Hi there all,
currently I am still in testing phase for my electronics and electrical gear, reason why waiting for the M12x1 nuts to come from gods know where for my ballscrews on the retrofit, so i am stuck, mill in many pieces.

Anyway this is what I have the mill is a ZX30 drill / mill this is OK for now but later on hoping to build something bigger.
The computer is a Dell optiplex duo core set-up in 32 bit mode, windows 7 32 bit 4 gig of memory even though windows will not read it, do not care about that, solid state drive, just what is needed in a workshop.
Control gear is well the break out is a XHC USB breakout board, I have most inputs and outputs working on this and generally looks not to be to bad ( wait and see)
Stepper controllers are MA860H and some big steppers I bought about 5 years ago when I started thinking about this project, ran out of money and lost interest. These are supplied by a big transformer from my electrical mechanical days as a service dude.
Also a commander 1.5Kw single phase to 3 phase VSD inverter which will be driving a D90S framed 3 phase 1.1Kw motor 4 pole, this will be replacing the single phase motor, technically 2.5 more torque.
 


Now I am using Mach 3 demo, just so people know, love the program.

Now the problem.
I am hoping someone has done this and could help me out a little.
I need or would like to use the 0-10 volt VSD control out from the XHC breakout box.
I have done what is talked about in the manual with no luck, I have test gear to prove its not working without having to connect the VSD up good multimeter's and several different oscilloscopes all show I am NOT getting any output.

If some one has got this bit of magic working I would love to know, as my idea is call me nuts but for now use one setup of different machines, can not see a reason why not.

I will press on trying to work it out but.

I look forward to emails and ideas,

Paul

Hi there all,
I have only had one contact to help me out but it really did not help me out, fact needing to wait 9 weeks so I said dont worry.

Anyway I had a brain burst, and idea, now thes XHC mach 3 motion controllers or Break out Boards are not really well documented for people wanting to do something out of the ordinary.
Let me explain correctly. I do not want to step on toes or upset people.

I have the XHC BoB that has the 5 volt power input, its the OLD board, bought brand new at the start of the year.
If you want to control motors on and off that is easy, in fact 99% of the standard set-up works out of the box.
It is the 1% of people that want to SPEED control motors using a VFD (variable frequency drive).
I do not have 3 phase on the property I have and the cost to install is more than I would be happy to pay for and I am an industrial electrician.
So converting single to 3 phase is common and easy to do, with the right gear, well I own a speed controller that was pulled out so it was spare.
Now the instruction manual is poor for the XHC and the people there do not answer emails, well not mine, ;(.

So how did I get it working, believe it or not to easy, should of though of this before, but now I can share the ways the output works.
There are 3 terminals a
com which is 0v ie ground
VI which is the 0-10 volt output
and the VR terminal 10c-in yes thats right you guessed it.

well I spend days on and off trying to get a single volt out of the VI pin, then I shoved 10 volts on the VR pin PRESTO come to life.
Looks like the VI pin I though was a Volt Reference pin does a little more, lol.
egg on my face.

In Mach 3 it was simple.   
Go to Config/ then ports and pins then the spindle set-up
in the motor control area all I selected was the normal use spindle motor control and the PWM control, PWMBase Freq is currently 500 but will play with that and the minimum PWM is zero and I have the M3 and M4 selected for direction controls.
I really do not believe it.

I will document the complete process of this mill conversion as it should now have been the nightmare I have had doing it, I think it comes down trying to get parts with in Australia, third world countries have it easier.

Try this see if you can find a metric nut to suit a ball screw like M12 x 1mm pitch, a six week wait is not right. With that you can start to see my frustrations. Any way learning loads.

Cheers for now

Paul

Hi Paul,

I'm using XHC board too, and I'm having same problem figuring out the connection to my VFD so MACH3 can control the speed, possible for you to share a simple wiring diagram how you connect between the board and VFD?

attached is pic of my board and vfd terminals

thanks
Michael

I worked it out,

for my model of the XHC USB breakout, it is the older one.

Now I had to supply a pin with 10 volts to enable the 0-10 VFD out put, the pin is marked as

The adjustment in black, then as below

VR=10Vin          this where I had to  put 10 volts DC in
VI=0~10Vout    this is the 0-10 volts to the VFD unit
COM=0V           well guess the 0v reference from the supply to the VFD


what I did was to have a buck boost unit about 3 amps supply the VR pin with 10 volts spot on and the GND / 0V to the COM pin, I also have used this as the supply to the volt in for the unit, as mine was a 5 VOLT ONLY into, not marked as so is blew up the protection, lucky for me, but a new one was going to cost $$$ so I repaired it.

