soldering experience ;)
Hood
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;D ;D
Rick
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Well, for the first time I have 3 axises that jog normally, ;D so I loaded a couple of the sample programs that come with Mach3 and watched the servo motors dance in harmony for the first time, (roadrunner,etc).Ho-ray!, I been waiting a long time to see that. now for the rework of the Watchdog alarm board. BTW, When I made up the last servo drive I/O cable I checked the operation of both pin 26 (alarm out) & pin 27 (servo on), they both behave the same, ground present and circuit complete with no drive alarms and circuit open when alarmed. After giving this some thought I believe that's how it should be for a "fail safe" system. If the drive output or a relay goes bad you would want to know immediately, not discover it AFTER the system was needed and didn't work. :o
When I get the Watchdog done I'll post a pic or 2, Then there is one more thing I would like to have on my machine. I gonna try to get it on my own, then when that fails I'll let ya in on it so you can bail me out again. ;D
Rick
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Look forward to hearing your success on the new plan, I am sure that is what you will be doing rather than asking how to ;)
Hood
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Look forward to hearing your success on the new plan, I am sure that is what you will be doing rather than asking how to
Damn Hood, wish I had as much confidence in me as you seem to. ::) I bet your just hoping I get it so you don't have to do it for me!
I didn't look at the date when I started this thread before this post but it's probally been a couple months. Thanks to a LOT of help and generosity from the members of this GREAT forum I finally have a system that works like I hoped it would when I started dreaming about this diy cnc project almost 3 years ago now. :D ;D ;D
I may have never got it without Hood, Chaoticone and Overloaded. Hope you guys don't mind if I call you my friends. Especially Hood because nobody but a GOOD friend would have stuck with me and helped as much as you have,Thank You very much !!
I got my "watchdog" board installed, working and tested, it does just what I wanted. When I have a drive alarm it puts Mach3 into e-stop and activates the inhibits to all drives, the double safety I was after. ;) The easiest alarm for me to cause is "22 encoder error" just by unplugging an encoder cable. When I do that I get the e-stop and even if I jumper the e-stop circuit so Mach can be reset I still have no motion because of the drive inhibits being activated, perfect. But with the encoder cable unplugged I can flip the toggle switch on the watchdog off, reset Mach3, and jog the axises that are not alarmed, Great! The led's even work like they should, no alarms = green, cause an alarm = red, again, perfect.
Man, am I ever pleased to see things working correctly after all the troubles I've had. I'm getting ready for work now, will post the pics as soon as I have time.
Once again gentlemen, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR HELP AND PATIENCE with me.
Rick ;D
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BRAVO ! ! !
Endeavor to persevere.
Be sure to post some pics of some machined parts too !
Congrats ....
Russ
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Excellent news :)
Hood
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:)
Brett
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Ok folks, I'm gonna try to show my Watchdog board here shortly. Thought I should give you electronics and pcb building experts a heads up first.
WARNING - SOME VIEWERS MAY FIND THE FOLLOWING IMAGES DISTURBING or FUNNY AS ALL HELL. ;D
Please keep in mind I'm NOT an electronics or pcb expert, this is the first thing I've ever put together that used any kind of circuit board, I'm sure you'll see that right off. :o Make sure you don't have anything in your mouth when you view my next post because if you do it may end up coming out your nose and covering your puter screen.
You've been warned, Rick
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Hood recommended I not use the proto board I got because it has one side called a plain and is pretty much all tinned copper. I highly respect his advise but I figured I'd give it a try anyhow since I had it. I inserted the componets from the plain side so I ended up with a board that kinda looks like chrome, shoot, that's gotta be worth at least 10 extra horsepower! ::) Here's a pic taken with flash to highlight the shine. 8)
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/DSCI0523.jpg)
Another a little less flashy
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/DSCI0524.jpg)
And now the shot to, A - make you cringe and laugh, B - illustrate it don't have to look good to work ;)
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/DSCI0525.jpg)
Rick
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BTW, those are my "test pins" in the terminal header. Now a couple to show the watchdog on guard in the system. First one is no drive alarms and ready to run. The next one is with a alarm on the Y axis drive, the drive doesn't look alarmed because the display is solid with no alarm and flashes on and off when alarmed, just happened to take pic when it was on so it looks the same as the other two drives.
