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Author Topic: Hi All, I need help Desperately (Building controller)  (Read 3414 times)

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Hi All, I need help Desperately (Building controller)
« on: August 04, 2009, 07:23:31 PM »
Hope this day finds you all well,I have been reading posts for sometime and just want to say thanks for Sharing your knowledge, experiences and expertise
Now here’s the situation I am building a CNC Router, work envelope of 62” x 98” with ball-screws and linier slides on all axes dual ball-screws on the x with a slave motor
 I’m also using servo motors and gecko drives
The machine is about 75% complete
And I’m working on the controller
I have heat sinks for all the drives, my power supply, my control box, fans for cooling, sensors for over travel and homing,
Touch screen, 7.5HP Colombo spindle and VFD, vacuum pump
But I have not purchased breakout board
Because I do not know what board or combination of boards I need
I have read so much material that I just don’t know how to make a decision on what I need
So I’m asking for help
I will tell what I want to control from my touch screen
1.   Vacuum hold down
2.   Spindle off and on
3.   Spindle speed VFD voltage 0 to 10 (do not want to use a pot)
4.   Home machine From Touch screen and home individual axes at my discretion 
5.    Also turn off and on dust collection
6.   E-stop reset
7.   Tool height touch off plate
8.   Pop up Material Locating pins I have built into my table I don’t think machine should move while locating pins are in the up position (all axes disabled when locating pins are activated) 
9.   I also have a pendant
I have looked at all kinds of boards just don’t know what to buy to get me where I want to go using Mach3
10.   I will be adding a forth Rotary axes (technically 5th axes)

Any help would be appreciated   
Thanks
 Marvin (Rusty) Bowling
 
 

 


 

 :-\
Re: Hi All, I need help Desperately (Building controller)
« Reply #1 on: August 04, 2009, 09:57:54 PM »
hi,

i am using cnc4pc's c23 dual port board combined with a smooth stepper with good result. the two boards snap together without the need of a cable. you also don't need a parallel port since it is usb, so if you are using a newer computer or will in the futur, this is a good thing. you get analog output for your vfd, plus a lot of i/o for your limit switches. there is two relay for your vacuum and hold down pins. i would use these small relay to drive larger one tough if you have a lot of amps going thru. before i had another breakout board using the parallel port and was never able to get stable spindle speed with the analog out.

you might consider installing the vfd in its own box and use reactor and emf filter, these vfd make a lot of electrical noise and was a good source of frustration for me before i did.

for a pendant, i use a shuttle pro and a shuttle express, these work very very well, it made all the difference in the way i use my lathe. i used two different mpg type pendants before and its like night and day. the only drwback is that they are not buit for the shop and are fragile. i am considering building an aluminum envelop to protect it.
Re: Hi All, I need help Desperately (Building controller)
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2009, 09:09:27 AM »
Thanks that is the Info I'm looking for.
I will be posting Pics of my machine in the future
could you send a link and a picture of pendant
I also have access to precision sheet metal shop
my best Friend runs one this is a shop to die for 90,000 sq feet
i can get him to design a case for pendant
Where are you located
Thanks Rusty
Re: Hi All, I need help Desperately (Building controller)
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2009, 10:16:34 AM »
this is the link to contour design shuttle pro, i don't know if the shuttle express still exist. this is a usb device, so you don't need any adapter or card in your pc. there is a plug-in in mach3 that takes two minutes to configure and you get 15 buttons you can use to do wathever you want like start/stop spindle, vacuum, select axis... the usb cable is very weak, if i could find a better one, i would change it.

http://ergo.contourdesign.com/products/product-detail.aspx?id=39

simon