Another Banana Bender's Build !!!

[epineh]

I have been a little busy but during the week I thought I would make up the PCB's to test, went to fire up the ol Dremel and...it is dead

Talk about a piece of junk, I have used it once to drill out a PCB about the same size as the ones in the photo's above, and it has sat there for about 6 months since then, one use from new isn't really anything impressive.

I talked to a few mates and the story is the same, either the really flimsy speed control switch burns out or it just hums and gets hot...

Good news is that I dismantled it in an effort to try fixing it and noticed the shaft is about 1/4 inch, a quick measure with verniers show it is 6mm exactly, very handy since my first router has a 6mm collet as well as 1/4, plan now is to cut the shaft out of the dremel and it will "plug" into the router and let me drill out the PCB's using CNC, sounds like a plan.

Cheers.

Russell.

[amishx64]

Hey why don't you just take apart the part with the speed control (it is going to be a simple potentiometer), take it out and solder the wires back together without it? I would do that as a temporary solution and then maybe use it on the machine when you need it.

[epineh]

Tried that, the problem with mine isn't the speed control, don't know what it was, and now I have kinda cut the end of the shaft away to allow me to put into a drill press, little agricultural I know but I now have the PCB's drilled and ready to populate

Cheers.

Russell.

[Jay C]

Share some photos of the disection And the brushes were replaceable if it's not the switch. I've owned my Model 300 for 10+ years and still on the same set of brushes, but I don't use it continuously. You want a nicer replacement Proxxon IB/E.

Jay

[epineh]

I wouldn't think it is the brushes, the thing had five minutes use from new, if they wear out that fast then they are not worth buying...

Out of interest, where is your Dremel made ? Mine was made in Mexico, don't know if that affects the quality.

Cheers.

Russell.

[Jay C]

I looked, but can not find a "Made In" sticker or stamping anywhere.

[epineh]

No worries, thanks for looking, I will post a pic of the "liberated" shaft, the rest got thrown out (before you requested a photo), I am trying to reduce clutter in the shed...much cheaper than building a bigger one

I got a couple of heatsinks from PC CPU's today, I will start assembling the PCB's tonight and hopefully be able to get a bit closer to testing the power stage.

Cheers.

Russell.

[epineh]

Got all resistors except the sense resistor soldered on tonight, capacitors tomorrow...need sleep.

I don't have any sense resistors yet, the circuit calls for 15mOhm non inductive, gotta find me a couple of those.

Russell.

[Jay C]

Russ, any update?

[epineh]

Hi Jay, sorry but nothing to report, I have been sidetracked with work and an electronics project that should have been finished about a month ago...

Ironically as of last night I had decided to shelve the "little side project" last night and get back into building this machine. I still have a lot of drilling and tapping to do and that should get two of the axis moving at least.

The Z is mostly finished (thanks Chich ! ) and should basically bolt on. I guess I should get a servo drive design printed out and start testing, may make for a nice change from all that drilling and tapping

Cheers.

Russell.

[epineh]

Well no photo's but some links, I have started to look more seriously at the pendant, I really like the one Frank is using for his lathe... :

http://www.franksworkshop.com.au/CNC...thePendant.htm

I can get a 128 by 64 backlit LCD that will fit in the same pendant for about 30 bucks, I just need to look at what I can fit on it before I commit to going that way, I can either use Franks really nice software for pendants :

http://generichid.sourceforge.net/

or possibly use the HIDCOMP software he has written to configure all the HID descriptors for EMC to make life easier :

http://hidcomp.sourceforge.net/

(There are some screenshots about half way down that page)

Ultimately I would love to get rid of the monitor and keyboard entirely ( I know Rod will jump on me for saying that ) and be able to do everything with the pendant. That is the plan for now, I will still have the keyboard/monitor for starters but plan to drop them off as soon as I can.

Also I am thinking of ditching the switchboards I have and start from scratch and build a box section frame and use the original switchboard I was going to use, not sure if I have put a photo up of it but I will once I have something to show.

Also some drilling and tapping would probably help a lot as well

Cheers.

Russell.