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/DSCI0527.jpg)
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa27/rwf71/DSCI0530.jpg)
Ok I'm braced and ready for comments, good or bad.
Rick
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Nothing wrong with that, in fact its bloody nice :)
Using that board meant you had to use wire links but you made a decent job of doing that as well so I think you should be happy with what you have, it works, looks good, what more can you ask of a circuit :)
Hood
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Thanks for being kind to me Hood, it's my first time ya know. ;) Rick
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You did real good Rick...... Hoods not being nice, he's being honest. As much as I like to talk junk, can't find a reason to on those pics........ :)
Brett
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Thank You Brett, for EVERYTHING ;). Rick
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OK guys,
I'm working on that last thing I wanted (for now anyhow). I have a used mpg I got from an old Okuma turning center. It has 4 screw terminals on the back, 2 are labeled source, (12v 0v), the other 2 are "A" & "B". My first question is, 12v is DC voltage, correct? Doesn't say AC or DC just 12v.
I'm pretty sure I can handle the set up in Mach3, CONFIG>PORTS AND PINS>ENCODER/MPG'S>MPG#1
(enabled) port1,pin10,port1,pin11,counts/unit4,velocity100.00
I have 12v DC available on the same power supply I'm getting the 24vdc from for the servo drive control circuit so that's no problem as long as the 12v on the mpg is DC. And I know the "A" & "B" go to input 10 & 11 on the BOB, but there are 2 screw terminals at the BOB for each of input 10 &11, How do I know which screw to put "A" & "B" on?
The encoder is a KURODA PC-100A-WSTF , I tried google for a data sheet and got nothing. Anyone have suggestions for me?
Rick
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I have never seen a 12 volt ac mpg but there is a lot I have not seen. I would bet its dc but not 100% sure. Now, can you send 12 volts to your breakout board without letting the smoke out?
Brett
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That I don't know either Brett. That's why I thought I better ask before I screw up what I just got working. :-\ I've also tried google for info on the BOB and can't find anything. I've looked at dozens of BOB's and the only place I've seen one like it is the guy I got it from and he's proven to be NO help, take the money and run type. >:(
Rick
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Brett is correct, I was being honest, the back is the only bit that is slightly unkempt but that is purely because of the type of board you used and there was not much you could have done about that, in fact you did quite a neat job of it :)
It will almost certainly be DC but best way to be sure is if you can open the case up and look at the chip number and you should be able to find a data sheet for it.
The outputs may or may not be 12v you will have to measure , if they are then it is unlikely you can input them directly into the BOB as it will probably be looking for 5v.
Hood
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Ok guys,
I opened up the mpg, only ic I can spot is a NEC C393C. It seems to be classed as a bipolar analog integrated circuit, low power dual comparator. Bout all I know about it is I can repeat what I read on the data sheet, ::) The sheet does say it can operate on a wide input voltage, 2 - 32 volts, also says it can operate on a split power supply +/-1 to +/-16 volts whatever that is?
Hood said to check the output to see if it was 12v or not, I'm not sure how to do that. Do I put 12v in then check between A & B while turning the mpg or do I check between 0v and A, and then between 0v and B ?
Then I was also wondering that seeing how the C393C sheet says it will work on any voltage from 2 to 32 I wonder what else is in the mpg that made them label it as 12v. What I'm trying to say is if 12v in does = 12v out what would happen if I were to put 5v in ?, 5v out maybe ? Kinda seems like the mpg should have been labeled as 2 - 32 volts in if it can work in that range.
I do know Okuma is big on proprietary stuff in their machines, even though they use parts from outside vendors they have them built special or relabeled just for Okuma so maybe that's why the mpg says 12v, because that's the voltage Okuma uses it at?
I don't have much in this mpg so I'm willing to experiment just for the education if nothing else. So how do I check the voltage it's putting out?
Rick
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You would be wanting to measure between A or B and 0v, you would have to catch the pulse when high so not turning. If you had a scope then you could turn and measure the voltage but a voltmeter, especially a digital one, would be too slow. You should be able to move it to a position so that the pulse is high.
