gecko G320 ERR/RES & c10 bob

[diycnc]

what is the easiest way to hook the G320 ERR/RES terminal to the c10 breakout board?

i have 3pcs 320 drives and want to hook them up in such a way that the machine stops when any of them fault out.

i have everything else wired except this.

also should the c10 5v negitive lead be tied to the drives 72v negitve lead?

[diycnc]

i have found that i cant supply the 5v to triger the err/res off my breakout board. the problem is that the internal supply in the geko is producing over 8v on the encoder output, my breakout board is powered of a simple 7805 regulator that produced 4.98v. the 3v diffrence causes the light to act weird and not shut off untill the power is removed. it goes bright and even brighter..

will the 8v harm my encoders? should i just wire them off my 7805 regulator?

why is the voltage so high off the gekos?

[Torchhead]

Originally Posted by diycnc i have found that i cant supply the 5v to triger the err/res off my breakout board. the problem is that the internal supply in the geko is producing over 8v on the encoder output, my breakout board is powered of a simple 7805 regulator that produced 4.98v. the 3v diffrence causes the light to act weird and not shut off untill the power is removed. it goes bright and even brighter.. will the 8v harm my encoders? should i just wire them off my 7805 regulator? why is the voltage so high off the gekos?

Maybe it's the fact they use a different common (return) source? The Step & dir to a Gecko are through optos. The internal bus (ENC-) is tied to DC Neg in the Gecko. That may or may not be anywhere close to the logic ground side on the PC. Even if you tie the DC Neg on your motor supply to the same basic ground as the PC, there can be all kinds of noise across the two connections. The back side of the Geckos are anodized (insulator) so just screwing them down to a heatsink grounded to a chassis may not connect them or at best (worst) only through small areas where the screws break through the anodizing.

It's never a good idea to try and tie the Err/Res pin directly to an opto and the internal +5 for the Gecko (which if you pull your common connections loose and measure between Enc + and Enc - will be 5 V) only has a few mills of drive capability. It's there to power the encoders and will only do that if they are low current models.

I can tell you this: IF you read 8 volts across the Enc+ and Enc - you are going to destroy the internal logic in the Gecko's. (ask me how I know (:-)_

TOM Caudle
www.CandCNC.com

[diycnc]

my grounds are tied together.

i think the voltage floats with no load after re reading the instructions it says that you need a resistor across the encoder leads if no encoder is hooked up i was testing this on the bench with nothing hooked up but power and that is probably my problem..

i hope that didnt fry it.. it was only powered for a few seconds.

Originally Posted by Torchhead Maybe it's the fact they use a different common (return) source? The Step & dir to a Gecko are through optos. The internal bus (ENC-) is tied to DC Neg in the Gecko. That may or may not be anywhere close to the logic ground side on the PC. Even if you tie the DC Neg on your motor supply to the same basic ground as the PC, there can be all kinds of noise across the two connections. The back side of the Geckos are anodized (insulator) so just screwing them down to a heatsink grounded to a chassis may not connect them or at best (worst) only through small areas where the screws break through the anodizing. It's never a good idea to try and tie the Err/Res pin directly to an opto and the internal +5 for the Gecko (which if you pull your common connections loose and measure between Enc + and Enc - will be 5 V) only has a few mills of drive capability. It's there to power the encoders and will only do that if they are low current models. I can tell you this: IF you read 8 volts across the Enc+ and Enc - you are going to destroy the internal logic in the Gecko's. (ask me how I know (:-)_ TOM Caudle www.CandCNC.com