Messages

151

General Mach Discussion / Re: G31 alternative

« on: August 21, 2016, 08:52:13 AM »

Craig, seems like you've done the insulation test the right way (yeah, used to be called meggered as the instrument was an AVO Megger (after megaohm I suspect... I've still got and use my old but prestine AVO CM500).

I unfortunately don't know your drives and motors well enough, but I'll try to spend a bit of time reading up on them (you haven't got any links to datasheets have you). (Unfortunately I'm a cheap stepper man not servos, some of the more experianced servo users (like hood I suspect) may have a view)

The other bits are if you're using screened cable... only ground (earth) one end or you end up with eddy currents (but not 30mA floating about of imbalance).

Back when I used usb motion controllers i found out that some usb leads have s grounded shielding cable that created a real pia ground loop between motion controller and pc.

Seems like you've got a good knowledge and ain't going to fall foul of some of the common pitfalls for new cnc users.

I need to have a think.

Rob

152

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: ESS and Mach4 current status

« on: August 21, 2016, 07:47:51 AM »

No, there is no list, you'll need to trawl through posts and complaints.

Most manufacturers won't provide such a list as it denotes deficiencies unfortunately that competitors can comment against.

A suggestion is to list all the Mach 3 and mack 4 g and m codes, and against such a list, ask for the manufacturer to confirm if their motion controller has been tested with and  can perform all of the nessesary functions to enable the g or m code to work (please note that the torch height control macros are custom in m3 and won't appear on the STD list of m codes in mach3 or mach4)

Some of the ones that I'm fairly sure are not yet implemented are:
- Spindle synchronisation
- Torch height control
- laser control (m62/m63 + blended tradjectory pwm output)
- There may be some issues still with probing and multiple probe inputs that mach4 supports.

- G04 may not work in both seconds or microseconds (but it only ever worked in one unit in m3, I forget which (recently moved on, memory fails me)

One can unfortunately only wait so long for m4 plus as motion controller development before moving on.  It's a fry up breakfast bacon and egg thing I suspect... the pig is committed and the chicken is involved in the breakfast.

Newfangled solutions/ Artsoft appear to be committed, only sell 2 ish products, without sales, company will flounder.

Warp9 appear to be involved.  Warp9 only produce 2 motion controller variants, each of which is provided with free software updates, hence they must be selling some serious volume to support a business on one product (usb / eth), hence I suspect that they do other things to pay the bills and warp9 is a sideline or subsidiary business.

I have supported warp9 for a long time, just become tired of the passing of commitments and deadlines and have looked at other cnc software and hardware solutions offered as a package from committed companies who run a tight ship and software is regularly updated along with comprehensive manuals which reflect the current software release, tested before release with hardware and software on multiple motion controllers (the days of the parallel port are dead!  Much better solutions are available that improve the final product cut which is what it's all about... speed and finish).

I think of mach4 as very fast and clean finished, a premium product at a medium to high cost (remember you need to allow for the motion controller too to get the best performance).  If they get their (artsoft + warp9) act together, I'll be back.

Note there are some motion controller manufacturers who do seem to work well with m4 such as pdmx (but don't think torch height control has been implemented yet), vital systems (thc does work I believe but it's a premium price product... not in the came cost league as the ess or uss), and cismo (although I think their plugin development has halted a few m4 updates back... until m4 is bedded in and out of development phase I read somewhere), and Pokeys I think is the new plugin (very low cost, but not sure how much is implemented yet of my above list, but they are always proactive at development (I have a Pokeys too + uss + ess + uc400eth)

Kmotion, and cnc drive (uc motion controllers) as well as the Chinese boards don't seem to be offering an m4 plugin.

There you have it... hopefully it's useful to consider, and I've not been too critical, but as m3 development halted what near 6 years ago, and m4 has been in development ever since, and there does not appear to be a motion controller on the market (except vital and possibly cismo) that can offer 100% of all the same functions as people have been running in m3, there is some frustration I'm sure about because we can see m4, we just cant get at it!!!

I truly wish it wasn't this way but it is at present.

(Yup, I did consider the vital before replacing my uss with an ess, then buying a Pokeys and then a uc400eth)

153

General Mach Discussion / Re: G31 alternative

« on: August 21, 2016, 04:44:22 AM »

Oh, and another common error with power supplies of differing output voltages is to join the 0v lines together.... be careful.... the 0v is zero volts relative to the other output line (5v 12v 24v 36v etc).... don't join the 0v or sometimes marked gnd connections together.... or you end up with a ground loop problem as the zero volt lines can be offset from the earth and can be offset from other 0volt outputs from other power supplies.

Rob

154

General Mach Discussion / Re: G31 alternative

« on: August 21, 2016, 04:33:47 AM »

Whilst I look for my tin hat and sand bags...

However... a basic rule remains.... if the device is wired up with live and neutral (or hot wire to hot wire), the leakage to the casing or earth point should be zero.... or you have a problem.

Please note that with motors, it is possible to obviously get an induced leakage current, by the very nature of their operation of generating a magnetic field... more so with steppers and servos because the frequency their supply switches is much much higher than your run of the mill electrical supply appliances at 50 or 60hz supply voltage....

