5 axis build full steam ahead!

[diyengineer]

Liam-
That is amazing what you did and the quality you have achieved. I by no means am any kind of machinist (Yet). I'm a complete beginner, and it always blows me away to see this fantastic parts come from people that really know what there doing. I need to come learn from you haha.

Yes my build log is huge, partially because i went from knowing absolutely nothing and diving right in. Thanks to everyone and this amazing forum i have learned more then a book, class, or myself could have taught me in such little time, and im very happy i belong to this forum! =)

Thank you for the help! I feel more confident that a pro says the leveling job should be easy. I was stressing out, thinking i would never get that damn thing level hahaha. An honest opinion really helps out!

Keep up the good work i will follow closely and get back to you on how my leveling went!!

Thanks Liam!

[Master of nun]

Lol, Pro/know what i'm doing.....well not really.

Hence My Handle, Master of nun
"Jack of all trades, master of none, though ofttimes better than master of one"
Actually after my shortening of None to Nun....it now looks like I think I'm God, This was not intentional.

anyways

I use the mill and lathe on an almost daily basis but only for simple operations, this is the first time undertaking anything as complex as this.....the hardest part is working out what sequence to do each process in. I've had no training as a machinist. Machinists out there can probably tell

Your right, It's a fantastic Forum. I've spent time looking around other unrelated forums and they spend most of their time *****ing at oneanother.....I haven't witnessed any of that here as yet

[CarveOne]

Lol, Pro/know what i'm doing.....well not really.

Hence My Handle, Master of nun
"Jack of all trades, master of none, though ofttimes better than master of one"
Actually after my shortening of None to Nun....it now looks like I think I'm God, This was not intentional.

anyways

I use the mill and lathe on an almost daily basis but only for simple operations, this is the first time undertaking anything as complex as this.....the hardest part is working out what sequence to do each process in. I've had no training as a machinist. Machinists out there can probably tell

Your right, It's a fantastic Forum. I've spent time looking around other unrelated forums and they spend most of their time *****ing at oneanother.....I haven't witnessed any of that here as yet

Seems like a lot of us DIY "self taught machinists" tend to hang out here.

CarveOne

[Master of nun]

That probably has a lot to do with the fact we are all trying to get a computer to do the work for us!

I would't call myself a "self taught machinists".....that would be offending Machinists






Liam.

[diyengineer]

lol very true. I am keeping one of my smaller mills probably manual so i can teach myself. I believe it will make me a lot better of a programmer as well by knowing the manual way. You are pretty dang good though for being the master of none haha. Hopefully some of that will rub off on me through the forum haha

That probably has a lot to do with the fact we are all trying to get a computer to do the work for us!

I would't call myself a "self taught machinists".....that would be offending Machinists






Liam.

[Master of nun]

As long as your willing to have a go.
I was called a "Gunner" years ago by someone...you know Gunner do this and gunner do that, but nothing ever comes of it. That really pissed me off, so now I just start the job, often thats the hardest part. It's like those little enoying jobs you keep putting off that are holding up the next job on your router build, until you just get on with it and do them.....and find it really wasn't that painful afterall.


I managed to get the Y carriage and Z column up in it's place and attached the BC head and spindle


All the way up
[IMG][/IMG]

[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]

All the way down
[IMG][/IMG]

[lgalla]

Liam,Pretty good 4 a Gunner.I am speachless.
All I can say about your project...ACE,Ripper,Pretty Spiffy,Beaut,Handle up to you.
Larry

[RomanLini]

Thanks for the link, are you suggesting I just hook the wires from the stepper staight to a PS, no driver etc.?

The steppers are 4.65V and 6.2 A, is thiswhat I should apply to them?
the PS supplied with the steppers are 48V, 9 Amp peak
Does it matter which way + - are applied? (i'm guesing not)
...

You need to use an ADJUSTABLE voltage DC power supply, sometimes called a "DC bench supply".