The unit has a spot for a small switch mode inside for like a higher voltage, the input tracks where vaporized as it was major, I was very upset thinking that it was toast, after finding a place to insert 5 volts and the GND, the unit powered up after removing the protection zener diode it did the job well, silicon heaven for it.

so after testing the unit, found to be working perfect, I made up a better power supply section and this allows me to put anything about 7.5 volts up to 24 if needed but it is a large volt drop and heat is needed to be reduced, I did not have a small buck boost to put in, but if I have to open it up again I will.
Anyway I bought the 3 axis unit thinking larger on I could buy a four or five unit, to my surprise I found out by stuffing around the unit can do 6 axis, yes that is right, some oscilloscope work for all is right, the holes for the opto-couplers where not soldered so I put sockets in and ordered 6 more, about $20, installed them and the unit is a 6 axis unit, SWEET.

Whilst testing the MILL, I had a blow up one of the drivers MA-860h let smoke out, lots of smoke, now this units have  put it nicely substandard heat sinking, I will explain, 4.4 amps OK for now, this was the Z axis.

The XHC unit is perfect and working well, I had a problem with one of the drives , every now and again it would go into error on power up, sometime not, so it was put into a easy to get to spot.
Now when I made the box up for the controllers and the power supplies, this is all forced air feed by two good 240 volt fans, lots of air.

Of course I tried to get a replacement unit because this blew up and there was a year warranty, well they did not want to give a new unit or fix, ebay messages, ebay did not want to help me, so using ebay support is a waste of time they look after the sellers not the buyers, even with there advertising on TV. Anyway after 2 months of not nice emails, I said give me a good price, NO freight and I will just buy it, I just got feed up, ebay sucks, then it took 5 weeks to get here, grrrr.
Australian customs are slowing down everything that is sold via ebay, they are making us pay import tax and GST on items, government trying to stop ebay, total ebay sales for Australia is about 1-2 % total profit for Australia.

Anyway after a lot of waiting, the PSU was a 3 month wait due to Chinese new year, even that I bought it a week before it, nothing happens for 4 weeks.

The MA860h now this is an argument waiting to happen, I hope people can answer this but think first.

OK you supply three MA860h's with 24 Volts with 30 amps supply, to a stepper with a part number of  KL34H260-42-8B specs are 465 oz/in at 6 amps in parallel bipolar which is about 1.62 volts per phase.

ok the maths remember ohms law and the power law.... v/i x r and p / v x i   well that is what I am using with this example.

so we have a stepper with a rating of 6 amps per phase with resistance of 0.27 ohms this works out to 1.62 volts. ok the maths 6amps X 0.27 ohms = 1.62 volts

the voltage drop that the mosfets have to do and the heat is now going to show up 24 volts from the big supply minus the voltage at the motor required  will equal the voltage drop OK

24 v - 1.62 v (from the stepper) = 22.38 volts this is the voltage drop, OK

well a little more maths its easy.. to show the heat to get rid of via the mosfets and that small heat sink and that stupid little fan they put on a joke if you ask me. remember P / V x I

22.38 volts drop X 6 amps per phase = 134.28 watts now this is heat, gotta get rid of some how.

Now the reason why I have spoken up about this, THEY want me to run the supply at 48 volts or higher, for what you ask, well they say it is the way it is always done, why prove it to me, they could not, these people sell loads of CNC gear and are well known, I am not going to say who they are just as professional not like the internet can be. so more maths ok I will be quick now

48 volts - 1.62 =  46.38 volts drop

then power

46.38 x 6 amps = 278.28 watts in heat

WHY ? the extra voltage, the machine runs fast and has a heap of torque due to a 2:1 reduction and a 5mm pitch ball screw so there is TONS I have tried to stall a motor and the mill has killed everything I would say the extra voltage is not need.

Now can I see if people know this or are people being led down the garden path.

Cheers all Paul

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the input, so you only have 3 connection between you xhc & vfd? if so now you spindle speed is controlled using mach3 am I rite?

I'm using their newer 4 axis compact model, 5v power is supplied by usb, should have pay bit more for their 4axis full size one so in future can try mod it 6 axis as what you done

I'm using 4A nema23 for all 3 axis and 3x 24v-80v drivers running 48v 10A psu, to be safe I set my drivers output to 3A below the stepper motor max amp, my drivers can support up to 6amp.

800w water cooled spindle with 1.5kw VFD.

so far so good and now going into next phase to upgrade the initial mdf board parts to aluminum, which having hard time getting them over here as no one want to sell small cuts... most likely have to buy from aliexpress 

Very nice work, send me a pic of your machine when you can,
I also found that the XHC unit sort of works with usb power but it did not allow the driver to be run, had to put voltage into the supply ie the 5 volt input, if you know what I mean?

So it could be used as a power kill to the driver part of the opto couplers, the XHC still is powered via the USB but just will show and error,

Cheers for now

paul

If not wrong I think full size board need external 5v supply, usb power is not enough to drive it.

here the photo of my machine when completed, is the biggest I can make them due to limited space and material resources, work piece size around 240mmx240mm, smaller then what I initial planned. the electronics are now in a nice small box I made from mdf board. 4th axis will be next after convert all mdf parts to alum parts.

do share your machine photo if possible, thanks.

Michael