I would think the resistor for the LED would be for 12v, whether anything else is I am not sure. Dont think it would harm trying with 5v, however without a scope I dont think you will really see if it would be good enough to use.
Hood
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Well I don't know if I made a meaningful test or not. For starters I used an old computer power supply for testing, the 12v actually checked 10.5 v when connected to the mpg. Check from 0v to A = 0.75v, check from 0v to B =2.95v. Didn't matter if mpg was sitting still, turned, or how slowly I turned the mpg to try and catch the "high spot" the readings never changed. I even tried a small analog vom to see if it would fluctuate and the results were same as digital vom ? So do these results shed any light on function of the mpg?
Rick
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Doesnt sound like its working, the voltages should change I would have thought.
Hood
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Maybe it needs something else that was in the Okuma to make it work? Here's what I know about this mpg, it was working in the machine I removed it from but had a small problem. There were two of the detent positions (not in a row) that were dead, machine didn't respond to those "clicks". Set-up people were complaining so I replaced the mpg. The Okuma replacement fixed the "dead spot" problem in the turning center and the old one was destined for the trash so I brought it home for my diy machine,(figured I could live with the two dead spots because the price was right. ;)
Oh well if I can't use it no biggie but I really like the heavy solid feel of it. What's the scoop on these mach3 pendants with mpg I see all over ebay, any good? Btw I see many are usb, would that work with my set-up without using up input pins on the breakout to PP? And lastly, if I had a usb pendant can you unplug it and still use a usb stick to get programs in the computer then go back to the pendant?
Rick
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If the machine is at your work possibly you can get the electrical drawings, they may shed some light on what its looking for. However with it missing a couple of pulses it sounds like it was on its way out anyway so maybe not worth it.
Personally I am not a fan of hand held pendants, just seem to be always in the way for me, no place to put them down or whatever ;D
I much prefer to have the MPG on my control panel, there are quite a few people that sell the stand alone MPGs, I prefer the 80mm dia ones but you can also get 60mm dia.
Regarding USB hand held pendants, not sure how good they would work for the MPG part, all depends on how well the plugin has been written.
Hood
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Ok, Thanks for your feedback Hood. I don't really want a pendant per say, but I want the mpg. Maybe someday I might try a "touch plate" for Z height setting but I'm more used to the wiggle a piece of paper over part till trapped by the tool then add .003 and call that Z zero, mpg would be nice for that.
Rick
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As I said quite a few places to get a standalone MPG. Seems less of the usual places in the USA stock them but I did see Keling did some, I think they are just the 60mm dia ones by the look of them, it doesnt say though.
Peter Homann in Ozz http://www.homanndesigns.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=15&products_id=29 sells them and I have had one from Peter and it was nice, his are differential where others are just single ended, you can still connect single ended if you wish but with your newly found circuit making skills you could easily make a receiver ;)
Hood
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Ya Hood, your kinda talking about just what I was going to ask about. I've done a little looking at 5v input mpg's the last couple days. Some are 4 terminal Like the Okuma I have, (v+ , 0v , A , B), and others are 6 terminal with a B- , A- added to the other 4. I never have gotten an answer about why my BOB has 2 screw terminals for each input pin so I'm guessing here but if the mpg has differential output (6 terminals) then A+ and A- are going to go on 1 input pin and B+ and B- are on the 2 screws of the other pin?
If I'm correct about the differential output then single ended would be connected with A to 1 screw on input pin terminals and 0V on the other screw of the same input pin?
Rick
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I am afraid I cant really remember the specifics of your breakout board, it may have differential inputs but I think it more likely that it is just a common connection at each input.
To connect a differential MPG to a single ended connection you would just use the A+ and B+ and the 5v and 0v, you would leave the A- and B- unconnected.
Hood
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Ok, Thanks Hood. I think I got a deal working on the mpg that might take awhile to happen so that's on stand-by for a while. In the meantime I have another thing to figure out. But I'm wondering what's the right thing to do. I started this thread, "Panasonic servo drive help" because I wasn't getting communication between the drives and Mach 3. Thanks to help I found here that problem is solved ;D ;D, (Thanks to all). The next thing on my to do list is fitting a rotozip with a Super PID and controling it with Mach 3 as the spindle for my diy cnc.
