Messages

1

Galil / Limit Issue

« on: June 19, 2019, 05:30:36 AM »

Hi guys,

Having a strange issue with a Router which we have built that has a Galil DMC 4080 on it and Mach 3.

It lets us jog all three axis in one direction but if we try to jog in the other direction it just always says we aren't allowed due to a limit.

It's odd as it's not the Galil 22 error that usually comes up and the limits clearly aren't active so I'm guessing its a soft limit type issue but not really sure why. It just seems odd how if you jog in a positive direction, it would let you go back to where you have come from if it was a soft limit.

Any ideas would be very much appreciated.

Jack W

2

Galil / Re: Kitamura T-12 with Galil DMC-1840 and Contec I/O Setup

« on: May 12, 2015, 01:11:19 AM »

Wow doesn't time fly......

To update the situation we battled with the drives as time allowed and while we technically got the machine to function we have decided to install new servo drives.

The machine could be made to function and was reasonably well behaved however would arbitrarily run away which we are not interested in at all.

We have selected AMC servo drives to run the machine and have purchased one B30A40ACG to use as a proof of concept on all the axis and once we are sure it will work for us we will order three more.

The main question at this stage is what VDC does the drive put out? Is it just a function of the voltage input on the AC side of the power supply? How is the bus voltage set as it is unclear on the datasheet supplied by AMC. The simplest option for us is to run it on 200VAC as we have a transformer for this voltage here (line voltage in New Zealand is 230v/440v 50hz).
http://www.a-m-c.com/download/datasheet/b30a40ac.pdf

Also I have no idea what the 'G' modification represents in the part number which I hope won't hinder us....

Hopefully this time it should all be much simpler as the hardware is all modern etc (less hours with the oscilloscope hopefully )

Looking forward to some info,

Thanks
Jack W

3

Galil / Re: Kitamura T-12 with Galil DMC-1840 and Contec I/O Setup

« on: November 05, 2013, 04:09:45 AM »

No worries John!

I found the converter your thinking of by us digital its call the etach2 (http://www.usdigital.com/products/interfaces/encoder/converters/ETACH2). It looks ideal though they say the part is obsolete and no longer available. At this stage it looks like I have 2 options, Either attempt to run the machine as is or possible look to retrofitting some new drives in? Gecko 320x or Rutex or something similar? Whats your thoughts?

Thanks
Jack

4

Galil / Re: Kitamura T-12 with Galil DMC-1840 and Contec I/O Setup

« on: November 05, 2013, 02:41:57 AM »

Thanks for the reply John,

Who makes the converters? Is it western digital the hardrive manufacturer?

Jack

5

Galil / Re: Kitamura T-12 with Galil DMC-1840 and Contec I/O Setup

« on: November 03, 2013, 02:26:08 AM »

John, you are absolutely correct.

Sorry for not updating the thread, we have been slowly chipping away at some of the issues. We wired the machine up as suggested, with the AMPENx in series with the opto-22, so MO will kill the motors etc. We also set up the off on error. We have purchased an oscilloscope, and have found a few interesting things;

 - We have traced the cause of the machine running away back to the F to V converters. When you start the machine for the first time (and the motors are stationary), they are outputting a signal of 10v. If the drives are then turned on, the motors run away.

 - Switching the drive power off and on will return the output voltage to 0v when the motor is stopped, and the machine is completely controllable until you switch both the cabinet and the computer off.

 - Alternatively, the F to V converters have some sort of shoddy switchable circut, which introduces 5v to various places on the board when activated (see photo linked below, the yellow and black wires going into the front of the boards). This is connected to a relay on the opto-22 board, and flicking this on and off a couple of times will set the voltage to 0v when the motor is stationary. You can then turn the drives on and again the machine is completely controllable until you switch both the cabinet and the computer off.
Photo (sorry for the poor quality and large size) http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/4765/gw06.jpg

 - Once the machine is controllable, the voltage out of the f to v converters seems to be pretty stable and consistant with relation to motor speed.

 - The encoders seem to be only recieving around 4v. They are using the standard galil 5v output, however there appear to be alot of things attached, and the 5v is being pulled down to around 4v. The F to V converters have their own individual precision 5v output, we are unsure if using this would be better or if it does not matter?

It appears that once we have this sorted out, the axies should be functional. Thank you everyone for your help so far.

6

Galil / Using Galils Amp enable pins

« on: August 25, 2013, 04:35:04 AM »

Hello there,

We are still trying to get our kitamura going and have been tidying up many loose ends. We are struggling to work out how to use the amp enable signals as i have read that we are not able to draw more than a few mA from these outputs. This is not enough to drive the relays we are trying to operate as they draw around a hundred mA to excite. Does anyone have any clues about how to do this?

