Newbie- First CNC Build- Joe's

[Ohioflyer]

Time for an update,

I re-fabbed the stepper mount brackets. I was able to reduce the size of the Y bracket by about 3/4", this will let me spring load the lead-screw if it decides its going to whip like the x does. I sent a email to Dumpster Cnc about the 8-lead backlash nuts but so far no response. I used the shorter bracket on the z stepper as well. For some reason with the lower bearing block per plans my router with a bit in it would not reach the theoretical table depth. By switching the bearing block to the under side of the carriage I got the additional depth, but the lead-screw was already cut so I needed the shorter stepper mount. The stepper bracket for the x axis had to be made even shorter than the other two. My table is so long I had to put both bearing blocks on the inside of the table in order to have enough lead-screw length to reach.

At this point I'm pretty much away from any plans. I'm into wiring and software I suppose. As such I went ahead and wired the plugs onto the steppers and started on the gantry wiring harness. It looks like the plugs are going to work nicely. I'm not going to be able to wire things precisely the way I envisioned but things should still be very ship shape. I have accomodated for the ac power, y axis stepper, z axis stepper, limit switches and home switches. It has my drag chain pretty full. If I need to run more circuits I suppose I'll have to pull the SJ and run individual wires for the ac. I also wired up the table, that is to say I ran the electrics for the X axis, as well as the E-stop buttons, which reminds me, I bought the really cheap ebay buttons, if you're considering this DON'T! One works, the other works only when not mounted. For some reason mounting it distorts the frame to the point to where it will not lock in the engaged position. I can probably cobble a fix for it but this is not a place I like to take chances. Have not figured a solution yet beyond a pricey good quality switch.

The next step is to make some brackets for the drag chain. I think I have things figured the way I want them, after that the machine box...

Will try to get some pics up

[Ohioflyer]

Lets see, today I finished up a lot a wiring. I was able to make the brackets I needed to hold the drag chain. Both the X and Y axis needed brackets, the z axis was pretty easy, a few mods were needed here and there on the chain itself to get a few of the end pieces to bend back at 90, but nothing major. The hardest thing was getting the x axis chain loaded, its really tight, should have got the next size up I suppose. I used all 18 gauge (except for the ac) that I got from a supplier on ebay, 100' each of eight different colors. Turned out to be plenty as well as giving me good color coding. The only problem was that the wire I bought was in bulk, didn't think at the time how handy spools of wire are. It took me probably an extra hour to pull the harnesses, not being able to pull all the required wires at once. Oh well, saved a few bucks I guess. I have dedicated stepper colors, and dedicated limit and home switch colors as well. I'm numbering them as well, an old habit I guess, when I get everything done I'll make a master schematic and stick it on the machine somewhere. That way when I make the inevitable change I won't have to worry if I can remember correctly. My Limit switches [I]still[I] have not arrived. That's the only bit of wiring left to do on the machine itself but I'm sure setting them up will be fiddly. Which reminds me, was thinking about limit and home switches. The reading I have done says that the limit switches should be a little further out than the home switches. I don't have any fancy optical or proximity switches, so if I'm using micro switches how do I keep the home switch levers being broken or bent if the thing at some point runs all the way to a limit?

So up next is the machine box. Hopefully I can get that wired up tomorrow as well as loading up my old pc w/ Linux Cnc, I think I'll start with the free stuff and see how far I get. As far as Cad/Cam I've been looking at the Vetric web site, I get the impression it's pretty easy to work with, might give the trial version a go.

Oh, those new brackets will get painted eventually, but right now I like them where they are.

[racedirector]

Wow Ohio, that is some impressive work! Your machine is looking like the bees knees now, I bet you can't wait to start cutting things with it Keep up the great work and build progress, I am enjoying it very much.

Cheers
Bruce

[Ohioflyer]

Thanks Very much Racedirector. I actually considered doing a black-yellow theme (bumblebee) I've always thought it was hot. Just decided it might be a little much on the eyes.

So today I got to the machine box. It wired up about as I expected. The plugs are working out great as I will be able to disconnect all the various components. I just feel like I've soldered about a million little pins at this point. But thankfully I think I'm done with that now. A quick side, I did not buy the crimp tool required for the pins that I used, I don't know how much it costs and do not care to. The connection requires a crimp on the copper, as well as on the insulation for strain relief. On all of my connections I cut off the strain relief crimp tab, crimped the copper with a pair of needle nose, and then soldered the joint. For a connection that is not going to be used a lot I believe it should be just fine, a word or caution though, use a light touch with the solder as you do not want the male/female pins to be crudded up with solder. Also you have to be careful that the copper does not extend AT ALL beyond the crimp, especially on the male pin/female plug, as it will not want to clip into place.

I believe I mentioned earlier that I accomodated for both limit and home switches in my wiring harnesses. I have reached a point where I do not know how to procede with the home switches. Its quite clear how to do limit switches with my C10 bob, but home switches are not so clear. I accomodated three pairs of wires for the homes so they could be wired in parallel, as that is how I thought they had to be wired, now with the reading I've done it is not so clear. There seems to be a lot of conflicting idea's out there. Also I do not fully understand the various "pull down" "input" "output" jumper settings on my board, and how they affect operation. I guess I have more reading to do do. Have I mentioned that I am new to all this? So I have not wired any home switches into my machine box, mainly because I don't know how to.

