Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Gear Reduction question.

« on: October 06, 2017, 09:48:52 AM »

The stepper has max 1600 oz-in torque.
More volts will make it accelerate faster .. but will never pass the stall torque.

1:6 gear reduction = 1/6" lift on a screw, be it acme or ballscrew.
Acme/etc == 30% efficient.
So you get about 500 oz-in / 1/6", around 25.4/6 = 4.23 mm screw rise.

This is what I had:
At 3 Nm on 1:3 on a 5 mm ballscrew 90% efficient thrust is == 600 kgf, or 6000 N.
About 1500 lbs of force.

Thrust force is about (efficiency, 30% on acme or gears-your case) x rise x torque, all numbers normalised to same units.
I use Nm / rise in mm, etc. in metric.

On 500 oz-in == 4 Nm effective, and 4.2 vs 5 mm effective, about 1.3 x 1.2 == 936 kgf force, 2000+ lbs lift force.

2

Tangent Corner / Re: Fear.

« on: October 06, 2017, 09:25:13 AM »

I happen to live in Barcelona, Spain.

On last sunday, this is what happened;
 -the local policitical d-heads had an illegal sedition vote attended by 2.2 M people..
--29% of the popula voted. Yes.
A lot of the votes were falsified, and there was no real option of voting "no".
In my city, 1500 people live in our district.
15.000 votes were cast.
-- The madrid political d-heads sent stromtroopers to break heads, arms, fingers.
About 4000 - 10.000 brutal political attack troops from madrid, guardia civial specialists, stormed about 90-300 voting stations .. filmed by dozens of independent TV stations and million plus private citizens.
900 people were hurt and hospitalised, and 10.000+ beaten up with batons etc.

In about 2000+ voting stations, totally non-violent, no banks / businesses were vandalised and no cars burned etc. on a 2.2 M person turnout.
But the thugs on orders from Madrid fired rubber bullets into crowds who were *not* vandalising anythings - and only wanted to shout and vote.

*Both* political sides screwed the pooch 100%.
So .. polarisation is bad for all.

2 days later .. tuesday, whole country was on general strike and roads impassable, business closed, ports closed.
Today, biggest bank in the EU sabadell will be leaving barcelona.
So will la caixa, 200.000+ jobs, biggest in spain.

Everyone screwed up - by playing up to the populists.
D-heads.

BTW..
The firemen and local paramilitary police Mossos (normally tough-guys and not liked, but feared) did a fantastic job.
The firemen acted as shields, the Mossos refused to charge peaceful crowds, and the mossos probably saved 200+ lives and 5000+ broken bodies.
They were the only ones protecting lives, serving, and acting rationally and humanely.

The Mossos are under indictment and their boss is now today on trial in Madrid, for not charging peaceful crowds with violent means.

3

Tangent Corner / Re: Fear.

« on: October 06, 2017, 09:11:20 AM »

Cool post.
Would probably work like that .. in real life .. for a while.

In some places, local "rednecks" might cause issues - is 69$ /mo worth that ?
Likewise, many jobs in areas defined "sensitive" by someone You don´t know and will never meet and who has zero accountability to You..
--like anything airports form baggage handlers to cabs to security screeners to airtraffic controllers and pilots..
--anything finance..
--anything nuclear, medical, radiological
--anything heavy infrastructure, heavy transport, major industry,
--ports, trucking, chemicals, power systems, water systems, shipping, sw ..
might be closed to You.

Is 69$ /mo worth that ?

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Servos vs Hybrid Steppers with CS labs controller

« on: October 06, 2017, 09:01:58 AM »

This is my experience;
after 12+ years, a lot/most full time, I got a CSMIO-IP-S about 1.5 years ago.
I also went to step/dir AC servos about 2015.

Both real industrial 220V and 60V cheap 400W ones, I import in packs of 10.

There is just no comparison.
The servos accelerate to 3000 rpm in 10-20 ms, no-load, yes 0.02 secs or less.

On a full, heavy machine, like a mill/VMC the steppers did very well ... and about 800 rpm in 0.7 secs or so.
With a 200 kg table, 200 kg load.
The smallest servos will do 0.05-0.1 secs to 3000 rpm. (I dont want that. Neither will You.).

On a very heavy Very Good, *industrial* lathe, the 220V ac servos I used and import;
will do full-peak acceleration (probably) in the same 10 ms with a 200 kg carriage, and 2 toolchangers massing 100 kg.
I will never try it, because it is a huge impact load and totally unnecessary.
5 less than-possible is still 5x better than the ("best") steppers- for the same money.

A lathe needs max acceleration at threading pullout and blind-bores pullout, where repeatability is critical and rpm is high-as higher rpm = much better finish/accuracy due to better sfm rates.
Steppers have low dynamic range.
So they are strong, or fast in rpm, but not both, and only semi-accurate relative to any modern servos.

But steppers are really cheap and really good .. where one does not need excellent dynamic range, or very fast speeds AND low speeds OR high accuracy all at once.

5

CS-Lab / Re: Limit Values for Tapping with CSMIO IP-S

« on: June 15, 2017, 10:44:04 AM »

Fwiw..
My Lathe:
CSMIO-IP-S, step/dir brushless servos on spindle (C) x, z. ENC, MPG, extra io, ..

Afaik, there are no intrisic limits.
The HW / plugins track at 4 Mhz.

I use 10.000 count servos - these are ok for industrial stuff today (HAAS is 10.000 counts from 2012 or so, 2000 count before that), but not exceptional for industry today, 3000 rpm max = 500 kHz.

