Gene Machines OmniGrid 100

[william1384]

I got a "Gene Machines OmniGrid 100" at an auction earlier this year, its a
microarrayer, a piece of medical equipment, its made just like a CNC machine,
when I got it, the gantry and X axis were just piled lose into the plexiglass
enclosure, no computer and no table, just sitting on a pallet, I was told that
in another week or two it would have been scraped, sold for scrap metal.

I did get the controller box with power supply and servo motor drivers,
but was unable to get the computer or the rolling table the unit comes with.




Here is a list of parts I got with the unit.

The servo motors are:

X and Y axis motors = SM232BE-N10N - Peak Torque of 334 oz-in, weighs 3lbs
Z axis motor = CM162AE-01086

The rails are:

X and Y axis rails = 404600XRMS - they have a working length of 600mm / 23.622047in
Z axis rail = 404100XRMS - has a working length of 100mm / 3.937008in

The power supply is:

Astec 800w power supply, 60V @ 12A, 24V @ 4A, 5V @ 10A

The servo drivers are:

(x 3) OEM670T Torque Servo Drives

And lots of small pieces of T-slotted aluminum profile 1x1 inch, and various
related T-slotted aluminum profile hardware that went into the making the
OmniGrid's Plexiglas enclosure, the enclosure was so huge I had to dissemble it.


I was thinking of replacing the servos and drivers, with three KL-8060 Drivers
and three KL23H2100-35-4B stepper motors, and reusing the 60V power supply, I was
also thinking about putting the gantry on 20mm SBR Supported Linear Rails and
increasing the CNC size from around 24x30 inch to something like 24x48+, and I
was going to use a 1/2-10 five start lead screw to move the gantry, any ideas?


I posted some more info some time ago in this post made by someone else
who also got one.

Communicating with 3-Axis Microarrayer Via SCSI

Here are two Youtube videos of an OmniGrid 100 being used.

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjr1Oyc0KrY&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL4D0425E60BAFC81C"]Microarrayer

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Duw0oE2Qi0I&feature=plcp&context=C3c6085cUDOEgsToPDskJFhA7x37_-MeriJqaF3Ah0"]Microarray printing

And a large image of one setup for use.

GeneMachines Omni Grid 100 arrayer

[DonFrambach]

Congrats!!! Those are three very fine Parker Daedal linear slides!!! On at least some of these slides, the other numbers after the 404600XRMS and 404100XRMS give details about the ball screw, motor mount, and sensors built into the slide. If the numbers are there and you care, I think I have a link somewhere to that data. BTW the "100" and "600" refer to mm of travel.

[william1384]

Congrats!!! Those are three very fine Parker Daedal linear slides!!! On at least some of these slides, the other numbers after the 404600XRMS and 404100XRMS give details about the ball screw, motor mount, and sensors built into the slide. If the numbers are there and you care, I think I have a link somewhere to that data. BTW the "100" and "600" refer to mm of travel.

Thanks, as far as I can tell there are no sensors built into the rails, but there were what looked
like hall effect sensors attached to the rails, I am going to replace them with lever micro switches,
I am right now planning out my spending over the next few months, limited funds, so I am trying to
get a game plan on what I am going to build.

I have thought about setting the OmniGrid up the way it was, in that configuration
it would mill aluminum easily I think, but milling aluminum would not be something
I would do very often.

I thought about making the bottom part of a Joe's CNC Model 2006 and attaching
the OmniGrid gantry to it, but my current CNC router only has a 12x17 inch working
area.

The other idea is using 20mm SBR Supported Linear Rails on each side of the OmniGrid
gantry, this idea seams easy but I wonder about using 2 motors on the X axis or would
one be good enough.

[william1384]

I got looking around at different designs that use linear rails, SBR and other, and
found a few designs close to what I was thinking about here in the forums.


My Pilot Pro Ex Extended

my 4' x 4' table build

rebuilding my 1 year old router)

Proposed router design. comments please

The Green Machine

And I bought the Pilot Pro Plans DVD today, and I have bought a bunch of plans over
the years, but none of them seem easily adapted to what I want to do except maybe the
Solsylva plans, I got them last year, I will have to look over both of them to get some ideas.

