Restoring an old machine

[GtownHigh]

Our school, germanntown high of wisconsin, got an old CNC machine donated to us. It is full sized and has an extremely antiquated computer inside (8 KB of ram!). The tape drive was erased after the battery failed so we went to work updating it to use geckos. We have a simple plan of attatching the gecko 320x to the servos and running it via paralell. We have used the programs: EMC2, MACH3, KCAM 4, and other programs that we experimented with. We cannot get voltage to come from the gecko, out to the motors! We have 0VDC out and 36 in! We have everything correctly configured and have beenw orking on it on and off for over a year now. The computer is sending voltage out, the paralell cable is good, the motors work and we tried 3 different geckos! If anybody has any suggestions i am all ears. We would really appreciate some help.

thanks in advance

[ger21]

Call Gecko.

What happens when you apply power to the Geckos? Are the motors locked up, or do they spin freely? Are you using a breakout board?

[GtownHigh]

ger21 thanks for responding

when we apply power (i assume you mean the power for the motors) to the correct terminals on the gecko...nothing happens, no voltage out the other side either, however i put some voltage on the motors themselves and they turn. Unfortunately we do not have a breakout board but i test the paralell cable with a multimeter and voltage comes out when i jog it. I emailed gecko but the guy stopped responding.

[ger21]

Do you have proper encoders connected?

The manual says to test your step and direction signals before connecting the motors, did you do this?

You really need to call them. They're very helpful on the phone.

[GtownHigh]

I will definitely call them, and yes we did connect step and direction first, none of it works at any step. When i call gecko, will not having the motor specs matter? The guy i emailed asked for them and we cannot find them anywhere, there is no plaque or anything.

Thanks for your help

[Al_The_Man]

What is the working area size of the machine just to get an idea of what the motor size maybe, also do you have info/make on the original drives?
Do you know the resolution of the encoders and how do you have them fed, 5v supply etc.
Al.

[morestuff]

Gecko servo drivers power up in an inactive state. You must connect the ERR/RES terminal to the ENC+5 terminal, at least momentarily, in order to enable the drive. Check your user manual for details.

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

[GtownHigh]

The working area is about 4 feet by 2 feet, we have the encoder fed through the 5v supply (ac adapter) and I could not find the resolution of the encoder, though we do have the specs..Also what is gecko number, the one on the instructions has been disconnected

[ger21]

Geckodrive - Quality American Made Stepper and Servo Motor Controls