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Messages - Perfo

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21
Pulleys turned up today. Wow the 72 tooth 13 mm pulley looks big and heavy but I'm sure it'll be ok. The handles that have been on order since I got the Mill (as they were missing) ie the Y and one of the X axis handles also turned up today but unfortunately are the wrong bore so they'll have to go back. I'm thinking I will mount the pulleys on the hand wheels now by turning down the boss on the hand wheel and opening up the bore on the pulleys to get a tight fit then a couple of grub screw retainers to stop them turning. If I feel really brave I suppose I could even thread them but that's a little advance for me.

22
Good points.  You can prove if the probe is working or not by touching it on a 5V supply somewhere it could even include a couple of LED's to perform a self test type thing is one of the probe cables will be connected to gnd one to a supply and one to an input so touching the tip on a supply should light one LED and touching it on GND should light the other and tell you the probe is working. If you then touch a known high pin on the port that isn't showing high on the PC then the ports is malfunctioning. I also get your point about how do you know if it is the device port or BOB that's not working. I propose once the self check has been carried out then you can check the port and the BOB with this device and through process of elimination it will ether be the device connected tot he port or the software/set up depending on if the bob etc pass the test. This also works the other way you should be able to touch the pin relative to the input tot he bob that corresponds to the limits and see it change when the limits operate then knowing there is something wrong with the set up in Mach if it still says you have limit /stop problem. I would hope you could also see if noise is causing your limit problem by displaying the wave form of the incoming signal but I've got to test this function yet. similarly I was hoping to do some fast Fourier analysis on it to give a spectrum analysis type graph telling you at a glance you have a DC component (expected and a say 3KHz compent (unexpected). My electronics and software knowledge is a little dated as I haven't done much in the last 18 years since I left My job where I did a lot of design work. However if the port idea doesn't work then the same probe with Little adjustment can be used on a mic or any audio input to the PC and data collected that way and thus eliminating any combined errors due to using the same port to test and control. The only real problem with that is when I used it before to make a PC based oscilloscope back in the 80's the highest sample rate was around 10KHz with a top of the range sound card which ment you could only reliably show wave forms up to 5KHz. Now I believe the standard sound card will go to 44KHz (the CD standard sample rate) and thus we could reliably show at least 22KHz this would need more investigation on my behalf. Thanks for your comments. The electronics for this comes to around £1 and is really simple to construct so quite do able for anyone fiddling with Bob's and Mach 3 etc.

23
Hello all.
With the help of Mr Leed3 I'm hoping to develop a small DIY type probe that can be connected to a spare input and will enable the user to place the tip of the probe on any other input or output and the PC screen will display if the input is high, low or if there is a pulse train on it (maybe even a graph showing the pulse train so pulse width etc can be viewed). First off, in practice how fast can data be read from the parallel port (I know this is dependent on machine spec but on average)? Is there already a plug-in or mod that does this? I suppose the last question is would anyone else find this a handy addition? I like to measure things when setting up or looking for faults and thus this is why I thought of it but maybe it's only me  :). All comments will be appreciated.

24
Ops sorry I miss read your post. Yep the steppers need to to do the work...not I need to do some work on them.. :)

25
Belt and braces approach.  What work do I need to do to the steppers ? Would the encoders feed back to Mach 3 via a BOB ? I'm guessing you've dropped the encoder option as you've found them to be pretty reliable as they are? I must admit I've had my steppers for a while and didn't pick them in a scientific manner more like these ones look big enough and 3NM seems about right etc. My Z axis stepper is woefully inadequate though as I hadn't thought of moving a heavy table with it. I'll try and get another stepper the same as the X and Y.

26
The nice Sandra from Anti friction components sorted out my problems with the pulleys. Not only that but her boss is coming past my work place on Thursday so he'll drop them in and pick up the wrong ones without charge. So though I could blame them for a mistake overall I'm pretty pleased with the outcome (at least I will be if all goes to plan). Tonight is powder coating night mark II.

27
No real problem once you get up and going.

28
Doesn't bear thinking ABOUT :)
It wasn't a completely wasted day yesterday on the CNC front. I finished putting all the electro gubbins in my rack mounted box and Conected up the motors (yet to finish the plug and socket arrangement). I felt like a right electro newby I couldn't get the steppers to run smooth they turned ok but very juddery. I tried tuning. incidentally when I'm on the motor tuning page my motors don't turn when I press page up and down as per motor tuning instructions  I have to save then exit the tuning to get them to move with the keyboard. Anyway hours wasted trying to tune trying different micro steps etc etc. Then came to the conclusion I must have a cable or two wrong on the steppers even though I was fairly confident this is how I connected them before. I got them from motion control products but unfortunately their PD data sheet for these motors have different wire colours on than mine. I eventually found this site
http://harmonfamily.us/stepper_motor_wiring.htm
Which proved pretty helpful and indeed confirmed I had a few cables wrong. Put them right and the steppers became classical music rather than house music :) Typical I thought if they hadn't turned at all I would have checked the wiring but being a novice I wasn't sure that having the wrong set up on the Acc and velocity could cause juddery motion or even the set up of my drivers...anyway all good now :)

29
Just looking back at the pics WantCNC posted my steppers look a lot bigger than his (no not showing off :) ) his look like twin shaft and about 6 mm where as mine have single shaft and 9.5mm. I don't mind them being more powerful than need be it'll mean more scope to up the speed if ever I need too or even go 1:1 on the ratios.

30
Oh did I say I was going to spend this morning trying to powder coat my frames ? What I meant was I was going to go shopping and buy a new bed :)  Bl****dy H*** the price of mattresses and beds...I could get a nice Mill (or even a pulley or two from HPC) for that price I thought. :)

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