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The patient has a heartbeat
My standoffs from McMaster-Carr came today so I mounted the power supply and driver board. All worked well and the smoke didn't get out. It was about 100 degrees in the garage so that's about all I got done. I'll do some more wiring in the morning.
If you are wondering about the connector at the top right of the board, it is unused. The little white connector to the left of it does the same thing and HubbardCNC provides a cable for that.
I love the extra cut-out in the top of the bay. Bondo will fix that right up.
The little white connector is for limits and homes if I recall correctly?
I've got stand-offs in my cart at McMaster as well. I'm doing nylon for stand-offs and screws as the controller I'm using has some tightly placed components.
Looking good.
Yeah, my router got away from me when I was making the bay openings larger. The door will cover it so I'm not worried.
Yup, the white connector is for connecting the limits and e-stop button. My big red e-stop button will be on the front of the machine.
I got the aluminum standoffs. They work great. I also used them to mount the power supply to have an air gap "under" it. I'll have a fan at the back of the machine that will draw heat out through a hole I've cut. Pics of that later.
I'm thinking of wiring a switch between the power supply and the board so I can shut it off between uses instead of just unplugging the machine. For some reason though, I seem to remember reading somewhere that this is a bad idea. Thoughts?
I just routed my bays flush to the rest of the structure, no chance of an over cut. I'm also going to make the doors flush instead of overlay. They will be CNCed some time in the future and will include switches, fans and vent holes.Originally Posted by SpeedyDad
Yeah, my router got away from me when I was making the bay openings larger. The door will cover it so I'm not worried.
Yup, the white connector is for connecting the limits and e-stop button. My big red e-stop button will be on the front of the machine.
I got the aluminum standoffs. They work great. I also used them to mount the power supply to have an air gap "under" it. I'll have a fan at the back of the machine that will draw heat out through a hole I've cut. Pics of that later.
I'm thinking of wiring a switch between the power supply and the board so I can shut it off between uses instead of just unplugging the machine. For some reason though, I seem to remember reading somewhere that this is a bad idea. Thoughts?
Put a master switch BEFORE the power supply, not after. Two reasons. Firstly, no need to have an idle power supply sucking up electricity. Secondly, it avoids the higher inrush current from a fully ready power supply going to the controller.
Got my door mounted today.
Need to get some paint on it obviously
Might I suggest green?
Brilliant!!Might I suggest green?
I built a new top shell today also but no pics of that. I wanted it to go all the way out to the edge. I'll have an aluminum lip for the clear part to seal to.
Any updates on your machine?
Well, I made this little carving.
Kind of sucky as the profile is only 0.035" deep and I was using a way too big 0.25 diameter core box bit. The item is 4x4 inches and is just some random STL file off the web converted with freemill.
The machine did well, but I have some tweeking to do. The X axis has gotten a little sticky and I don't know what I did. The Y traveler also has a bit of slop I need to get rid of. The Z axis speed is slow and I have some binding that won't let me speed it up, so I have to hunt that down. But, it makes things and I didn't let out the magic smoke. This carving took about an hour. I need dust collection!
Update
Got the back door painted and the new wooden part of the cover done. It is full width and sits down nicely on the machine. I'll change the design of the cover just a touch to make it fit.
Frontal shot
Got my side rails for the clear cover in place.
New electronics
Wait a minute, that said new electronics. New? Well, you'll notice the TB6560 has been replaced by a Gecko G540 Why? I smoked the TB6560 with 2 clicks of the mouse. I'm still not sure what happened. I wired it up per the manual, set the amps switches, loaded the config file and within 2 clicks of the manual control, the smoke came out. The unit had been tested and video'd by HubbardCNC before being sent out so it was working fine. It just didn't like my machine for some reason. I emailed back and forth with Hubbard but we couldn't figure out what happened. After reading a lot more about these things, this is not uncommon. I don't blame Hubbard, I blame myself for not researching it better. I just got the G540, wired it up and...
It lives!
I was able to get motion from my machine today. The wires you see hanging down are connected to the e-stop switch. That will go in a panel on the front of the machine.
Now, I have to wait for payday to get my clear sheet for the cover and keep researching software to see which CAM software I like/can afford. I really like the Vectric products but with having to buy the G540, my funds are down a bit now. We'll see.
So, for those using the G540, since it is 10 micro steps, are you setting the motor tuning to 1000, 1000, 20,000 ipm? I'm good with mechanical build and setup but I'm still learning the software stuff.
This is starting to get cool.
I installed and connected my limit switches. Fired up Mach3 and after a bit of playing with settings, got them to work and the machine does a proper Ref All.
Pics (somewhat blurry. I'll take pics with my real camera and substitute these with those)
Forward Y axis home switch. Pretty simple mount.
Rear Y axis limit switch. Same mount.
X Axis homes/limits. Mounted to the rail and activated by a single arm attached to the carriage
I'll install the Z limit switches once I get the router.
Like I said above, all works now. I can do a "Ref All" and it homes to the zero point and resets zero. I have the Z axis limits disabled so it ignores that but the 4th axis tries to home. I haven't figured out how to turn that off yet. Anyone?
EDIT: Figured out the 4th axis homing issue. I needed to turn the G540s 4th axis off in Mach3's pins settings.
Anyways, I was also able to load up the infamous roadrunner g-code and run the code. Am I the only one that giggled like a schoolgirl as the machine ran its first program machining nothing but air?
Last edited by SpeedyDad; 10-10-2011 at 02:22 AM.
Nope, I think that is pretty much the standard reaction.Am I the only one that giggled like a schoolgirl as the machine ran its first program machining nothing but air?
The machine is looking great! It must be rather frustrating with just the router left to go. Soooo close to making chips...
-Bob
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