The attached pics show my machine box totally wired (with the above exception) If things work when I hook them up I'll go ahead and build up the actual box. The orange wires on the left are for the power switch, I forgot to get one of those. Thinking a rocker switch will work nicely. On the right are all the outputs to the steppers, the limit switches are wired onto the same plug as the z axis stepper, to help prevent plugging things in incorrectly. I also made up an adapter to supply the bob board with power from the computer PS. I cut off a molex computer power connector and wired one of my 4 pin plugs, the 12v power from the molex plug is routed back into the machine box to power a cooling fan. I found an old Antec fan, it even has fan speed control so I can adjust as needed. Finally I did my best to keep the AC power wires to the PS isolated from the various signal wires to the steppers and control circuits.

I pulled out my old PC and started to build up the dedicated computer. I found an old IDE HD to use, but surprisingly I found a 320 GB, and A 300 GB HD that I had forgotten to pull, so my media center gets a surprise boost. The main problem I ran into came when it was time to boot the new system. I have TONS of old computer cords and cables. All of which have decided to hide from me. I cannot even find a power cord to see if the thing boots, let alone a VGA cord for the old monitor I dug out. So tomorrow I'll track that stuff down and load the os and software. I downloaded the Linux CNC v 10.04.

I think thats about it, as if thats not enough! hopefully this thing will be moving under its own power soon.

If there is anyone out there using a C10 Bob with series limit switches and separate parallel home switches I would love to hear from you or get a point in the right direction.

[atwooddon]

If you are using Mach3 to control your machine, I believe it can do the 'Home' function using the single X and Y limit switches without needing to add another set just for Homing.

Don

[TrickyCNC]

the LinuxCNC / EMC2 docs have a discussion on home and limit switches

I've only had a quick look through, but I think these is enough info there to wire the machine.

Also, as stated above, it may be possible to use your limit switches as your home.

Rich

[FannBlade]

Wiring looks good. Doesn't look like you are to far away from running it.

[ger21]

You can wire the home switches the same as the limit switches, or basically any way you want.

Do you want them to share a pin, or each use their own pins. If they share a pin, then it doesn't matter how they are wired, as the axis will need to home one at a time. Mach3 won't even know which switch is being triggered.

[Ohioflyer]

Well my limit switches FINALLY came in yesterday so I went ahead and wired them in. The machine box is all wired, and the computer built as well, I also tracked down a parallel cable (after diving all over town). So yesterday I connected everything up, double checked all my circuits, and started running Stepconf for EMC2. Guess what? Nothing! Dead machine. Clearly I don't know what I'm doing here. After reading a bunch of forums over at Linuxcnc to no avail I signed up. I needed to be approved by a monitor before I could post and that did not happen till this morning. I just posted my problem over there so hopefully I'll get it figured out. But also if anyone here has any ideas...

Ok, I have just completed a Joe's 2006 R2 three axis machine. I purchased a Keling three axis kit for it, consisting of a 9Amp PS, 3 425 in-oz steppers, 3 4030 drivers and a C10 bob.

The steppers are wired in bipolar Parallel, and the drivers are set to 1/4 step, at 3 Amps.

I have limit switches wired in series and wired in terminal 13 as per plans.

I have the E-stop wired to terminal 10 as per plans.

No home switches yet

I have the master enable switch wired to the EN terminal as per plas.

The steppers are all wired to terminal 2-7 as per plans.

My C10, and all three drivers give me solid red LED's, and the PS a solid Green.

I have not changed any jumpers from their factory settings on the C10, Pins 2-9 are set to output, Pull Down, Com=Grnd, ouptputs= pull down

I just installed EMC2 v2.4.3

I ran the Stepconf wizard , and when I try to test the axis I get no movement at all, on any of them, completely dead. I rechecked all of my wiring and it checks out, no crossed wires. When I ran the latency test it showed the max interval for base thread to be 29500, but the stepconf says the minimum is 30000, so I entered that.

Initially I configured the pins:

1-unused
2-x step
3-x dir
4-y step
5- y dir
6- z step
7- z- dir
8- unused
9- unused
10- e stop in
11- unused
12- unused
13- all limits
14- unused
15- unused
16- unused
17-unused

When this did not work I decided to try something simpler and disbled pins 10, and 13, so I just had the axis connected, again completely dead. I tried checking the "invert" box for pins 2-7, as the drivers show negative voltage on those pins, nothing. Several posts have talked about the enable terminal with the C10 board, I tried the above configs with the master enable switch both on and off, dead.

I even checked my motherboard bios to make sure the parallel port was not turned off or anything, and its listed at 378 on IRQ7.

I'm sure there is something very basic that I am not grasping here, I believe my setup is about as simple as it gets. If anyone could help I would very much appreciate it.


Also a job I've been waiting on just came through, so I have this weekend to get her rolling, after that it could be months before I can get back to it.

Forgive the tape, I'm out of two hole straps. I'll clean up the wiring sood and make things more ship shape, but right now I just want to get the thing running!

[TrickyCNC]

I dont see an enable on your pin list. (aknowledge comes to mind for EMC, but it's been a while since I did mine. )

I'll check my pin settings in the morning and post them up here.

does your breakout board have led's to show what is going on ?

I would disconnect the switches for now, in case they are sending a stop signal somwhere.

Do the drivers have led's on to say they have good power and enabled ?

I presume you have a multimeter to check the power supply is supplying the correct voltage ?

Rich

[TrickyCNC]

I don't know what the time is where you are, but if it helps , I can go open up the workshop and check my settings tonight (it's night here) if that helps ?

Rich

[Ohioflyer]

You would be my hero, I have all day to do this