Thanks

7

Galil / Re: Kitamura T-12 with Galil DMC-1840 and Contec I/O Setup

« on: July 14, 2013, 04:56:17 AM »

We seem to have gone back somewhat after learning a bit more about what we have and how it all works.

The Fanuc amplifiers we have are velocity type, and appear to utilize what we assume to be an aftermarket frequency to voltage converter which needed to be enabled.
As we were trying to tune them as torque amplifiers rather than the velocity amplifiers, we have set KD KP and KI back to zero for now.
It may be worth noting that the Galil card does not directly control the amplifiers (no wire in AMPENX), it is controlled by a relay on the OPTO-22 board.
Our amplifiers are part number A20B-0004-0171.

We have managed to change the offset voltage on the amplifier such that when the motor is off or the motor command wire (MOCMDX) is unplugged the motor does not runaway. We can get it to sit still, but it generally after a few minutes it will start to gradually increase in speed by itself. We have not touched Gain or Dither from their original values. However, if you kill the power and turn everything on again the offset has to be readjusted to get the motor to stay still.

When issuing a SH command in Galil with the motor MOCMDX wire plugged back in the motor will run away. Changing the offset voltage in Galil using the OFX=n command can get the motor to stop running away. Again as above, if you kill the power and turn everything on again OFX has to be readjusted to get the motor to stay still.

We have removed the motor from the machine so that it cannot cause any damage with these runaways.

We are currently trying to locate a manual for the Fanuc amplifier so we can tune it properly. We have access to an oscilliscope.
However, we are unsure of several things still:
 - Why the offset needs to be readjusted each time?
 - Why the motor will runaway when issued a SH command, and why having a different offset voltage in Galil fixes the problem (temporarily)?

Thank you everybody for your help so far, it has been a very steep learning curve for us.

8

Galil / Re: Kitamura T-12 with Galil DMC-1840 and Contec I/O Setup

« on: June 16, 2013, 05:53:35 AM »

We should probably update the wiring diagram above to show:
 - The Contec card drives the Opto-22 board (and the Opto-22 board has no direct interface with the Galil card.
 - Both outputs from the Galil card go to the Galil board

Sorry for the confusion earlier. This makes much more sence.

9

Galil / Re: Kitamura T-12 with Galil DMC-1840 and Contec I/O Setup

« on: June 16, 2013, 05:48:01 AM »

Over the last couple of weeks we have made some decent progress;

We installed a driver for the Contec card that included a diagnostic program, allowing us to manually toggle the relays on the Opto-22 board.
This has allowed all the axis amplifiers to switch on and be controlled by the Galil board, and seems to be a good way to get everything going until we write a macro in Mach.

Using SmartTerm we were able to tune the axis motors (setting KD, KP and KI). The X axis seemed to work without tuning, but it was required to make the Y and Z axes move.
After tuning, we seem to be able to make all the motors move in all directions, with full control of speed, acceleration etc.
We used a pdf on Galil's website to do this, increasing KD until the error became unstable, then KP, then KI.

However, we still have yet to iron out some problems:

When first turning on the machine and switching the X axis relay through the Contec program, the X axis runs away. If you switch the relay off and back on, it then runs away in the opposite direction. If you then toggle it a third time it will settle down. Before tuning the Z axis, it would also do this, however after tuning it does not seem to do it anymore.

When tuning the Z and Y axis, we could considerably increase KD and KP, to 1000 and 80 for Z, and 1000 and 40 for Y, without the servo vibrating. With the X axis, KD and KP could only be set to 100 and 5 (Galils recommended minimum settings to start tuning are 100 and 5), and was still less stable than the other two axis. Increasing KI to 1 made all axes unstable.
Also, is tuning in Galil a waste of time, should we just be doing this later in Mach?

When using SmartTerm to issue a move command to all three axis at once (PR 5000 and BG), at one stage the Z axis moved the wrong direction, and another time it ran away alltogether. All other times, once the machine has been safely powered up everything is fairly reliable.

When starting Mach with power to the servos, all servos run away. Perhaps they are trying to home or something similar?


Apart from that, I think we are definitely on the right track anyhow.

10

Galil / Re: Kitamura T-12 with Galil DMC-1840 and Contec I/O Setup

« on: June 06, 2013, 04:58:10 AM »

Hi there,

Ill find out the model number of the board this weekend and will be drawing a complete wiring diagram of everything and ill report back when I'm done.

Thanks

Jack