Connect the 2 windings in parallel so they get equal current, then slowly turn up the voltage until the windings are operating at the specified current (ie 6.2A each, so thats 12A total). I was under the impression you were working at a Uni? I'm sure one of the electrical guys will have access to a decent sized DC supply.

Once the motor is at specified current, you can test the torque as shown on the web link I posted. Then reconnect the wires the 4 possible ways to test all 4 "full step" positions.

The fault normally experienced after disassembling steppers is that the pole alignment is no longer optimal, and the symptom is much reduced torque at one or more of the full step positions. Often this can be discerned by hand just by turning the motor, you can feel significantly less detent torque (ie it seems to turn smoothly after being disassembled).

It's almost impossible to realign them if they go out, which is a shame. However some of the newer style motors have the multiple stator stacks well glued together so you may have gotten away with the disassembly without wrecking it's torque too much (get your nun to pray!).

[Master of nun]

Liam,Pretty good 4 a Gunner.I am speachless.
All I can say about your project...ACE,Ripper,Pretty Spiffy,Beaut,Handle up to you.
Larry

Thanks Larry, It means a lot.

[Master of nun]

You need to use an ADJUSTABLE voltage DC power supply, sometimes called a "DC bench supply".

Connect the 2 windings in parallel so they get equal current, then slowly turn up the voltage until the windings are operating at the specified current (ie 6.2A each, so thats 12A total). I was under the impression you were working at a Uni? I'm sure one of the electrical guys will have access to a decent sized DC supply.

Once the motor is at specified current, you can test the torque as shown on the web link I posted. Then reconnect the wires the 4 possible ways to test all 4 "full step" positions.

The fault normally experienced after disassembling steppers is that the pole alignment is no longer optimal, and the symptom is much reduced torque at one or more of the full step positions. Often this can be discerned by hand just by turning the motor, you can feel significantly less detent torque (ie it seems to turn smoothly after being disassembled).

It's almost impossible to realign them if they go out, which is a shame. However some of the newer style motors have the multiple stator stacks well glued together so you may have gotten away with the disassembly without wrecking it's torque too much (get your nun to pray!).

Thanks for getting back to me,

Yeh I work at a Uni, but this is a project at home.
The ps details were given FYI...it wasn't what i was thinking to test them with.
I have a few Bench supplies at work....although 12 amps is a bloody big one and may struggle to find one.

As for testing the 4 full steps, "reconnect the wires the 4 possible ways"

Red----) +
)
)
Wht---)


Yel----)+
)
)
GRN---)


_ ............................... +

red/Yellow .................... WHT/green
WHT/green..................... red/Yellow
Red/green....................... yellow/WHT
yellow/WHT..................... Red/green


Is that Right?
I'm guessing there is no point putting neg/pos. on both ends of the same coil!





When you talk about the missalignment of the poles and the newer style stator packs, I'm guessing you are referring to the way the individual rows on the stator are slightly rotated from oneanother.......the ones on mine seemed to be permanently attached in that position....so as you say, they maybe glued.

[IMG][/IMG]

[RomanLini]

Re the bench power supply, you can connect both coils in series instead, if you like, that will only require 6.2 amps and even 4A or 5A will be sufficient to test it.

Re the motor coil connections, first you identify the 2 separate coils, lets call them A and B. Then call the 4 wires A+ A- and B+ B- for simplicity.

Then if you connect in series, here are the 4 possible "full step" connections;

PSU+ A+ A- B+ B- Gnd
PSU+ A- A+ B+ B- Gnd
PSU+ A+ A- B- B+ Gnd
PSU+ A- A+ B- B+ Gnd

It's pretty straightforward once the wires are in your hand.

Re your photo, that shows the rotor. That's basically one piece. The stator is the part inside the housing and the stator has the motor coils. Your motor appears to be a triple stack so it should have 3 stators, and whether they are glued together and/or glued into the housing will play a bit part in it being either misaligned (and wrecked) or maybe it's ok.

I have a couple of motors here I bought surplus that were disassembled and have such little torque they are useless.

I really advise testing your motor(s) it's a fairly quick job once you have the PSU set up especially if it has aligator clips on the leads.

