PathPilot, Mesa 7I92H and Geckodrive G540

[Nixxk]

Thanks for that. I had a quick look and I think it will help a lot.
Is the bit file BITFILE0=mesa/tormach_g540.bit a standard bit file or is it one that you created? The only G540 bit file is the one that Mesa provide with the 7i92 software. where can I get the g540 file you are using?

Cheers,

Peter

Hey Peter

Well that's is a good question, its been so long i cant remember, BUT i am 100% sure i did not create it . So i downloaded it but i have no clue where from.. did a file compare with my file and the one from mesa website and they are different but i think the one from the mesa website is way younger than the file i have been using since back in the 1.9 version area ... I can share it with you the bit file if you want ... i will try to figure out where it came from ...

[phomann]

Hi,
Thanks for checking. I realized the the Tormach 440 uses a MX3660 stepper driver which has an identical parallel port interface to the G540. So I can use that. I think I’ll use the 440 machine configuration as a starting place.

Cheers
Peter


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[phomann]

Hey Peter

Well that's is a good question, its been so long i cant remember, BUT i am 100% sure i did not create it . So i downloaded it but i have no clue where from.. did a file compare with my file and the one from mesa website and they are different but i think the one from the mesa website is way younger than the file i have been using since back in the 1.9 version area ... I can share it with you the bit file if you want ... i will try to figure out where it came from ...

Hi,
Could you please share the bit file as the one I tried does no seem to be doing what I expect.
Cheers
Peter


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[Nixxk]

Yes
Here it is

[phomann]

Yes
Here it is

Thanks for that. I’ll let you know how I go later today.
Cheers
Peter


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[Nixxk]

Alright

I finally found where my bit file came from ( dont know why i renamed it )
But its the 5i25_g540x2.bit file that's on Mesa website that i downloaded back when i did the conversion.

[phomann]

Hi,
Thanks for confirming that. I was suspecting it might be that one.
Did you get the spindle speed control to work using that bit file as it needs a pwm signal?

Cheers
Peter


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[Nixxk]

Hi Peter

No i did not , spindle is still under manual control.
i do have a 3 phase motor and VFD i want to install instead of my DC motor.
I did not look into it but most VFD have a 0-10 VDC input so i am hopping that will work for my case.

[phomann]

That’s the bit I’m working on at the moment. Last night I got the 440 configuration to work with the G540 using the MX3660 bit file that Tormach provides. I was able to move the axes, etc.
the MX3660 bit file has the interface as the G540, except that the 2nd port on the MX3660 bit file is configured as all I/O lines that is more useful than being configured as a 2nd G540.
One change I need to make is for the charge pump signal to be on all the time rather than only when the Estop is cleared.

I’m currently working on getting the spindle working. I changed the coolant output to the 2nd Mesa port, so I can use the original pin for the spindle direction.
Cheers
Peter


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[phomann]

On another question I have, where is the spindle encoder fed into the 1100-3 configuration?

I’m struggling to see where that’s defined.
Cheers
Peter


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[Nixxk]

from the hal files i dont think there's an encoder on the spindle of the 1100-3
but i might be wrong... the screen seems to be a showing a expected RPM not actual RPM .

[phomann]

Yes, I couldn’t find any thing. I’ll have a look through the other mill configuration HAL files and see what I can glean.

Cheers
Peter


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[phomann]

Hi all,
Just a quick update. I’ll add some more detail in the next day or so.
I’m using the the 440 configuration, as this machine uses the Leadshine MX3660 controller, which has the same parallel port interface pin assignments as the G540. I don’t think that this was a coincidence on the part of Leadshine.

Also, the 440 has 5mm ballscrews that match my TM20VL machine so that was a help.
Pin 1 in the configuration was assigned to Spindle enable and Pin 17 is for the coolant.
I changed Pin 1 to be spindle direction, pin 17 to be spindle enable, and move the coolant enable to Pin 17 on the other port of the 7i92.

