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Messages - PROTOPLANT

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1
Hello again!

At the risk of overdoing the shameless self-promotion, I wanted to also let you know about our new line of regulated switching power supplies.  I have been using Gecko Drives and similar for years for bigger machine retrofits and finding an affordable 80V regulated supply that can handle the back EMF from decelerating motors has been a real challenge.  Based on the idea that other folks have this same problem I have come up with a solution that has these two primary features:

      1.  Multiple power supplies can safely be installed in series to increase output voltage
      2.  The power supplies and load (Gecko Drives) are protected from over-voltage due to motor back EMF

The Back EMF Clamp is a thoughtfully designed circuit that uses a comparator and MOSFET to dissipate the back EMF energy, and diodes protect each supply for safe series operation.  Pricing for just the back EMF Clamp for one power supply is $48.75.  We sell 3 models for one, two, and three series power supplies, along with complete power supplies.  Our most powerful supply is 80Vdc @ 14.6A and is $247.06.

Please check out www.protoplant.com/power for full details, there are a lot of features that I have not mentioned here.  We have put a ton of work into the power web page and you can download complete documentation, including 2D drawings and solid models of all our products.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments, any feedback would be great!
Thanks for checking this out,
Dustin

2
Hi All!
We have a new project up on Kickstarter and thought you may be interested in checking it out: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1375236253/stepperature-open-source-quadrature-hand-wheel?ref=live
It is also up on our website here: www.protoplant.com/stepperature

It is a small micro-controller circuit that converts the signals a stepper motor makes when turned by hand into clean, reliable quadrature for making your own MPG hand-wheels.  We also have a discrete component version that we will post details on at the end of the kickstarter campaign for those of you who are hardcore electronics enthusiasts.

This has been tried before but we really spent a lot of time on the design and it works very well.  Best of all the project is totally open source and low priced, $16.00 on Kickstarter right now for complete boards including shipping.

Post kickstarter they will be up for sale at www.protoplant.com/stepperature.

Mostly we think it is a cool idea and want to get it out to the community!
Thanks so much for checking it out, happy machining!
Dustin

3
General Mach Discussion / Re: Lathe turret Tool Changer, PLC, VB Scripts
« on: February 04, 2010, 10:48:36 AM »
George,

Attached is the ladder program for my PLC.

Dustin

4
No worries Hood, I've pretty much worked around it with getting those Y's out of there, but am curious.  Thanks for doing this!
Dustin

5
Hood,

Here is the brain and the only VB script I've messed with.  I was thinking it could be the ModBus somehow too, like it tries to send signals to Y on modbus or something?  Still cannot figure out why that would make the motors go too fast...

Thanks,
Dustin

6
Thanks Hood!!  The XML is attached.

Dustin

7
General Mach Discussion / Lathe G1 XYZ move servos ""jump" to position
« on: January 03, 2010, 02:32:27 PM »
Hi all,

I have been working on my turret lathe and it is working great, I've made a run of 50 parts and things are looking really good.  One thing I cannot figure out is why when there is a 'N30 G1 X2.6334 Y0. Z0.0884 F70 S1200 M4' the servos "Jump" to position after a short pause.  The axis move at a rate WAY over the max tuned value in motor tuning, and generally fault out.  It is almost like the servos count the steps and wait, then try to move all at once.  I use SprutCam and edited the post to remove the Y0. value and the problem went away.  What is with the Y0. that would do that?  The Y axis is not set up in mach at all, it seems like it should not really do anything.  Also, there is a Y0. in the G2 and G3 moves but that does not seem to mess anything up.  I've attached code snippets and the Sprut post in case anybody is looking for one...  I am OK with just leaving out the Y's, but am interested if there is another problem that this may cause.

Thank you!!

Offending code
'-------
%
OLathe Roughing
N10 G90 G17 G40 G80 G49
;Lathe Roughing
N20 T101
;OD-TOOL1 (l0.5, Ti0.157, Re0.031, Kr95, Qr5)
N30 G1 X2.6334 Y0. Z0.0884 F70 S1200 M4
N40 Z0.135
N50 X2.6444
N60 F12
N70 X2.6169 Z0.1074
N80 Z-0.2811
N90 X2.6444 Z-0.2535
N100 Z0.1456 F70
N110 X2.5444
N120 X2.5169 Z0.118 F12
N130 Z-0.148
N140 X2.556
N150 G2 G18 X2.602 Y0. Z-0.194 I0. K-0.046
'-------

Code that works-
'-------
%
OLathe Roughing
N10 G90 G17 G40 G80 G49
;Lathe Roughing
N20 T101
;OD-TOOL1 (l0.5, Ti0.157, Re0.031, Kr95, Qr5)
N30 G1 X2.6334 Z0.0884 F70 S1200 M4
N40 Z0.135
N50 X2.6444
N60 F12
N70 X2.6169 Z0.1074
N80 Z-0.2811
N90 X2.6444 Z-0.2535
N100 Z0.1456 F70
N110 X2.5444
N120 X2.5169 Z0.118 F12
N130 Z-0.148
N140 X2.556
N150 G2 G18 X2.602 Y0. Z-0.194 I0. K-0.046
N160 G1 Z-0.2421
'----------



8
General Mach Discussion / Re: CNC4PC C11G Analog Output Spindle Control
« on: January 03, 2010, 02:04:27 PM »
One other thing I cannot figure out is the pulse width setting, can you not change the value independently?  I had to set it to 10us on the spindle to get the voltage high enough, but I would like to have the servo pulses be 5us.  Is there any way to do that?  Now it just changes all the values at the same time.

Dustin

9
General Mach Discussion / Re: CNC4PC C11G Analog Output Spindle Control
« on: January 03, 2010, 01:54:56 PM »
ftec,

It sounds like maybe it is a setting in the spindle setup in mach 3 under the motor tuning tab.  I had to mess with the pulse width and rate etc to get what I wanted out of the thing.  It took quite a bit of messing around, but now it works well, my only complaint is that the speed takes a few seconds to stabilize, but it really does not matter, I am super happy with how it works now.

Dustin

10
General Mach Discussion / Re: CNC4PC C11G Analog Output Spindle Control
« on: December 02, 2009, 11:58:56 PM »
Thanks for the comments all, I think it will work now after tons of messing around.  The problem was something with the VFD power supply not cooperating with the C11G, or just not working properly.  I tuned the output to be very linear with the 10V from the power supply, with in a few tens of mV, stable and nice.  But with the spindle on the voltage was all out of whack, generally ~1V higher than with the spindle on, but with varying wildly +/- 1V or so of where it was with the spindle off.  Both tests were done with the VFD powered on but just with it in the off state for one.  The funny thing was that the 10V was stable, at least with a digital volt meter.  I was afraid to hook the scope up to it to see if it was rippling but it looked solid because I don;t have a differential probe and am not sure what those lines are relative to earth.

I even measured the pulse widths and plotted the frequency output VS speed and everything looked fine.  Finally I just hooked up a 12 supply and all seems to be working now, although I have not thoroughly tested it yet, tomorrow...

Dustin

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