Hello again :-)
It's been a while and I just recovered from being away from the machine for 3 weeks while on a vacation in Europe.
Not trying to tease you or anything, that was more of a chore than anything else for me (I had 7 relatives in tow, playing travel guide for everyone, go figure).
Anyways, I'm back now, totally ready for axis number four!!
The foremost and biggest problem I had in the first place was that with one G540, we've already maxed out the number of ports for the steppers to control.
The problem was that the G540 handles 4 axis (has four output plugs for the motors). That very well handles X,Y and Z - as you probably know.
If you followed my thread this far, you probably know that the x-axis needed a slave motor a while back, which occupied the 4th port. And still is.
I went back and forth for a while, also listening to others input in the decision on how to solve this in terms of the controller.
Way back in my mind, I'm already thinking about a 5th axis or a tool changer of my own design, lol. It's all a soup of ideas, I guess.
Still, the conclusion was that adding more than just one axis to the overall electrical design will only benefit the machine in the future.
Said and done, this is probably the first Momus that runs with TWO G540's :-)
WP_20140819_22_06_56_Pro by mkloberg, on Flickr
It's already getting a little crowded in the right bay, but it should fit in there:
WP_20140819_22_08_14_Pro.jpg by mkloberg, on Flickr
At first I was a little overwhelmed when the second controller arrived at the shop, not sure where to put it inside of the machine.
At the same time, I wanted to get a real charge pump into the circutry as well.
That in itself called for a breakout board for one of the ports to get the signal as early as possible.
A charge pump is basically an arrangement where Mach 3 sends out a 10khz on/off signal, call it a "heart beat" over one of the wires of one of the parallel ports.
As long as that signal maintains its frequency, all is good - if that signal dies or does something funky in it's shape, then there's reason for concern.
CNC4PC has small board that takes this signal for an input, monitors it's health and controls a relay that indicates how 'happy' it is:
WP_20140819_22_13_27_Pro by mkloberg, on Flickr
That worked out prett good so far, let's get back to the 4th axis:
That wasn't initally funny, because I designated the x-axis slave channel as the a-axis channel in Mach3 a few months ago.
That had to change, but afterwards the a axis was free for new stuff.
I was pretty stoked at this point... :-)
All went well, I was going to make a custom through-the-wall connector for the axis, but couldn't wait and just did an extension cord thing to get to to talk to the 2nd G540.
Not having thought ahead, I didn't really plan on a particular model to run on the 4th axis,
so I ended up with something from Thingverse: Signature Makerbot Mascott: The Rocket Gnome
WP_20140817_22_01_50_Pro by mkloberg, on Flickr
WP_20140817_22_02_25_Pro by mkloberg, on Flickr
WP_20140817_22_03_37_Pro by mkloberg, on Flickr
I have to say, clamping a piece of wood into the rotary axis opened a whole new world.
Also, I just realized - this journey is far from over...
Stay tuned ;-)
Mac