Relay question

[scrambled]

Tero-

I am trying to get a relay to work off of the VSDEPI board. I have it wired now so that I get +5 volts DC when there is not a fault, and 0 volts dc when there is a fault.

I ordered a 5 volt dc coil relay http://www.emartee.com/product/41391...lay-Omron-G5LA

but the relay would not pull in. Do I need to try a 4.5 vdc relay, or do you know of a relay that will work?

I need to get the relay to work, so that Mach knows when a drive has faulted. This is a temp. measure until I can figure out what my drives are faulting.

Steve

[eaglezsoar]

Sometimes the relay requires more current to pull in then the board can supply.
The way to fix this is to obtain +5 volts from the computer power supply, a plugin power wart, or other source and use this +5 volt to drive an NPN transistor that in turn drives the relay. See the following link:
http://www.industrialmightandlogic.c...ingRelays.aspx

The base of the NPN transistor would be the +5v signal from your board and the relay +5V would be from the power supply or other source of +5v.
This should become more clear when you study the link I provided.

Regards,
Carl

[Xerxes]

All 5V relays that I have tried so far have worked with VSDEPI. However because voltage drops during the way the actual voltage to relay may be closer to 4V which may cause trouble for some 5V relays (not for most of them).

Are you sure the relay is connected correctly? The VSDEPI relay output voltage typically won't go below 0.6-0.9V when it has relay load and the voltage is measured against VSDEPI GND.

[scrambled]

Tero-

I had a few minutes to today to work on this relay problem. I also ordered 2 more Omron relays. A 3 vdc and a 4.5 vdc coil.

Neither of these relays would work at the remote location on the gantry, so I tried them directly off of the VSDPCI board. I wanted to make sure that I did not have a voltage drop, or another problem that I can not find.

On the VSDPI board I connected the coil between #10 drive fault, and the common gnd #23 I think.

Using my Fluke multi meter, I am getting exactly 5.0 vdc when there is not a fault. This is still not closing the contacts in the relay.

I tested the relay using 2 1.5vdc batteries in series, and it worked as expected, so I know the relays are OK.

When I measured the resistance on the coils this is what I got.

3 vdc coil 49.9 ohms
4.5 vdc oil 108.8


Any Ideas?

Next question--


Is there a way to wire the VSDPI board so that if any servo gets a fault, then the drives drop out the Drive Enable circuit?



Steve

[Xerxes]

From the relay problems I see the most probable reasons being:
-Control signal from parallel port is not going to correct pin
-Chargepump is enabled in VSDEPI but there is no chargepump signal (try disabling VSDEPI chargepump feature)
-There could be defect in VSDEPI (perhaps bad solder joint or broken ULN2003 chip)
-Parallel port signal is too weak (could try on another computer)

Can you successfully switch the VSDEPI on-board relay?

"Is there a way to wire the VSDPI board so that if any servo gets a fault, then the drives drop out the Drive Enable circuit?"

This is exactly the default behavior when configured according to manuals.

[scrambled]

Tero-

I just downloaded the newest VSDPI manual, and therer is nothing in it about connecting and using the onboard relay.

On page 8 there is the only mention of the relay and it is in the connection chart

16 On-board relay control input. Relay on when high.
17 External relay control input. Relay on when high.

Page 9 showes how to connect a e-stop circuit.

Do you have any other documentation on how to connect and use the relay?


Steve

[scrambled]

Tero-

I have had some time to work with the VSDPI, and this is what I have found

the JP1 jumper to disable the chargepump is installed,

I tried to run the VSDPI on a second computer, but had the same results



To control the onboard relay, is all that I need to do is to connect pin 10 to 16?

The following is what is listed in the manual.


Thanks


Steve Shelton



D-Sub pin-out
Configure your CNC control software pinout accordingly
Parallel port pin Function
1 Charge pump input (feed 10-30 kHz frequency to this input or insert jumper JP1 to disable this
feature)
2 X axis direction
3 X axis step (rising edge)
4 Y axis direction
5 Y axis step (rising edge)
6 Z axis direction
7 Z axis step (rising edge)
8 A axis direction
9 A axis step (rising edge)
10 Drive fault & E-stop input to PC (active low). Also low when charge pump signal was not
detected while JP1 is open.
11 X home switch to PC. Routed from VSD encoder connector, connect actual switch to VSD-E/XE
home switch input.
12 Y home switch to PC. Routed from VSD encoder connector, connect actual switch to VSD-E/XE
home switch input.
13 Z home switch to PC. Routed from VSD encoder connector, connect actual switch to VSD-E/XE
home switch input.
14 Drive enable from PC (drives active when high, disabled when low)
15 A home switch to PC. Routed from VSD encoder connector, connect actual switch to VSD-E/XE
home switch input.
16 On-board relay control input. Relay on when high.
17 External relay control input. Relay on when high.
18-25 Ground

[Xerxes]

Hi Steve,

Apologies for late answer. Our holidays are slowing things a bit.

Please follow this routine to locate the problem:

-First disconnect all drives & e-stop button from VSDEPI.

-Connect 330-3300 ohm resistor to EXT_RELAY terminal and wire a voltimeter to measure voltage over resistor. Try changing relay status from PC (with JP1 installed). If relay output is working, then voltimeter reading should change between 0.5-1V and 4.5-5.5V. (this method eliminates possible relay incompatibility)

-If nothing happens, measure actual parallel port output: Put voltimeter black wire to parallel port pin 25 and red lead to pin 17 and do the same software testing. You should see <1V when relay should be off and >3 when on. Then also measure pin 14. It should be >3V (enable signal, which also controls relays).