Should I keep posting in this thread as I tackle that phase of the build, or would it be best to start a new thread?
Rick
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Definitely a new thread (since it's a different kettle of fish) would be my vote. ;D
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I'd start a new thread Rick.
Brett
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That's what I figured guys, Thanks for the help at getting the panasonic drives sorted. Now on to the next hurdle, hope to see ya there!
Rick
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I am building the mill and and bought a Panasonic servos (Minas-S series). Now I can turn the motor out Mach3.
Now I have made these settings:
Parameter #42 -3
Parameter #44 - 2500
Other settings are default .
Kernel speed - 35000Hz
Steps per: 2500 count*1.5 reducer/5mm ball screw=750
(http://i1377.photobucket.com/albums/ah66/Andrey__Ignatenko/MachineDrivetrainComponents_zps908846ea.jpg)
Velocity : 1000 mm per min (In this case, I do not have errors, but if I increase the speed to 2000 mm per min error appears).
For these settings, engine speed is 3000 rpm (measured by a tachometer).
But I'm not sure that these settings are correct. For higher speeds doI need a controller similar SmoothStepper?
What settings should I get?
Thanks!
Andrey
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With the increase in RPM the pulse rate required will increase. There are two ways you can get round that, first is you can set a gearing in the servo drive so that for example 1 pulse from Mach will be seen as 4 pulses by the drive. I personally am not a fan of that method as it can lead to slight cogging effect at very slow speeds.
The other way is to use an external controller that can handle high pulse rates. As you mention the Smoothstepper is one.
Hood
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Now I use the servo without a mill. And the velocity 1000 mm/min is the calculated value. Physically I was able to measure the turnovers of the motor only. But I see the discrepancy.
Calculate:
Velocity max - 1000 mm/min is set on Mach3.
1000/5 mm = 200 prm of ball screw
And then 200*1.5=300! prm of servo motor
But in fact it is 3000 prm !
In what settings I made a mistake?
As you mention the Smoothstepper is one.
Which controllers can be used in addition?
Andrey
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Your steps per unit, assuming you have no electronic gearing set in drive, are
2,500 encoder count x 4 for quadrature = 10,000
10,000 x 1.5 gearing = 15,000 pulses per screw rev
15,000 / 5 pitch = 3,000 steps per mm.
Controllers that can pulse approx 4MHz
CSMIO/IP-S (4mhZ)
Hicon (not sure but prob 4MHz)
Kflop (not sure but prob 4MHz)
There are probably many more but a few controllers that can pulse approx same as the PP are (cleaner pulse than PP though)
CSMIO/IP-M at 125KHz pulse
UC300 at 100KHzd.
Hood
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Hood,
Thank you!
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Your steps per unit, assuming you have no electronic gearing set in drive, are
2,500 encoder count x 4 for quadrature = 10,000
10,000 x 1.5 gearing = 15,000 pulses per screw rev
15,000 / 5 pitch = 3,000 steps per mm.
I bought a Ethernet SmoothStepper and returned to the settings of the servo. And I have a problem again.
If I set 3,000 steps per mm, the servomotor rotates more than 3000 rev per min (this is above the maximum) and the servo driver indicates an error, the motor stops.
What's wrong again?
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I think the problem with electronic gear. But what parameters should I adjust?
What parameter №44 2500 or 10000 ?
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Command a speed and see what it actually is, for example command S1000 and see if the motor does 2000 or 1500 or whatever.
If you have software for the drive you should be able to hook up a computer so that you can see what the motor is doing.
Hood
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I solved the problem. Was set up electronic gear.
The parameters were:
P46=10000
P4B=250
In this case the reduction is 40!
Another question. How can I connect 4 servo apmlifiers so if one EMERGENCY stop others stopped too?
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It will all depend on the options you have with your drives. For example if there are both fault outputs and fault inputs then you can have them all wired so that if one drive faults it sends a signal to all of the drives fault input.
Hood
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It will all depend on the options you have with your drives.
How it should look like in the diagram?
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Not sure if Servo On is just an Enable, but you may be able to use that in conjunction with the Alarm signal. You may also be able to use the Inhibits but that will depend on how they work.
Afraid I have never had Panasonic drives so cant say exactly how they work with regards these signals.
Hood