Messages

91

General Mach Discussion / Re: Need a 4 axis controller board

« on: January 12, 2015, 03:40:36 PM »

I know that to mention Chinese stuff is frowned upon, but it is not all bad. There are some nice driver boards using the new Toshiba 6600 chip with a large 2" x 2-14" X 5/8" heat sink, and they are rated at 4.5 amp, 48v. They have settable amps, and up to 16 micro-steps, and cost about $28.00 each for a single axis driver. Look on Ebay. http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Product-4-5A-TB6600-stepper-motor-driver-board-/290901201259

John

92

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steps to making mill bulletproof

« on: January 12, 2015, 03:21:12 PM »

Hi Barry:
Yes, the shielding on the cables must be connected to a common ground. All the ground wires should terminate at a single, common point.
It would be best if the ground was terminated in a copper rod driven into the ground. You can get such copper grounding rods from Grainger, and also Electrical supply houses. The rods are usually about 4 to 5 feet long, and about 5/8" diameter. The spindle motor cables must absolutely be enclosed within shielded cable, and also connected to the common ground.

I mentioned the RG8 co-ax cable because it has a braided shielding. Strip back the plastic for about 6 or 8 inches each end, and cut back the inner wire. Then solder a lug for a #10 size screw on each end. Use these braided ground cables to link to your copper rod from the other machine cables. The braided cable has more area than a single copper wire, and the hi-frequency noise is conducted away due to the larger surface area of the braided cable. Using the house ground is depending on a single copper wire to go to ground, and not as efficient or effective as the copper rod/braided cable method.

Both of my commercial CNC milling machines have a copper rod just outside the building, close the the machine locaton, with a very large copper cable connecting the machine ground. The have been very problem free.

Another possible source of noise proofing your machine would be to convert all your limit/home switches to 24 volt, and drop to 5v just at the breakout board with opto-couplers. The potential between the signal and ground is nearly 5 times what the 5v signal is, and is much more noise resistant. All commercial machines use 24v signal wiring.

John

93

General Mach Discussion / Re: Steps to making mill bulletproof

« on: January 11, 2015, 09:57:48 PM »

Hi BarryB:

Sounds like an interesting machine, and must be impressive with six axis going. The problem is most likely noise , and with six axis motor cables running around, that makes for a lot of little "antenna's" out there to pick up stuff. Also, a vfd generates a lot of noise as you know.

The usb version of the SS is not as noise resistant as the ethernet version for starters. The general run of the mill USB cables are not very good for shielding, so you should definitely get the highest quality USB cable for the SS. Another simple addition would be to put those "chokes" on all the cables. You can get the clamp on type at Radio Shack, and put them on both ends of cables. Most newer electronics have chokes on the power cables as you may have noticed. Another requirement for a CNC machine is a copper grounding rod driven into the earth, and all the grounds from the shields connected to the copper rod with RG8 shielded cable stripped back to expose the woven shielding; solder copper lugs to the ends, and connect the machine cable shields to the copper rod with those braided type cables. This kind of woven cable is better than a single wire for noise, as it is a function of area, to carry the high frequencies. Do a search for how different machine builders have addressed the noise problem with their motor controllers/VFD's. Really good machine grounding goes a long ways to insure machine stability. Another source of noise is a TIG welding machine. They can emit high frequencies onto the building wiring, even if it is not in your shop. It doesn't take too much to upset the tiny 5v step/direction signals going to the motor amps, or the limit switch signals.
I am not in OC, but am not too far away, but am fairly busy for the next few weeks.

John

94

General Mach Discussion / Re: Control Box

« on: January 09, 2015, 10:18:01 PM »

Hello Barbs:

Are you looking for an enclosure for the electronic components, or a separate control panel with push buttons, E-stop button, main on/off swithch, led's,  and/or potentiometers for feedrate/spindle rate?

www.par-metal.com sells a large selection of aluminum enclosures ideal for building your own electrical cabinet.

Most users make their own from commercial enclosure boxes per their own ideas.

www.CNC4PC.com sells some of their own design for their complete CNC systems.

You also might consider a pendant like the ones sold by www.VistaCNC.com, that do nearly everything a big control panel can do, in a compact usb package, with an illuminated screen panel. The can start,stop, pause, jog, set home, set x/y/z/a zero plus run macro's of your choice.

John

 

95

Share Your GCode / Re: Human face g codes

« on: January 09, 2015, 07:02:37 PM »

If you look on Ebay, in the section for routers, engraving machines, there are many sellers of complete 3 axis programs for art work. They seem to cost about 10.00 to 25.00 U.S.D. depending on size and complexity.

John

96

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 Appears to not handle non-printable characters in Ascii files.

« on: January 09, 2015, 03:20:23 PM »

Hi rprichard:
Mach3 was not designed to de-bug files inadvertently written with non-printing characters. You  could take a perfectly good g-code file written with a text editor like "notepad", or produced by one  of the many wizards that performed a simple operation, and re-write it with MS Word you use for letters etc.,  and re-load the "Word" created version in Mach3, and it will not run.
This is a pretty basic requirement for CNC machine g-code files. You might find one of the books on CNC programming by Peter Smids helpful, as he explains every aspect of CNC programming in detail.

John
 

97

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Opening tool screen from NF

« on: December 10, 2014, 04:32:30 PM »

Hi Ron:

I just tried the material window in the original "Problem" screen set, and the selection window opens up OK. I have not had time
to play with background coloring on the replacement screen set that works, but it does seem the xml for that particular screen set is the problem.
I will do some Machscreen coloring, and find out for sure in a couple of days.

John

98

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Opening tool screen from NF

« on: December 07, 2014, 05:11:01 PM »

Thanks Ger:

That makes sense.

John

99

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Opening tool screen from NF

« on: December 07, 2014, 12:59:27 PM »

The latest 2010 screen does work properly with the NF Wizard, and the Tool Table window opens up, and works. The screen set that did not allow the Tool Table to function had one difference- It had been modified with background colors using MachScreen. I am now of the opinion that the color modifications  was the culprit. When I loaded the Standard Mach3 screen with the 2010 screen, everything worked in NF Wizards.

 When I loaded the XML file from the older, 2010 set with all the motor setting,i/o dat, to make it run, the NF Tool Table window stopped working. The XML also contained the Color settings I had created with Machscreen.

I have not tried implementing colors with Machscreen yet, to prove my assumption.

If anybody understands the process of modifying the color background, and could explain what goes on, I would like to hear.

Thanks

John

100

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Opening tool screen from NF

« on: December 06, 2014, 11:46:43 PM »

TP:

I did a screen load of the standard Mach3Mill, with the 2010-4 screen set. I did not change the xml file from the working 2010 screen I have been using. It has the original xml from the Mach3Mill. I ran the NF wizard, and the Tool Table does open like it should.
I will hand load item by item the NewFile I just created and try it again.

I cannot do it now, but will report back tomorrow.

Maybe my working screen-set has a bug in the xml. I am encouraged with this latest development.

John