Hey Brian/art

 Just got my knee retro going last night and WOW!!

I have already noticed some funkyness with the grex and mach 4. I understand it is still in alpha and am looking forward to the new plug arcatcure and the g100 rewrite.

My plan for today is to get the limits and home switch wiring up and running and was wondering if it is even supported in the current release. With the speeds and power i have going i really want some kind of safety on this machine. If they arn't going on the grex side then i will probably wire them directly to the servo controllers as a "STOP"  just for a little protection from a runaway grex.

Art: so far thing are looking Great!! keep up the good work. I would be happy to ship you a case of beer if that that would help the plug in work go a little faster!
Another question, do the encoder inputs to the grex work yet? If so what pins should i use? My drives have encoder outputs and I would like to hook them up for a dro in manual mode..

Brian: I basically did what you did to your mill. I am using Baldor microflex drives and 1.1 kw ac servos. WOW. I guess the old adage is true. You get what you pay for.

chad

 

OOPS forgot:

Art, When can i send you some money. I would like to get over the 1k gcode limit and start making some stuff.

chad

Sorry yet another question. I have a vfd (wthout encoder) and and it can accept prettty much any input. What is the best way for me to implement it with the g rex? Are the analog outputs working yet?


Sorry for all the questions but documentation is a little scarse on this thing, And i can't just call up art and bug him

chad

We are just about to start the rewrite of the Grex The Grex is going to be a plugg in so you can modify it as you see fit... This is going to take some time but I can tell you that all the problems will be fixed when the plug in is done.

Thank you
Brian


PS as for hooking up the VFD i would use the 0-5V out of the Grex

HI, What do I need configure to tell mach 4 to use the 0-5 analog out?


chad

Hi Chad.

I came across your post about having Microflex Drives on your mill.  I'm about to retro a Wells-Index vintage 1979 CNC mill fitted with the bad 'ol Boss I controls. The controls will be ripped out soon, along with the drives and motors, and I will be replacing them with Mach 3 and Microflex 9A drives.  I have not yet decided on the motors.  Can I ask what you are using - you say 1.1 kW - are these Baldor?

Thanx

KevinW

Hi, Yes they are baldor motors and cables. They have been rock solid. I have zero complaints about them. I have a 2:1 reduction on them and have been able to reach 420 ipm rapids. I probably could get them faster but that is scary at those numbers. I usually run about half that. Took me about 5 minutes per drive to configure..  In other words I am happy with them.

Baldor is not very good about wattage ratings or horsepower so i did some rough math and came up with that number.

I used
http://www.baldor.com/products/servomotors/c_series/bsm_cseries_spec.asp?CatalogNumber=BSM80C-375AF

Here are some pictures of our mill (about half way down the page).

http://www.artsoftcontrols.com/forum/index.php?topic=627.10

Make sure you order the microflex drives with the step and dir inputs and not the analog 0-10 in.

Chad