G203V and PMDX 134

[swaggs21]

I have hooked up my controller with my PMDX 126, 134, and 4 203v drives.

All of the status lights from the PMDX 126 and 134 are correct, but I see no status LED lights on the 203v drives in the little windows.

All motor connections seem tight with nothing being crossed over.

So I am guessing that they are not getting power even though the LED on the 134 is lit green.

Is there anything else I can check to see if the pins are getting power and there is something wrong with the drives?

And yes, I have emailed Steve at PMDX, but I am betting he will not be in till the morning, and this has been a 4 month build I would like to complete and see move

Here is a pic of my controller box for reference. Thanks for any tips in advance.



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[morestuff]

Ouch! Such a nicely done control box, but
there is one major problem.

The G203V motor drivers are installed backwards
under the PMDX-134 board. The connectors should
have made this difficult to do, but maybe not that
difficult. You can see the correct orientation by
looking at the images here:

PMDX.COM - Products for CNC and motion control applications

As to the consequences, I am not certain and do
not want to repeat the experiment here. The 70
volts DC ground side would have landed on a pin
that is still intended as a ground for the resistor
that sets the motor current limit. The 70 volts
positive would have landed on the current set
input pin and damage would be likely. We will
work with you to get your drives repaired if
the Vampire's magic was not sufficient to resist
this trial.

The step and direction outputs from the PMDX-126
would have been connected to the motor drive
signals from the G203V, but since the G203V
did not have 70 volts on its power input, there
probably is no damage. If there was, PMDX will
cover it under warranty.

I have now spoken with Chris by phone and know
that his motors are rated for 7 amperes. The photo
shows some kind of heatsink under the G203Vs
but I cannot tell if it is finned or flat, or if it is
also coupling heat to the large panel inside the
box. With motors running 7 amperes, it will be
necessary to have an effective heatsink on the
G203V drivers.

Another good practice would be to route cables
such that the outputs from the G203Vs to the
motor connectors do not run under or along side
of the PMDX-126 or wiring from home and limit
switches. The same would apply to the output
from a VFD inverter for the spindle.

Hang in there Chris. We will try to make this as
painless as possible.

Steve Stallings
PMDX.COM - Products for CNC and motion control applications

[swaggs21]

Thanks Steve for the reply, it was a pleasure speaking with you.

The heatsink below is finned, and has 2 80mm fans attached to it with a hole cutouts in the back plate for intake air. There should be no heat issue at all.

Since I have to turn the 134 around I will remake new wires and re-route them so they are not going under the 126 (it is on 1 1/2" standoffs to allow for clearance).

I will also re-route some other things inside the box so that there is nothing around the 126 at all.

I hope that the drives are fine. Like I said in the previous conversation with you, I am really upset with myself right now as meticulous as I have been during the whole build.

Here is an overall look to the machine, really can't wait to see it move.... (obiously when I took the pic there were still things I needed to hook up )

[Mariss Freimanis]

I looked at the G203V schematic to see what the consequences would be. There is a better than even chance the G203Vs are still OK despite being connected backwards (70VDC going to the current set terminals).

Mariss

[swaggs21]

I was so flustered about it that I came home from work to reverse it and see if I blew the drives. I did not hook the motors back up yet due to Steve's recommendations to move the wiring for the motors, but praise the Lord, all drives are still ok.

Will be taking everything back out of the enclosure tonight and reconfiguring for a new motor wiring setup.

Thanks for the help, I knew it would end up being something retarded.

[Mariss Freimanis]

I'm going to brag just a little bit. Doing that to most other drives would have smoked them instantly.:-)

Mariss

[swaggs21]

I'm going to brag just a little bit. Doing that to most other drives would have smoked them instantly.:-)

Mariss

I am glad that you can. The machine is moving under its own power.

Next step is tuning everything for the parallel port. I will order a SS eventually, but parallel port will have to do for now. Just have to keep the speeds in the 750 range till I can get a SS or faster computer .

[Mariss Freimanis]

If you go to a 45kHz kernel speed you'll get 1,350 RPM and if you can pump it up to a 60kHz kernel you'll get 1,800 RPM.

Mariss

[swaggs21]

Ok, so now I have another problem, and it does not seem to come up except on the Y/B motors.

If I keep to low speeds, the 203v's have no issues, but if I push up over 200 ipm or so, the 203v on either the Y or B side will stop working, and will have red and green LED lit which says that the motor is mis-wired or the drive has overheated.

Don't really know how it could be mis-wired if everything is running fine until I push the speeds, and even if I push the speed within 10 seconds, it does this, so the drive couldn't be overheated. And to reset it, all I have to do is power the motors off, give them a minute or so (don't even need that, just letting the cap discharge), and turn them back on and everything is fine again.

I also have 2 80mm Case fans connected to the heat sink like dkohfield, so I don't know how the drives could overheat.

Any ideas??

As an update (one of the Joe's users had problems with the Molex connectors):

I just went out and cut the molex connectors off the Y/B motors and soldered them together, taped them back up and then tried it out again.

Machine does the same thing. It looks like the LEDs go from Green to Yellow and then Red which I think means the motors pulled full power, and then went into fault.

It also is intermittent as to which axis faults off.

[swaggs21]

One of the Joe's users suggested that I unhook the motors and test them at the controller, but that would have been a lot of work.

So I let the rack and pinion drives dangle from their mounting points so that the rack was not engaged with the pinions.

None of the drivers after a solid 10 minutes of playing faulted.

This tells me it is not the wiring that is a problem, but I don't really know how to fix it either.....

[swaggs21]

The issue has been fixed. I messed up the calculation for the steps per. Once I changed that out, everything is working solid as a rock.