[Master of nun]

Great news I found a 20 amp PS and all steppers tested the same at 1700 oz-in.....some time you can be lucky i guess.

[RomanLini]

That's great news and thank you too for the information.

I had heard somewhere that some of the newer style steppers (ie square frame high-torque etc) had the stators glued after alignment and wouldn't go out of alignment. Your findings seem to confirm that!

Still, it doesn't mean that ALL new style steppers can be safely disassembled...

Could you also please confirm that the stepper motor you disassembled FEELS the same when turning it by hand (with no PSU), ie; that the detent torque seems the same? On the damaged motor I have here the detent torque feels very different compared to its brothers that were not disassembled.

[quazga]

Amazing craftsmanship and very beautiful machining! Very impressed!

Those gear housings and trunnions look like SPACE SHUTTLE PARTS!

As for getting everything perfectly level, I'm wondering if a water level might be of use.

One like this,

http://www.watrlevel.com/index.htm

For their a12 model they are claiming an accuracy of 0.0017 inches over a distance of up to 50 feet and a change of 1 inch from point to point!

[diyengineer]

Amazing craftsmanship and very beautiful machining! Very impressed!

Those gear housings and trunnions look like SPACE SHUTTLE PARTS!

As for getting everything perfectly level, I'm wondering if a water level might be of use.

One like this,

http://www.watrlevel.com/index.htm

For their a12 model they are claiming an accuracy of 0.0017 inches over a distance of up to 50 feet and a change of 1 inch from point to point!

Dang for $59 bucks that is cheap. You could use that in construction and other projects for all sorts of things. I'll have to watch the videos.

[jsheerin]

In Machine Tool Reconditioning, they talk about using water levels with micrometers to touch the surface of the water to check alignment of surfaces that are separated by long distances. I think what the 0.0017" accuracy above refers to is that the level of the reference surface in the large reservoir will change level when you move their measuring reservoir up and down. I think you can actually do considerably better than this using the water as a reference plane for alignment if you have appropriate tooling.

[Master of nun]

That's great news and thank you too for the information.

I had heard somewhere that some of the newer style steppers (ie square frame high-torque etc) had the stators glued after alignment and wouldn't go out of alignment. Your findings seem to confirm that!

Still, it doesn't mean that ALL new style steppers can be safely disassembled...

Could you also please confirm that the stepper motor you disassembled FEELS the same when turning it by hand (with no PSU), ie; that the detent torque seems the same? On the damaged motor I have here the detent torque feels very different compared to its brothers that were not disassembled.

Hi Roman, The steppers all feel the same when disconnected. I pulled apart a third stepper some time earlier when looking at machining the shafts initially, this one may have been one of the ones that ended up being machined....if not, I can't tell which one it was so no, There is no difference between them.


Thanks for the Advise on this BTW.


Cheers Liam.

[Master of nun]

Amazing craftsmanship and very beautiful machining! Very impressed!

Those gear housings and trunnions look like SPACE SHUTTLE PARTS!

As for getting everything perfectly level, I'm wondering if a water level might be of use.

One like this,

http://www.watrlevel.com/index.htm

For their a12 model they are claiming an accuracy of 0.0017 inches over a distance of up to 50 feet and a change of 1 inch from point to point!

Thanks for the kind words and link Quazga........I don't know about A space shuttle!....maybe Sputnik

Ive already leveled the machine and the Y and Z axis' were staightened using a very large granite surface table I have in my workshop at work, You can see this in a lot of the photos.

I would love to buy a water level for other jobs though.

Cheers Liam.

[giz]

any updates here?

[Master of nun]

any updates here?

Hi Giz,

More to come shortly, I've pulled the gantry off painted it and put it back together and also attached the small brackets for Cable chains and ballscrew mount etc. I just need to paint the Y carriage and Z column so I can reassemble those.

I've made the spring mounted X axis pinions set ups also.

Ive also started wirring the cabinet.
Been pretty slack posting haven't I

Pretty picture soon I promise!