Messages

3871

General Mach Discussion / Re: Best Screenset for Mach3?

« on: August 10, 2018, 12:25:09 AM »

Hi,
a rather famous English salior and a real hard case, Robin Knox-Johnson
said when asked what colour to paint a yacht:
"There's only two colours to paint a boat...black or white....and only a fool would paint a boat black!"

Craig

3872

General Mach Discussion / Re: CS Labs CSMIO/P-A

« on: August 09, 2018, 05:25:01 PM »

Hi Mick,

There is an Amp meter built into the line side of the converter. Not sure if you noticed.

No, I didn't see that.

In the area I live there has been an explosion in the number of farmers irragating land with 100-300kW
down-hole pumps powered by VFD's. These are all rurally sited and the degradation of the power supply is so accute
that rural residents are having TV's and computers etc blow up. The power companies are insisting that farmers
fit power factor/distortion mitigation equipment, and its expensive....and they hate it.

I suppose, they seem happy enough to pollute the environment, so polluting the power supply doesn't seem that big a deal.

The upshot is that whether you understand or not, by virtue of being constrained by your converter you will have
to come familiar with and use the techniques and equipment available.

Craig

3873

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mini pc

« on: August 09, 2018, 02:39:45 PM »

Hi,
the Ebay link took me to this page.

Craig

3874

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Toolpath not showing on custom profile

« on: August 09, 2018, 03:43:42 AM »

Hi Oscar,
yes I've had the same battle with the mouse buttons. I've not found anyway to get a round it yet.
One feature that I do use is <Jog Follow> mode. Try it out.

Have you tried referencing your system before loading the code?

If I understand the explanation given elsewhere Mach will attempt to draw the tooplath at such scale so as to also include the 0,0,0 origin.
Thus if your machine is not referenced it could be that the 0,0,0 is at some considerable distance from the toolpath and therefore Mach has to draw a such a
large scale that your toolpath disappears.

Craig

3875

General Mach Discussion / Re: CS Labs CSMIO/P-A

« on: August 09, 2018, 03:15:01 AM »

Hi Mick,
had a few days to review the discussion to this point.

It seems to me that the critical choice to make if you are to re-power your spindle with a servo is not the servo so much as the drive.
As you have seen their are a number of servos which can be driven by a particular drive but largely it is the drive that determines how well
any of those servos perform.

As a result of that I conclude to have a good as possible solution will require a three phase input drive and any servo driven by such a drive (400V)
will achieve its best or very near to it.

The drive input characteristics are particularly important as your phase converter must supply its input current.
I have attached the spec page and have highlighted the salient figures of the LX32 D30N4 being a three phase input drive with nominal input of 400V
and nominal output of 3kW.

Note the data for the drive in ABSENCE of a line reactor:
nom input 8.2A per phase
nom output 3kW

indicated input power= 8.2 x 230 x 3
                               =5658W

The effective power factor is
power factor =3000 / 5658
                   =0.53
Note this is somewhat better than I had predicted in an earlier post,but not that much better.
Given that your phase converter is limited to 5kW output  your drive could supply no more than 2.6kW to a servo before it starts to overload the converter by virtue
of its poor power factor.

Note the data FOR THE EXACT SAME DRIVE but WITH LINE REACTORS:
nom input current=11.1 A per phase
nom output power=5.6kW

indicated input power=11.1 x 230 x 3
                              =7659 W

effective power factor= 5600 / 7695
                               =0.73

Notice how the power factor has improved markedly with the addition of 1mH line reactors.
Your phase converter could now deliver 3.65kW to your drive without overload, a substantial gain over the 2.6 kW without reactors.

Simply put, the poor power factor of servo drive limits the shaft power developed by the servo, not because of any inefficiency of the servo but the poor
power factor of the drive stresses the supply. Even simple line reactors improve the situation markedly. An even more sophisticated input filter could achieve
an even better result although there will come a point of diminishing returns.

This is an area you need to explore if you wish to re-power your lathe spindle with a servo. With a good combination of line reactors and filter elements you might
achieve power outputs to match the existing induction motor WITHOUT ANY EXTRA SUPPLY STRESS. I feel sure that Schneider technical sales reps would help and
I imagine would also be able to supply the required components. Downside is that the cost could be a significant fraction of the servo and drive.

Craig

3876

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mini pc

« on: August 09, 2018, 02:23:59 AM »

Hi,
I hope there are better examples than the last link:

For parts or not working

“sold as is. does not power on. no further testing done. unit only, no ac adapter or anything else. ”
   

Craig

3877

General Mach Discussion / Re: no go on 2nd port

« on: August 08, 2018, 06:36:50 PM »

Hi,
I recall also that when I fitted a second port that I had to try several different drivers from
the manufacturers website before I fond one that worked with Machs parallel port.

Craig

3878

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 and Mach3 USB Interface help

« on: August 08, 2018, 12:32:56 PM »

Hi,
there are instructions on how to install it. Have you followed them? There is a .dll file to be put in the plugins folder and an .xml file
to be put in the base Mach folder.

Why buy a device that has no support? If you bought a US or European made board they work as they are supposed to
and the manufacturer will help.

Craig

3879

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach 3 and Mach3 USB Interface help

« on: August 08, 2018, 12:13:29 PM »

Hi,
what is your USB interface?

Craig

3880

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mini pc

« on: August 08, 2018, 12:09:23 PM »

Hi,
I run Mach4 on a dual core Atom MiniITX board without problems. It is slow to load big files but is otherwise fine.

Have a look at the Latte Panda:

https://www.dfrobot.com/product-1585.html

This one has 4G ram 64 G EEC,  quad core Atom with on chip graphics, Windows 10 Enterprise all for $209.

Craig