[Rodm1954]

Russell,
Feel suitably squashed.
Very nice pendant though.

[epineh]

Ha ha...that is what I was after

And if I ditch that idea and stick a monitor and keyboard on permanently you can say "I told you so ! "

Cheers.

Russell.

[epineh]

Drill drill drill... tap tap tap... drill drill drill... tap tap tap...

At least things are happening, no photo's yet as it looks pretty much the same, next week should see some changes.

Russell.

[epineh]

Slight detour, although I am still very keen to get this project going, I have wandered a little, and will be spending some time on another little project that I am sure will help me get this one going.

Here is what I am blabbing about :

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96827

I hope you all understand

Cheers.

Russell.

[epineh]

I have been doing a lot of work lately and it has got in the way of all the fun stuff...

Tonight I braved the rain and walked to the shed armed with a brand new laptop HDD and stuck it into the new PC I had built, within about 10mins I had the latest Linux Ubuntu desktop up and running, in fact I am using it to type this, while listening to the deafening rain falling onto the roof.

The plan is to either run my CNC software natively in Ubuntu or run virtualbox and have a virtual machine running the software.

I have been doing some work for my mate that did the design for this machine, quite a lot in fact, on top of my day job so spare time has been non existent, but for payment I am getting a dynamotion KFlop and Kanalog setup and he will do the remaining mechanical's on the router...pretty good deal all round !

The Kflop has some impressive features, s curve acceleration, fast pulse generation, it will read encoders directly and take care of all PID functions with software included for tuning, the list goes on and I will show what I can once it is up and running. It plugs in via USB and this will mean I can run on a desktop machine, laptop, whatever I prefer, no latency problems, no fast PC required.

Going now to try get a virtual machine going and run the controller software, this may take a few beers

Russell.

[RomanLini]

Cool thread! This is the first time I have seen it.

Is the holdup with the software?

[epineh]

Hi Roman, the holdup has mainly been me being too busy with other things, but I have done some more with the software, here are some photo's...install went smoothly in Ubuntu using WINE.

I have to see if the controller software will work in hardware before I get too excited but I have to say things are looking good so far.

Plan B is to use virtualbox and build a virtual XP install, but if it works natively then I am ready to rock and roll with this !

As a side note, I am using Ubuntu version 10.04 LTS, and it is one sweet operating system, boots in about 10 seconds and is very slick indeed.

Cheers.

Russell.

[epineh]

Hmm, it seems the USB driver is going to be the problem that stops me from running the controller software directly in linux, it doesn't look like there is any USB driver support for hardware specific functions, for devices that require the exact USB driver and not a generic one.

Looks like virtual machine it is...

Russell.

[epineh]

Alrighty then, I have successfully run virtualbox software, installed a version of XP, and got it to load the dynamotion software and it connected to the controller board.

I guess some may ask why not just use an outright XP machine and be done with it. Well I have a plan to use the PC for more than just the controller software. In an effort to minimize floor space used with machinery in my shed I would like to use the PC as an internet machine as well, so I can post on the Zone while I am making parts

Linux is just so bulletproof as far as an operating system goes and is looking very polished these days, I used to have internet on my previous router (probably still do if I hook it back up again) and it was very handy.

The beauty of the KFlop is that all the trajectory planning, tuning, pulse generation or PWM output is done in hardware, so the only connection to the PC is via USB without the need for any tweaking of any sort on the host computer...or in my case the virtual host computer, lol.

The package I am using has the Kanalog as well, this is basically an overgrown BOB with every input/output known to man, also it can be programmed with C code to do special functions, the code resides onboard, pretty sweet.

I have ordered two servo's from Keling tonight, they are a bit larger than I really need for this build as they didn't have the ones I wanted in stock and I am impatient The plan will most likely be to drive the ballscrew directly as they will have ample torque for this machine, a quick calculation gives me 3200rpm with 10mm pitch on the ballscrews, so I should expect 32metres/minute...eek, well at least the estop won't be needed, at that speed and 800 by 400 mm of travel the crash will be over before I can hit the button, lol.

Russell.