[william1384]

And I bought the Pilot Pro Plans DVD today, and I have bought a bunch of plans over
the years, but none of them seem easily adapted to what I want to do except maybe the
Solsylva plans, I got them last year, I will have to look over both of them to get some ideas.

I got the Pilot Pro Plans DVD in the mail yesterday, the plans are in cad files and
supporting text is in Microsoft Word format, if you dont know cad that well, the Pilot Pro
plans can be a little hard to figure out.

I also had trouble with the Pilot Pro Plans DVD not wanting to mount on my PC running
Linux, but the DVD worked fine on my Windows PC.

I am going to spend the next week or two looking over both Pilot Pro and Solsylva plans,
but I am starting to think I should just do what I first thought about and just use two
20mm SBR Supported Linear Rails, one for each side of the OmniGrid gantry, I am
still not sure about using one or two motors on the X axis.

I will make the table first, I am going to make the table top from MDF and 2x4s and
use screws to put it togather, and will use 3/4th pipe and pipe fittings for the legs.

My plan is to make the table, something like 40in x 60in, and just bolt the Linear Rails
to the table top, or mount the Linear Rails to square tubular steel, then mount the square
tubular steel to the MDF table top.

[william1384]

I have decided to have the OmniGrid set up the way it was originally, and
plan to buy the "G540 3-Axis NEMA23 381oz in PSU48V/7.3A" kit from
kelinginc.net, I will have to make a nema 23 motor plate for the Z-axis
as the Z-axis that I have uses what looks like a nema 17 motor plate
but with non-standard bolt hole spacing, the good news is I actually
found cad drawings from the company that made the Z-axis, and they
have drawings for a nema 23 motor plate that fits the Z-axis, but I will
have to cut it out of lexan as my small CNC router that I have now is
unable to cut aluminium.

I have all the parts to make a table to mount the OmniGrid on, but I have a
problem with mounting the X-Axis to the table, they used toe clamps that
were made just for the linear slides, and are very hard to find, and very
costly, if I had a milling machine I could make them, as they made cad drawings
available, and there are holes on the underside of the linear slides, but they are
un-threaded, and the metal looks to be about 1/8 thick or less, also the holes
go directly into were the lead screw is, so I think that they would be unsuitable
for using as bolt holes, it looks like I will have to make my own toe clamps.

[foam27]

William,

Excellent score, those actuators are around $2000K each, or more.

Here is what I did with my Parkers, I hope it is a bit of inspiration for you...

Frame is 4x4 alum, and t-slot top. Hitachi M12VC 2.25HP router.

Accuracy and surface finish is excellent.

I am running Nema dual stack Nema 23's with Parker Microstepping drives that put out 160V to the steppers, I have them set at 1.8A. The drives take 120V directly in to each drive.

Extra pic inside one actuator to view the yumminess....mmmm...ground ball screws.

I can't believe they were going to "scrap" those for metal.

[foam27]

Oh and William...

I used those "bolt holes" inside.

What you want is "Metric Low Head Socket Cap Screw Class 8.8 Steel, M6 Size, 20 mm Length, 1 mm Pitch" I got mine from Mcmaster-Carr. Here is the part #: 93070A147

[wzc0014]

I also have acquired an old Gene Machine Omni Grid. I have the controller as well...however, no software.
How have you guys been able to control your systems?

[william1384]

Oh and William...

I used those "bolt holes" inside.

What you want is "Metric Low Head Socket Cap Screw Class 8.8 Steel, M6 Size, 20 mm Length, 1 mm Pitch" I got mine from Mcmaster-Carr. Here is the part #: 93070A147

Thanks!

I also have acquired an old Gene Machine Omni Grid. I have the controller as well...however, no software.
How have you guys been able to control your systems?

I was not able to get the PC that comes with the system, so no software,
and to me, it looked like to much trouble to use the servo and there drives,
so I decided to just replace them, I plan to sell each servo with its own
driver and wires on ebay.

On of the other people here was able to move the servos with the
Gene Machine Omni Grid software, but they never posted what they
ended up doing to the system.