Dyna 2400 and SmoothStepper

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I posted this on CNCZone and teh Warp9 forum too but I just get so darn excited when the SS breaths new life into an old machine! 

After scanning the Dyna 2400 manuals recently to make them available to others on CNCZone I got to thinking about the 2400 I have at work and the SmoothStepper I have from a project last year.

I converted this Dyna 2400 to Mach a few years ago. Basically the whole machine is stock but the controller and distribution board were stripped off. I made my own opto-isolated break out board that all the stock wiring plugs in to. With this set up and Mach in 'Sherline' mode to stretch out the step pulses I could very reliably get 10 IPM. Fifteen IPM was possible but the phase jitter of the parallel port, evident by tiny little popping sounds from each axis, worried me.

I got out the SmoothStepper board, upgraded Mach to the latest lock-down and cloned the existing mill profile and changed the motion control device to the SS. After diagnosing a loose fuse causing the machine not to power up I tested the jogging and it looked like everything worked fine. I ran the velocity on X&Y up to 30IPM (Z to 20IPM) and everything runs great, really SMOOTH no more little popping sounds. At 40IPM it was sounding rough as it was really pushing the stock steppers and drivers.

So, about 15 minutes of time and the traverse speed was tripled. I'll do some cutting with it next week but suspect that it should be able to easily cut at 20IPM now.

Jeff

I am an Industrial Technology teacher in a small Minnesota town. I have 2 Dyna Mills ( 2400 and 2200) that I would like to make work with the Mach software. I teach Electronics and Metals classes and with budgets being the way they are I would love to retrofit these mills so that they can be used more efficiently than with the original Dyna software and a 486 machine. I have been in teaching for the last 34 years and have not got into the programmable logic controllers and steppers.

I need to know what I need for controllers, driver boards and steppers as well as a hint or 2 on how it needs to go together. I would appreciate any help you can give me!

Thanks a million!