Caged Geckos (enclosure)

[tauntdesigns]

Howdy,
First, I'd like to thank the people of this forum for the wealth of information contained on this site.

I finely got my enclosure done and have wrangled 3 young geckos (203v) in it.

I turned the power switch on with no motors connected and the Geckos show green light, so far, so good. Next, I'm wanting hook up the motors.

Should I hook up one motor, test it, turn power off, hook up the 2nd motor, test it, etc.... or just hook them all up and test them?
I'm scared!

Parts list:
Kelinginc motors (2-425's and a 640 oz/in) and 65vdc 15amp power supply
Gecko, 3 G203v
cnc4pc, limit, and e-stop switches, C11g bob and bob power supply
Action electronic, wire and connectors
Mouser, resistors, caps, and fuses
Radio Shack, panel mount fuse holder and misc. odds and ends.

TIA, for any tips or 'watch out for this' warnings.
Jack

P.S. What's the best way to add photos?

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[GaryCorlew]

First that is an awsome looking enclosure. I would hook up one motor and test it, if everything goes as planned then hook up all the rest

[tauntdesigns]

Thanks Gary,

I think I will do one motor at a time. That will make it easier to check all my soldered wires and connectors. I used 4-pin mic connectors between motor and cable. I used 5-pin connectors between cable and enclosure.

Thanks again for the reply and compliment,
Jack

[DonW]

Do you have heat sinks on those Geckos?

[tauntdesigns]

Hi Don,

The 203v pdf states: The G203V needs heatsinking for current settings greater than 3 amps.

2 motors I have wired parallel are rated 2.8 amps and 1 motor wired series is rated 3.2 amps.

I used a heat sink compound and mounted them to the 1/8" alum plate that I used for the bottom of my box. The alum bottom of the box sits up about 1/2" and allows air to flow under it.

I am hoping the 1/8" alum plate will act as a small heat sink.(?)

Jack

[PoolQ]

do you have one fan blowing in and the other blowing out? will you need to add vents for air flow through the box?

[tauntdesigns]

Hi PoolQ,

This is my first try at making an enclosure for anything. I'm open for any ideas ('what if's', 'try this', and 'don't do that's')

Yes, I do have one fan blowing and one fan sucking. The one that pulls air into the box is on the power supply side, gecko side is sucking air out.

By sucking air out on the gecko side I am trying to keep as much dust and grime away from the geckos as I can (not blowing directly onto them).

I still not sure about the fan on the power supply side, it doesn't seem to pull as much air in as the other fan sucks out. Power supply may be interfering with it.

I may add vents with filters and have both fans suck air out.???

I'm open to any ideas,
Jack

[PoolQ]

Air flow is a trickey thing. Air flow out of a fan in a column, but air flowing into a fan follows a path le least resistance. You may end up with most of the exhaust air coming directly from the other fan and not flowing over the Geckos. It will be hard to tell without the cover on or measuring the temperature of the drives.

You might consider having both fans, with filters, blowing into the box and place vents along the front or front bottom or front top of the box. Make sure you have enough vents so you dont restrict the air exit and build up pressure in the box, thus limiting air flow across the Gecko's.

The base plate on the Gecko module is where they want the heat to be extracted from and your connection to the 1/8" base plate of you box provides a nice heat sink, assuming that it can radiate the heat faster than the drives can pump it in. To check this you will want to measure or feel the temperature on the outside bottom of your box, right below the drives after running them for a while.

There are several things that could be done if they are getting too hot.

Mine are basically in the same arrangement as yours, so lets hope we are both safe . I have not been able to run mine much yet, still working on the rest of the project.

[tauntdesigns]

Thanks,

I'm going to finish the top tomorrow and start checking the heat and air flow. I may just do what you suggested and blow air into the box with both fans and cut some vents for the exhaust.

I had read that allot of Gecko failures were due to small metallic pieces shorting the poor little guys out (sucked in by the fans).

