I am looking for some help with the wiring of my motors and the board. I have purchased four stepper motors, four drivers, linear power supply and the power supply for my MB3/ESS combo.
I am attaching the drawing of what I have so far if those of you who are knowledgeable in this can just verify this. I really don't want to burn something.
So this is where my first confusion is. On my drive controller I have a "VDC" and "GND" but on my power supply which is 80 VDC as output I have a "-" "-" C "+" "+". How would I wire this to all four stepper drivers?
My second confusion is in MACH4 software. So after everything is wired correctly and it's powered on, how exactly do you map everything in the settings. I have installed MACH4, I have plugged in and configured ESS so everything is there I just don't know how do i assign things properly. Does anybody know of any website or YouTube channel that does the step by step so somebody like me can understand this? I'm thinking about first connecting only a single stepper driver and a single stepper motor and trying to configure this before I move on to adding other things like E-stop and VFD spindle or limit switches.
Hi,
the ++ and -- terminals on your power supply are just that, the +ve output and the -ve output. There are two +ve's, so you can use either one or both,
likewise there are two -ve's.
You just need to hook each of the four drivers VDC terminals to one or the other +ve terminal on the power supply. The four GND terminals
of your drivers get hooked to one or the other -ve terminal on your power supply.
If you read the books they will tell you to wire them in a star pattern, with two wires to each drive. That often means lots of wires which can be hard to
squeeze into the terminals on the power supply, you will want to use fairly thick wire, say 1.5mm2.
You can alternately wire them in 'daisy chain' fashion and that works OK too, especially if you use thicker wire, say 2.5mm2. Some purists
will tell you its wrong, but it works just fine.
Your MB3 breakout board has 5V differential outputs especially for stepper and servo drives. Can you post a shot of the pinout of your MB3?
Each differential output will be a pair of terminals. You will need one pair for the step signal and another pair for the direction signal to each
of your four drives, or eight differential pairs.
I think i know now, i have my power and motors connected right so the next step would be to connect E-stop. I have my MB3 manual on my one drive here https://1drv.ms/b/s!Avbu5Pm8ziU7hacKT1PtQHXBhNBqSA
I think what you are asking me is on the page 6. I can see where i connect my drivers, VFD and 24v power supply but nothing else is marked.
Hi,
whats the problem, the nature of the pins is specified on page 6 as you stated?.
Note that port 1 pins 10-13 and pin 15 are bog standard NPN/PNP inputs. For instance hook your Estop to port1 pin 10
and then assign that pin to the Estop input in the ESS plugin.
My understanding is that CNCRoom have developed a standard template that allows you to connect limits and homes etc. This is all well
and good but REQUIRES you follow their assignments. The alternative is to make your own assignments and ignore the CNCRoom supplied template.
That later option is what I would be doing.
Note that port 2 and 3 of the ESS are bi-directional, that is to say that pins 2-9 of each port can be all inputs or outputs at your choice.
Your choice is constrained by the fact that CNCRoom has made the MB3 breakout board with port 2 pins 2-9 as inputs and port 3 pins 2-9 as
outputs. That gives you a good balance. All that you have to do is make sure in the ESS plugin that you nominate that port 2 pins 2-9 (of the ESS) be inputs and
port3 pins 2-9 (of the ESS) be outputs.
Thereafter you can hook up your limits, homes and probes to any of the available NPN/PNP digital inputs highlighted in beige on page 6.
In the ESS plugin logically connect each input to it corresponding Mach4 input signal.