The 440 spindle is a configured for FWD only, I enabled the spindle reverse, set up Pin 1 for spindle direction.

I now have the spindle controlled FWD and REV from PathPilot.
I took a bit of time to add home switches to the machine and understand the ini and Hal files.
I still have a lot to do but I’m making a lot of progress.
Cheers,

Peter


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[phomann]

Hi all,
I made my first part with PathPilot over the weekend. It all turned out very well, so I’m glad I persevered.

I remade the X-Axis motor bracket for the TM20VL mill. When I converted this mill to CNC many years ago, I made all of the conversion parts out of Corian. I did this as I made trhe parts on my Taig mill and making them out of Aluminium was very slow and some of the parts needed to be remade due to the hole alignments, etc which is common with these Chinese mills.
As usual, once the conversion was done and working I didn’t get around to remaking the conversion parts out of Aluminium as quickly as I should have.
To make the part, I loaded the original dxf file into Fusion 360 and created the model. I used a Tormach Post processor with probing added to it. The operations I used to machine the part in two setups were;
1. Probe the top to the stock surface
2. Probe the X & Y dimensions of the stock.
3. Face the surface
4. Mill the slots and cutouts.
5. Drill the holes for tapping
6. Semi rigid tap the holes with M4 tap
7. Chamfer the edges

The 2nd setup was performed by;
1. Flipping the part over
2. Manually facing the surface
3. Mount the part to a fixture plate via the part slots.
4. Set the Z origin by probing the to surface
5. Set the X/Y origin by probing the center point of the pulley hole.
6. Cut the part out by 2D adaptive clearing.

For the first part made I didn’t snap a probe tip or crash a tool and managed to semi-rigid tap a dozen or so M4 holes, so I’m very happy with that.

Another feature I found that worked very well was setting the tool offsets using an ETS.
As far as the conversion of the TM20VL to PathPilot is basically done. From the controller side I was able to plug the Mesa 7i92 card port output into my existing Gecko G540 based controller with any modifications.
I did have to add home switches to the mill but I should have done that a long time ago.

From the PathPilot configuration side.
1. I used the Tormach 440 mill configuration as it matches the inputs/outs of the G540 exactly.
1. I changed the 440 7i92 specific ini file to accommodate my mills axis settings
2. Changed the MX3660 spindle file to enable spindle reverse.
3. Changed the HAL file to change the coolant pin to be used for spindle direction
4. Changed the HAL file to move the coolant pin to the other port on the 7i92 card

I tried to use the Linux linearize function to reduce the actual vs commanded spindle speed. It worked well in the forward direction but not in the reverse direction. I tried a few of the recommended suggestion on the forums to fix this but I couldn’t get it to work. In the end I went back to the adjust the min and max voltage setting for the PWM spindle speed in the HAL file. This got me to within approx 5-10 rpm in the 500 -2000 rpm so it is good enough for what I’m doing with semi rigid tapping.

I plan to change my Lathe over to PathPilot but I think that is going to be a lot tougher. The HAL and .ini files look a lot more complex.

Thanks for everyone’s help.

Cheers,

Peter


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[phomann]

Here are a few pictures of the part.






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[phomann]

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[Nixxk]

Wow Mate
Keep up the good work
Let us know how the lathe conversion goes

[phomann]

Thanks. The lathe looks like a bit more of a challenge. From a quick look, the limit switches and door switch are expected to be frequencies rather than discrete inputs.
Generating the frequencies won’t be a problem using a microprocessor, etc but I’ll need to do a bit of research first on what others have done in converting lathes to run on PathPilot.
Cheers,

Peter


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[phomann]

Very happy with the mills new controller. Below is a pic of the pendant I built to go with the PathPilot controller.



Cheers,
Peter


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[sagreen]

Very happy with the mills new controller. Below is a pic of the pendant I built to go with the PathPilot controller.



Cheers,
Peter


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Looking good!

Scott...