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Author Topic: Intermittent problem connecting Mach3 to board  (Read 3622 times)

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Intermittent problem connecting Mach3 to board
« on: November 29, 2015, 01:56:03 PM »
Hi folks. I've recently acquired a Bridgeport Series 1 w/ variable speed head converted to CNC. There wasn't much documentation on anything, but it appears I have 1200 oz-in Nema 34 motors (4-wire, part # 86HS114DF05D) connected to a 4-axis blue TB6560 board. I'm running latest Mach3 v3 through a PCI card for parallel. I metered some of the pins and they seem to be putting out 3.3V. With a lot of guesswork and googling, I finally figured out that the motor output pins are :

axis step dir
x 3 2
y 5 4
z 7 6

When I start the computer the motors always lock up. When I open up Mach3 sometimes it connects and motors stay locked up and I can jog, and sometimes it doesn't and motors unlock. When it doesn't, I change Z dir pin to 1, and then only Z- works jog and none of the others work. Then I change it back to 6 and then all of a sudden all of the other motors work again.

I've been playing with the output signals to try to figure out if I need to enable anything. I believe I had it at:

enable1 port 1 pin 14
enable2 port 1 pin 2
enable3 port 1 pin 6
output1 port 1 pin 9

But I don't think this can be right because pin 2 appears to be x dir.

Offline Tweakie.CNC

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Re: Intermittent problem connecting Mach3 to board
« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2015, 02:09:28 AM »
Those blue board controllers have a shaky reputation at best - if you don't manage to get everything working in a reasonable time period it may be best to junk the board in favor of Gecko (or similar) http://www.geckodrive.com/

My initial thoughts are that your blue board may require the older 5 volt TTL standard for it's inputs and is having difficulties with handling 3.3 volts TTL. I would be inclined to fit a new parallel port card (which has 5 volt TTL output) to the PC and see if that resolves the problem (if it does then it is a quick and cheap solution if it doesn't then not much has been lost).

Tweakie.
PEACE
Re: Intermittent problem connecting Mach3 to board
« Reply #2 on: November 30, 2015, 02:17:23 AM »
Thanks for your reply! That's what I figured. Do you know of a list somewhere of cards that have the 5V TTL output? When I shop around no one lists the voltage output spec that I can find.

The board/driver combo seems to be only able to output 3.5A to the motors anyway, so they seem a bit underpowered. I have a couple CW8060s originally meant for another project, which can put out 6A and 24-70V. Do you have a recommendation for good breakout board suitable for these motors? If I'm gonna upgrade I don't want to get something that wastes the motors' potential.
Re: Intermittent problem connecting Mach3 to board
« Reply #3 on: November 30, 2015, 03:49:50 AM »
Found Rosewill RC-304, which I believe will supply 5V output. There is a $10 breakout board on eBay that apparently only requires 5V power from USB cable to computer. Not sure if that will work or not.

Offline Tweakie.CNC

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Re: Intermittent problem connecting Mach3 to board
« Reply #4 on: November 30, 2015, 04:20:13 AM »
Regarding PCI parallel port cards, this thread may be of interest   http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,11300.0.html

No idea about that breakout board because I have never tried it.

Tweakie.
PEACE

Offline RICH

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Re: Intermittent problem connecting Mach3 to board
« Reply #5 on: November 30, 2015, 06:46:11 AM »
The Rosewill RC-304 dual PP card is what I current use and would recommend it.

RICH
Re: Intermittent problem connecting Mach3 to board
« Reply #6 on: December 03, 2015, 05:02:54 AM »
Great success! RC-304 pci card works great and supplies proper 5V. CW8060 driver (and 60V power supply) more than doubles speed from 70 to 200 ipm. Mach3 seems to be interfacing consistently. I would recommend dedicated 5V power supply to BoB rather than hooking up USB to computer for power.

Diagram for this board in case anyone needs it:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Mv8mCXMVKUo/maxresdefault.jpg

Thanks guys!