Messages

11

General Mach Discussion / Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers

« on: April 20, 2008, 01:01:20 PM »

OK, I've emailed Warp9td, I've posted a thread here in the warp9 forum, and I've posted a thread on warp9's own forum, one responce with an I'm not sure answer. So I went and did some reading on PWM, it seems this is a good way to run the servos. Seems to me that the Smooth Stepper should be used in between the pc and the pico board to take advantage of the reduction of pulses as Hood mentioned. It also seems that all I need to do is get the SS and the pico board and wire them up, could it be this simple? The pico web site has a wiring diagram of it's board pinouts and a basic diagram of how to wire a system, with that and the one from Prototrak,(the company that made the servo amps and encoders), this should be pretty simple, yes?

Scott

12

SmoothStepper USB / Does the SS have PWM outputs?

« on: April 18, 2008, 08:11:18 PM »

Hello, I have started another thread in gereral mach. I have be told that in order to use my servos and drives with Mach, I will need a controller between Mach and my drives to control them. Apparently I need a controller that outputs PWM, does the SS output PWM at all or will I need to look for another controller?

13

General Mach Discussion / Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers

« on: April 17, 2008, 10:14:57 PM »

You are the man! I will email the guys at warp9 and find out about the pwm output
Scott

14

General Mach Discussion / Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers

« on: April 17, 2008, 09:36:33 PM »

Kenny, are you farmiliar with the prototrak system? So is what you are saying that I will be keeping the servo drives and servos that I have and adding a controller and driver between Mach and the servo drives? Sounds like I'm in need of a translator What is pwm by the way? Would I need the entire control box with controller, drivers and power supply, or just the drivers? If I got the entire box, would I then be connecting the output of the "smoothstepper" directly to this unit? That would be simple.

Hood, didn't you say in an earlier post that you are using picos? If so, can you tell me a little more about your set up?

Scott

15

General Mach Discussion / Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers

« on: April 17, 2008, 03:26:23 PM »

OK, did some testing, unfortunately I don't have a scope. In the motor/driver housing I have a bundle of 4 wires, 2 wires from the motor going into the driver, also I have a constant power line and a neutral going to the driver from the control panel. The power going into the driver seems to be 120 VAC, the 2 wires going to the motor from the driver are 60VDC or 40VDC, depending on the direction its moving, they swap voltage depending on the direction.

I have several wires in a seperate bundle coming from the control panel to the driver, 1 is a constant 5 volt, 1 is a constant grond, two of the wires are either 3.15 VDC or 1.75 VDC depending on which direction I enter in the controller. The other wires don't seem to be affected by movement, basically no voltage, maybe these are from the encoder?

The driver seems to act like a relay or I should say a few relays, with some sort of voltage converter for the motor, does this sound correct?

I think, if I'm correct that most systems are powered with 5VDC, if that's the case, and with the voltage that I listed above, can this be wired easily?

Scott

 

16

General Mach Discussion / Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers

« on: April 16, 2008, 08:35:54 PM »

Ok, I understand what needs to happen here to make the system work. As Jim said, I need to find how it is all going to connect together. Jim, yes there is a controller, they call it a pendant, it is a DOS based computer system that connects to the panel shown above, it works, just doesn't do what I need it to do and will not accept large quantities of G-code. I have considered drip feeding it as well but I think it would be better to just upgrade as much as I can, please correct me if anyone has another suggestions.

I emailed the company that made it back again and asked if the servo drives would accept step and direction inputs, here is his reply

"The motors on the MX3 unit are DC motors not stepper motors. They use a variable square wave signal from the computer to move and to control direction of movement. If the signal is longer in the positive direction than the negative,  the motor will move forward
in the positive direction,  etc.
Tip: The  "brain" for the MX3 is equivalent to a desktop computer, but it contains a special plug-in board that controls movement of the motors."

The special plug in board sounds like a controller board to me? This would be taken place by my PC, Mach and the smooth stepper wouldn't it?

Does the "variable square wave signal" sound like step and directional inputs?

Thanks again all of you for your help,

Scott

17

General Mach Discussion / Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers

« on: April 15, 2008, 05:58:18 PM »

Here is a diagram of the back of my control enclosure, note the listing of the encoders, limit switches, e-stop. Also at the bottom it says the amplifiers are digital and the servos are 280 oz and that is is a closed loop system using the encoders, Does all of this sound like it will be compatible?

18

General Mach Discussion / Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers

« on: April 15, 2008, 05:29:02 PM »

OK, I found some more info. The motors are DC servos that are fed with 115 volts. They also have a servo amplifier on each servo. I will upload a diagram of the motor and servo combination. I also found a partial diagram of the main wiring from the manufacturer, I believe the L1, L2 ans L3 are the limit switches and it shows the E-stop. I emailed the company that created the retrofit to see if I could get the wiring schematic for the boards and such, they said they could make a set for me for $70.00 that would NOT include the servo amplifiers, they say they are proprietary, I guess that meens they won't give that info out. My questions are, will the smooth stepper work well with the servos I have? Would having the wiring schematics without the amplifiers be sufficient for me to set this up? What is a servo amplifier and what does it do? Do they make the motor work faster?

19

General Mach Discussion / Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers

« on: April 07, 2008, 08:51:14 PM »

I've seen your youtube video and a few others, pretty cool! All sounds great, I can't wait to get it all set up.

20

General Mach Discussion / Re: Hello 1st post, need advice on controller, board, drivers

« on: April 06, 2008, 10:35:13 PM »

Hood, I thought you were saying in a previous post that it would run slower with servos, I guess you were refering to the drivers? Wow, I'm glad to hear that, I just found a schematic of my system, well some of it, it doesn't go into too much detail. You were right when you said the motors looked like they had encoders, they do and the glass scales are for back up. Apperently, the glass scales were an option with the retrofit. The schematic shows the E stop and limit switches as well. This is looking better and better, just a matter of figuring out the details. Is the "Smooth Stepper" still the best option with servos?

Scott