Thanks,
Jack

[tauntdesigns]

Today, it was about 15-20 degrees cooler outside, so I thought I would work out in the oven (garage).

I made a clamp out of wood and some all-thread to hold my motors on my bench. I wasn't sure if I could just lay them down unrestricted.

I came inside and hooked everything up, got my laptop out and started to hook up the 25-pin cable, when I noticed that it didn't have a 25-pin port.LOL

I dug out the old desktop, loaded Mach3 and set-up it up. I hooked up x-axis motor and went into motor tuning and hit the up arrow. The motor started to studder... bummer.
I noticed that pin 17 (charge pump) was blinking at the same pace as the motors' studder, so I turned it off. The x motor worked fine... woohoo!

*?* my pc motherboard 25-pin pulses at 23860 with mach running and 25130 with mach's driver test. Could that cause the problem with the charge pump or is it a bob ploblem?

Turned everything off, hooked up y-axis motor... success! Repeated with the z-axis motor........ yepee!

Loaded a test program (mach's cross file) and ran it and everything worked great. Hooked up the e-stop to pin-10 and the bob enable pin... works.

Thanks again to all the people of the groups and forums,
Jack

P.S. when everything works.. an old man can feel like a kid again

[kb18951452]

Hey there

Thanks for the lengthy and extremely helpful reply to my plea for help.

I have a few questions still, and i thought they might fit here.

I notice you have 6 ports wires up (and 4 that are just holes) in the front of your control box. (looks great BTW)

The bottom Three look like the motor control wires, What is the Top Row? I only see red wires to them, Coming STRAIT from your Power Supply.

You mentioned the need for a 5v and 12v Power Supply. Whats that being used for? What amperage?

My Power Supply (Keling 7212) has been bafling me for a while seeing as there are way more wires than i kow how to work with.

If i post a picture, Think someone can draw on it and tell me what everything is?

I've written John from Keling, but we've been having trouble communicating. (nothing bad, but hard to describe)

4 wire speaker cables? Thats for disconnect from the box? Where did you get them?

I mean, you probably bought your cables, but the connectors that are ON your supply, where did you get them?

Its not a big money deal, but i bought 33k resistors already, the equations tells me 36k, do i need to go get the 36k?

Did you find it difficult to program your mach3? Just follow the manual?

I'm -> <- this close to being DONE and yet i'm still so very far away.

[tauntdesigns]

Howdy,

On the front (e-stop side) from the right, on top row, first 4 holes is for panel mount fuse holders (fast acting 5amp) and the fifth hole is for a pin connector for inputs (limits). From the right, bottom row, first 4 holes is for pin connectors for the motors and the fifth hole is for more inputs (homes). Yea, you're right, red wire from power supply to a terminal block, from terminal block to panel mount fuse holder, from fuse to geckos.

You'll need to power your Breakout board (bob) with 5v and 12v dc supplies. The cnc4pc c11 bob you listed a link to needs:
POWER CONNECTIONS:
Provide +5vdc at 1.5 amps and +12vdc at .3 amps.
On the back of my box (fan side) from the left, fan, toggle switch, AC power cord, cnc4pc A4 power supply connector.

Posting a picture might help. ?

I got my mic connectors and shielded cable from action electronics. I got 4-pin cable mount connectors (male and female) to go between the motor and cable. I got 5-pin connectors (panel and cable mount) to go between the box and cable. The 5-pin connection, pins 1-4 connected to the 4 cable wires and pin 5 connected to the cable sheilding wire. Inside the box, pins 1-4 connects to the geckos and pin 5 connects to chassis. (sheilding wire is not used at the motor end)

33k ohms resistor will set current to about 2.9amps. Should work?

I'm still learning Mach3. I've watched the videos on the mach website a bunch of times. A couple of the ones I watched the most to help me set up mach were: setup & download, and inputs-outputs
http://www.artsoftcontrols.com/Video...elections.html

Thanks for the fan suggestion,
Jack

P.S. I had to write this post 3 times... I kept hitting the back button by accident, Bummer...... oh well, lol