But 30mA leakage is still very high for an induced leakage imho.

Rob

155

General Mach Discussion / Re: G31 alternative

« on: August 21, 2016, 04:26:50 AM »

Don't carry out an insulation test on anything electronic!

Test the wiring, but don't test the device.  Doing a 500 volt DC test on a device not rated for 500v is a sure way to end up with problems in my opinion (being a young spark (electrician) many years ago I tested a lighting circuit only to kill a whole load of electronic lighting ballasts).

Earthing and providing a means of earth differs around the world by locality, and it can be a very emotive issue with everyone believing they, the system they learnt, or that in their locality is right.  

However... a basic rule remains.... if the device is wired up with live and neutral (or hot wire to hot wire), the leakage to the casing or earth point should be zero.... or you have a problem.

30mA is a high leakage current, and I'd suggest in plugging each of your drives and motors, testing the wiring, and then plugging each of the drives and motors in in turn to establish which drive and motor has the leakage issue.  If you need to swap the drives and motors around to establish which drive or driver is creating the problem exactly, then I'd suggest doing that.

I'd suggest running a gcode file which tests just that one axis motion at full rapid movement.... such as g0 x100, g0 x0 back and forth....id open up Microsoft excel and drag 150 lines of g0 motion, and copy and paste it into a tap file.  So it will give you time to test the machines leakage.

I suspect you have a wiring problem (note I've not seen your machine, don't shoot the cnc messenger!)... I'd suggest that somewhere the wiring is getting mixed up with ground, 0volt or something like that.

I'd suggest stop for a moment (as I know this can be emotive), and just reconsider all of the circuits in your machine, as they need to be wired relative to each other because of the way that they manipulate voltages

Start at the electrical supply... you have two main wires (forget about earth for a moment as some parts of the world use one of the hot wires as earth as its also the grounded neutral point, instead of the centre tap neutral which seem to be the way it's done in to US for domestic supplies (nomenclature different, outcome the same)

These two wires will be wires up to your low voltage supplies one for the 5v, 24v and another for your drives.

The output of these (however many you have and whatever their voltages) are relative to the two output wires... do not at any point connect these to the earth terminal, even if they say zero volt (0v)

These lower voltage power supplies are then connected to your motion controller, and break out boards, and spindle and drives.... some of these have outputs... such as the motor drives... take the wires out of these and wire them direct to the motors... at no point should any of these output wires be connected to the earth point, casing, frame etc, even if they say GND or 0V.

Same thing with bob sensors....

Now, at this point your earth is wired, and it is basically only connected to the casing of each device, or a dedicated terminal that says earth...

Be very careful when the device says "GND" as it may not actually be the earthing point.... test it with a voltmeter set on ohms or diode beep test between the terminal and the casing.

Only this casing earth hours back to your incoming electrical supply earth.

Sorry for the long post

Rob

156

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3, Leadshine MX4660, UC100 CNC motion controller and problems with Auto Zero

« on: August 17, 2016, 01:12:54 AM »

You will need to change your profile XML filename to somethimg unique.... like pilotarix1.xml and it will upload

Can't have two files the same uploaded onto the forum

Are you using the latest plugin from cnc motion website for the uc100?

Rob

157

General Mach Discussion / Re: Torch fires when engraver should strart

« on: August 17, 2016, 01:01:52 AM »

No problem George, anytime, sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

Suggest a backup of your XML, post processor and your current mach3 version in case something goes wrong in the future (oh, add to that any custom macros, screenset (as yours is non STD) , and brains files

Rob

158

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3, Leadshine MX4660, UC100 CNC motion controller and problems with Auto Zero

« on: August 16, 2016, 02:18:55 PM »

proximity sensors can be a PIA sometimes as they have a leakage current, and if you common them up, the leakage current will get greater to the point that it may appear as if the pin has changed state (or is not changing state)...... although prox sensors are not your initial problem, and the probe input is.

are you sure its not some sort of a ground loop issue? what happens if you unplug the leadshine drive at the DB25 connector?

159

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3, Leadshine MX4660, UC100 CNC motion controller and problems with Auto Zero

« on: August 16, 2016, 02:15:48 PM »

Can I suggest uploading your profile XML file?

160

General Mach Discussion / Re: G31 alternative

« on: August 14, 2016, 04:05:23 AM »

Probing is unfortunately a motion controller function (which is why some buyers of far eastern motion controllers in their early days of cnc become disappointed later when realising some motion controller functions do not work at all or as intended),

That being said, m3 can be unpredictable and occasionally do something unexpected....

One place to look (before something other than m3 + ess) may be the probe it's self, or its wiring arrangement, is everything running off the same electrically supply, is it maybe because when the touch probe touches the object, the ground or vcc is all of a sudden causing a spike via other ground connection (motors, prox sensors, grounded table etc) back to the ess

One suggestion may be to run the probe off a small battery supply, via an optoisolator/ optocoupler then into the probe input of the ess.... hence no chance of shared ground or vcc connection....

Hence check your wiring and circuits being formed