My opinion, with no more than lots of experience with cslabs (cnc, interfaces etc) , is that the CSMIO will thread at 4 Mhz just as well as at any other speed.
It is just my opinion, take from it what you will.

I have never seen any sw/hw limits re_speed from Cslabs products.
IE, it it works at all, at 300 rpm, it most likely will also work at 4 Mhz just as well.
Imho.
The plugin does the work, the hw does the lifting.

Check the resolution of the encoder.
A 10.000 count encoder, at 3000 rpm / min = 50 revs / sec.
50 rev x 10.000 = 500 kHz.

So, 12.000 rpm = 2 Mhz, 50% of the hw clock rate/capacity of the CSMIO-IP-S.
If using a 10.000 count encoder.

I have any nr of stuff to do/make/build at this time, and while threading is the prime thing for me, for now, I am engaged in other critical work, like upgrading the x axis to a much better ballscrew.

I can confirm that the spindle tracks perfectly at all speeds based on encoder readouts from the cslabs plugin, and led readouts from the servo drives, and never has visible errors like crashes, jams, failures, disconnections, etc.
Obviously, the servo has lag, but the lag never varies, since the servos are absurdly overpowered for threading purposes.
I see about 1-2 encoder count error variations, so if the lag is say 500 counts, it may oscillate 498-499-500.

This is less than 1 micron real world error for me, between 498-500, at 0.2 microns step size.
This from the led at the servo drive, so absolutely "true".

I have left the machine powered on for days, multiple times, with no issues.
There can be windows/machx issues due to power-saving stuff, though, if left unattended.

I never get crashes (very rare mach3 freezes may happen due to windows issues, on dormant machines), and never get unexpected movement.

Your encoder is probably not very high resolution.
It looks like a 1980s machine, so the encoder is likely 500-2000 counts.
Thus, you would be good to go.

You can check with cslabs.
They are very good, respond well, know what they are doing.

6

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: A axis acting as a spindle then toggle back to a rotary.

« on: November 16, 2016, 12:09:27 PM »

It used to be - M3 - that this requires support from the motion control driver.
I would expect that this thus depends on what motion control device you have.

And does anyone know if swapaxis() works on M4 in general ?

7

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 4K Monitor Support

« on: November 06, 2016, 07:43:02 AM »

I have 2 monitors, 32", and 2560x1200 resolution on both, via displayport.
Win 7 64 bit.
No issues.
Nvidia Quadro 2000, industrial graphics workstation, my main machine.

You can probably fix it via windows or graphics drivers font settings.
Yes its a hack, but..

8

General Mach Discussion / Re: Recommendations on BEST Breakout Board by General Mach3 Users !

« on: September 10, 2015, 08:49:20 AM »

I have, and dont use anymore, a USB SS (noise, drivers, bugs ), and a Centipede (no mach4 support), and a PP.

I have, use, and recommend a Pokeys+CNCAddon, and a CSMIO-IPS or CSMIO-anything.

Cheap - very good:
Pokeys+CNC is very good, great drivers/plugins, cheap, 125 kHz, lots of IO.
The best:
CSMIO is 100+ IO (needed for industrial stuff, 4 Mhz, differential, real threading, step/dir spindles, servos well supoprted).
+ Support threading and SERVO SPINDLES !
-Drawback. A full lathe system is 1500€+.
Otoh .. So is anything else as this level.
500+ bootlace ferrules, wiring, din rails, 2 x DC24V PSU, connectors, wires, 100 hours to connect everything.

All motion-control boards do stuff differently.

Most plugins dont work well, and wont support some stuff.
Most USB stuff works so-so, with all sorts of drawbacks and or problems.

Ethernet is a better connection medium (ethernet is galvanically isolated by default)
Ethernet has much less latency, and much less issues

Typical problems:

Noise
Speed (500 kHz is what you really, really want, or more)
How many axes are supported
How does slaving work. Racking ? Is slaving reliable *always* ?
Homing
Probing
Threading *properly*
CSS on lathe
Multiple spindle support, C-axis support (lathe), swapaxis() support
Rear toolpost on lathe

9

PoKeys / Re: CNCAddon - limits wiring ?

« on: March 30, 2015, 09:13:17 AM »

Thanks, NeoTo, but I read the manual.

On the CNCAddon:
I have tried to connect a direct wire from the last GND on the wide green block, to X+ limit.
The switch does not work !

/Plugin Control/Config 56E/Pulse engine settings/ limit switch does not change color from red/green as it should.
I am using the pulse engine "dedicated 4-channel with dedicated IO" setting.

If using a switch from the Pokeys board, say IO pin 3, to GND on the Pokeys, the limit switch works correctly.

Servos jog properly ..
but I must have reliable limits, and the dedicated switches would be much better for homing and limits.

Any idea what I could do ?
I have tried both GND signals, on the OC output block, on the CNCAddon.
It seems like the IO signals simply dont work.

I also tried the pin2, GND, from motor connector 5, to dedicated limitx+.
It does not change the pin state on the plugin screen.

Like I said, the  pin3 on pokey57E to GND on pokeys57E, works correctly.
Now connected to limitx-, and works correctly.

So, its only the dedicated IO I am having trouble with.

10

PoKeys / CNCAddon - limits wiring ?

« on: March 28, 2015, 11:13:39 AM »

How do I wire the limits / home with cncaddon ?

Connecting a GND from the cncaddon, to a limit, does not seem to work.
The GND I used was next to the Vout adjustment, bottom right corner.

Weather I wire this gnd on the cncaddon to a switch (to test), say axis0 = x+, does not seem to work.

What GND should I use ?

I always get a limit switch error all the time.