Need help with MACH 2 / 3

[sunebeermann]

Hallo At work we have a Bundgard CCD/2 Milling and drilling machine, BUT the software that Bundgard made for that machine stinks, so i would like to ask you guys if you could help me analyse the controller for my machine. I found the diagram for the controller and it is controlled via the LPT.
And i WANT to use mach2/3 whatever.


http://www.megauk.com/datasheets/507...tions_0505.pdf

The last pages are the controller.

PLEASE help me...

Sune

[ger21]

I can't really read schematics all that well, but on page 22 it shows the pinouts, which look like they should work with Mach3.

Pin2=X step
Pin3 = X dir
Pin4 = Y step
Pin5 = Y dir
Pin6 = Z step
Pin7 = Z dir

[sunebeermann]

thats what i get. But my prob is that there semes to some sort of PAL IC and that PAL holdes some software, i need to know how to controll the spindel and thats my problem cause its a Kavo motor that runs 60000 RPM. and how do i controll that via the mach software, and still i need the switches for home and limit.

Sune

[Torchhead]

While the basis seems to be typical step and dir the internal PAL appears to furnish a lot of logic from the homes and the spindle signals. I suspect a lot of that logic is present in MACH3 and/or some of the third party interface cards. If your intent is to be able to just plug in the parallel port to the machine and keep all of the internal electronics I think the project is going to require a LOT of work. If it were mine I would consider using the motor drives and Step and Dir signals (and possibly using an enable signal input) and breaking out the table inputs (swtiches) to an external breakout. The spindle speed should be looked at as a separate project. MACH3 uses either PWM or Step and Dir for spindle. My experience is that the Step & Dir is more accurate and is easy to interface but you need to determine what the spindle speed motor control takes. If it's a normal 0-5 or 0-10 analog signal then you are home free because there are several options to give you that from MACH3. I didn't take time to read all of the schematics but I am sure the tool changer is a separate interface and once again it appears the machine maker has implemented a lot of the logic in hardware/firmware rather from the control software.

It's a little confusing because the computer interface talked about in the manual is USB or serial so there has to be extensive circuity to split that out and to generate the pulses for the motion.

Honestly you are stepping into a complex integration of hardware and software and it will be like seperating Siamese Twins. Some of the things may not be obvious and will need either a logic analayser and digital memory scope to reverese engineer the signals.

If you guys use this machine in production you won't be popular if it is out of service for a few weeks while all this get sorted out through trial and error. I won't even start to ask what the puppy cost but I'll bet it wasn't in the 4 digit range!

It is an interesting study on a commercial PCB drill/router. Guys building their own would do well to study the design and the floating head approach with the nose piece depth control.