Messages

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Rewiring limit switches w/ shielded wire

« on: January 27, 2010, 07:37:05 PM »

yup drain wire that's it- thanks again

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Rewiring limit switches w/ shielded wire

« on: January 27, 2010, 06:06:58 PM »

The wire I'm using has 2 insulated conductors and 1 uninsulated twisted wire conductor(I'm calling this the ground wire), with everything surrounded by foil running the length of the wire. Thanks Hood

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Rewiring limit switches w/ shielded wire

« on: January 27, 2010, 05:44:08 PM »

Apologies- the screen? Are you referring to the ground wire? So I'm not supposed to attach the ground wire to the switch at all?
Also - the flaky switch. Can I omit it from the circuit until a new one can be sourced? It's so flaky that vibration from the machine
causes it to be intermittent thereby resulting in random stoppage. Thanks Hood

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General Mach Discussion / Rewiring limit switches w/ shielded wire

« on: January 27, 2010, 05:12:08 PM »

All-
I'm trying to solve some erratic behavior with my router table by replacing the limit switch wiring. Limits are currently wired with 18 ga speaker wire. Good news is I'm coachable but bad news is I'm not an electronics wiring genius. I've attached two images that might help. Feel free to mark them up as needed and repost.
I have 22 ga two conductor shielded wire, and I can trace the existing wiring to connect them to the BOB correctly. What I don't know is where to connect the ground wire at both the switch end and the enclosure/BOB end. Do I attach the limit grounds to the BOB, or a common ground inside the enclosure? I can see what looks like a common grounding point inside the enclosure(marked on photo), but it's too far away from the actual BOB to use it as a grounding point for the switch grounds. Seems like a simple enough thing to do I just have no idea how to do it. Thanks to all who might be able to help.
I've also determined one of the switches on the y axis to be flaky; since our work never comes close to the limits on the y is there a way I can eliminate this switch from the wiring circuit until we can get a replacement?

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Router heads

« on: December 16, 2009, 06:10:35 PM »

Today I fitted an old cheap 2hp Craftsman single speed(20Krpm) and it cut very cleanly, but seemed to bog a little. As long as it's cutting this well I'll leave it and see how long it takes to burn out. I'm going to try and get the DeWalt apart and see what's going on.

By the way I looked at those water-cooled spindles on eBay- those are Chinese. Some Chinese router stuff is kinda crappy. I'd probably be willing to try something like that but it looks like it could be wired directly into the breakout board and controlled through Mach, yes? If so that would be really cool. And what is the ER20 collet size referring to? I would definitely need a collet that held standard sized bits.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Router heads

« on: December 16, 2009, 01:32:15 PM »

I'd spend $30 more and and get a bigger one.
http://cgi.ebay.com/WATER-COOLE-MOTOR-SPINDLE-2-2KW-AND-MATCHING-INVERTER_W0QQitemZ370297211895QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item56376f0bf7

AS for the Dewalt, have you checked the brushes? Or is it the bearings? Replacing the bearings is fairly cheap.

Are you cutting at 70 ipm? If so, that's way too slow for 24,000 rpm. According to Onsrud, you should be cutting at over 150 ipm at 24K rpm.
https://www.onsrud.com/xdoc/FeedSpeeds

Yeah well I'm using leadscrews for all axes and I'm using 3/4" dia screws for the long axis when they really should have been 1" or larger. So I'm going as fast as I can go before the screws begin to whip. Also my motors are not the most sophisticated steppers out there, so yeah I'm going as fast as I can go, but it's good to know I'm not going too fast.

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General Mach Discussion / Router heads

« on: December 15, 2009, 07:07:06 PM »

I just burned a DeWalt 2-1/4 HP router up somehow, after three months of use. It had been losing RPMs during cycles; sounded like it was trying to work through a brownout at times. Tried to spin the tip and it has all but siezed. I'm cutting 3/16" polycarbonate on top of MDF spoil with a 3/16" Onsrud 65-018 upspiral bit. It has been working well, but the last week I would notice it bog down for a split second every now and then. Well now it finally crapped. So I'm wondering if I'm pushing a consumer grade tool too hard, is my feed rate too fast, etc. I have the router set at max speed 24k rpm, and the feed rate through LazyCam into Mach at 70. Router doesn't seem like it's going too fast, as I get no burning smells or blackened bits, and the router speed lowers slightly but not by much(ear test).
So I need a new router, obviously, and these things aren't cheap. What's a good one to use? Anyone have any insight as to why I burned this one up so quickly?

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Heellllllppp! Erratic router behavior.

« on: December 14, 2009, 06:39:07 PM »

OK Hood, will do. I was thinking the same thing, seeing as the mechanical limit switches are basically wired with what looks like Radio Shack small guage speaker wire. I would assume these should be shielded wire runs. Am I correct?

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Heellllllppp! Erratic router behavior.

« on: December 11, 2009, 03:02:07 PM »

To reply to Hood, all DROs show correct travel information in realtime. The machine however is doing its own thing.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: Heellllllppp! Erratic router behavior.

« on: December 10, 2009, 03:42:13 PM »

#3 only jogs half speed, and when it does its own thing it usually runs smoothly, but sometimes groans and stalls

The error messages have sometimes stated limit triggered(it does have limit switches), sometimes no message at all. However this morning the error stated 'radius to end of arc differs from radius to startline' (this is on a file that has previously executed properly)