Youre right limit switches, motor overload etc is 110v that goes into FC5 (Feed contactor 5).

FC5 will shut down power to the Bosch drives at any hint of trouble.

Ive got the original SEM motors and put new encoders on. I may have set these at too higher a resolution
though at 2048 lines. As x4 quadrature is 8192 pulses per revolution. That means 3276.8 per mm. The motors are 'hunting'
a bit, less than a micron, but I'm thinking a lower res would stop this?

Ive done the same as you, put in a new 24v supply for the 24v relays. All good.

What im really wondering though is how you actually made the 'drive enable' signals work? Did you have to write a macro
or something? I cant see an option in the CSMIO plugin. Theres a 'drive reset' checkbox... is this it?

Incidentally, I was able to adjust kV on the bosch drives by adjusting Pot 23 and tuning in the CSMIO plugin. Turning pot 23 clockwise
reduces Kv and anticlockwise increases it. 1 turn is about 0.04  I managed to get kV pretty much bang on 1.00 this way.

I'm uploading the Bosch manual if youre interested in this stuff...

John

I have just been looking at the notes i made in my Mach 3 manual.
On the CSMIO, digital output pins 2, 15 and 3 are connected to the three axis enables respectively so when mach 3 is reset, it is set to enable these via mach 3 config. outputs.
I have used CSMIO pin 16 to do the same for DC interlock enable.
Straightforward as those relays are all 24volt that CSMIO handles nicely.

From memory, I have added an extra 110v relay in the limit switch line so that any emergency stop on the 110 side will also trigger an emergency stop on the 24 volt and mach 3 side as well. If that makes sense?

My encoders are set to 2048 and seem to work fine. I have tuned the motors via CSMIO and nothing else. Maybe I was lucky?

Les

Another thought.
Would my mach 3 config. file be of use to you?

Ta for getting back to me Les. Ive been overthinking this a little bit.

I reckon on the TNC145 I had, the x-release, y-release, z-release relays
would have been energised if:

A) youre running a program
B) youve pressed the 'hand' button or the 'wheel 'button' to jog.

So if we want to emulate this in mach, code can be written to energise the relays upon program run, and we'd
have to have a panel switch for 'jog enable'

If Mach energised the relays every time a jog button was pressed they'd be clicking on and off like god
knows what. Not possible.

Question is, is there any point in doing this anyway? Is there any point in having 5FC energised without x-release,
y-release, z-release? Why did Heidenhain do this? Is it a safety thing? I have noticed a large power surge when 5FC
engages though.

Anyway. See what i mean about overthinking? What im going to do is make the provision for a 'jog enable' switch
and leave it for a bit. Ive got some 'digital out's for lights in the pendant already.

Regarding the E-stop, Im doing exactly the same. Sending a signal from 110v to Mach, I'll do the other way a well.
So if Mach E stops, it shuts down 110v.


I spent time on motor tuning as ive replaced all the SEM motors and one drive, so nothing would have been tuned together
originally. But I was pretty lucky as well .It works.

Encouraging to know youre on 2048 lines as well. I thought id overdone it. I'd be lucky to pull 0.01mm anyway.

I'd find your mach 3 config file very useful. Im running mach 4 but for feeds, acceleration etc i can just plug that lot in!

Great!

Cheers Les,

John

Mine was a 155, don't know how much different that is?
Not much I think?

Given that anything you want to do, either set-up or run, will require the servo drives it seems sensible to enable them all the time that the reset buttons are set.

In order to use my machine I do the following:-
Turn on the power at the isolator to bring on all the background power and the CSMIO.
Then boot up the computer, then load Mach3.
Mach 3 loads with a flashing reset button.
Reset and all the enables come in.
Press the servo on button to power up the motor drives.
Then perform a "reference all axes".
At this point I can jog with the joysticks at whatever speed I last used on my wireless controller and/or use the controller itself for positioning.

To run a program I load it into Mach 3, press the old start button to power up the spindle drive and fan ready (green button goes out) then hit program run in mach 3.

I am still using my SEM motors, I just machined the end of the spindle on each one and fitted new encoders inside the housing, together with a line driver chip.

As an aside, I put my TNC155 unit on eBay and got £800 for it. Covered almost all of my upgrade costs!

I have attached my latest Mach3 config file.

Regards,
Les

Thanks Les, much appreciated. it makes sense now.

Ive still got SEM motors. I had a problem with a drive that stabbed the
x motor beyond repair. ouch. I sourced a new bosch drive. And then I got
hold of 4 SEM motors with new encoders (same as yours i reckon, with the line
driver chip that wont fit in the endcap) for 500 quid. Now I have spares!

How is that wireless controller? Is it laggy at all when touching off etc?
Looks like a bargain considering the CS Labs one is 300 quid.

An old stainless steel 'internet kiosk' keyboard arrived today for 35 quid.
Waterproof. And it has a trackball. Another bargain.

Im just setting up a solid state micro pc to run windows 10 as i write this.

Reckon I'll be making parts again next week which will be a massive relief.

Thanks for the config. Not sure where to look for feedrates and acceleration but
I'll look more closely tomorrow..

Cheers

John

If you use that config file to open as a "new" milling machine in Mach 3, you can see all the settings in their proper places without having to try and read the file?

I find the wireless remote quite good for general positioning. It goes down so low that you can position perfectly. Being USB, I can also easily swap it to my other machines, also on Mach 3. Beware though, I think these controllers are for specific Machs, either 3 or 4 but not both?
That said, I have made a digital probe and now use that for location in conjunction with software from craftyCNC.com.
I went the other way with keyboards, I don't have one. I got a brand new 15" touch screen from ebay for £80 and use the onscreen keyboard.
I am using the guts from an ancient PC on Windows XP crammed into the Bridgeport control box. It works well as the CSMIO really does all the hard work.

Les

Thanks Les, Ill install mach 3 and have a look. Very handy.

Might very well get the wireless remote. Seems like its cheap and best.

Went well today. Im putting in a soft start for the drive transformer, have had some issues
with it blowing a fuse in the consumer unit when it powers up. Happens about 50% of the time.
i hope it works.

Im astounded you got £800 for the TNC. Did you include the VDU or did you sell that seperately?
My 145 is a bit crapppier... only 1 program of 1000 lines and no drip feed. 2.5D as well.

I'll post updates..

John

I had some issues with power when I first got my machine.
The earth leakage breaker didn't like it, I tried a 300mA breaker instead of the 30mA but it still wasn't happy so it has a straight supply via a 32 amp breaker now and is fine.
When you first turn it on there is quite a power surge.

With no drip feed a TNC wouldn't be much use, though it costs nothing to list it and see? Start it at 200 quid?
I only sold the TNC. The CRT screen had packed up. That was the start of the whole episode!
It was £931 for a new updated screen. I tried various screen conversion circuits and got a poor result. That triggered the whole upgrade.

Les

I put in the soft start. An SSC-25. Its fine starting up, no fuses blowing, but bloody hell you dont want this thing in after startup. It creates so much noise on the line the drives dont work properly. So you have to switch it out after startup. Ive got a delay relay on order. i've been testing today with a switch  to manually bypass it. Works fine.

Other issues ive fixed today... CSMIO reporting 'trajectory buffer underrun'.. Now i had this before when running it on a laptop. Which I fixed by re installing the LAN driver. This time i fixed it by running:

Mach4GUI.exe  and  Mach4GUIR.exe

in administrator mode. works fine now.

New issues today are Z axis 'hunting' 0.01mm and maybe Mach misbehaving running a program.

I think ill put the VDU and the TNC on for 200 each!

Cheers

John