Help in initial setup.

[Larken]

Don't let that little LED get you down. Its just indicating there is power on the mains side (thats why it goes off when you unplug the main power).
I mentioned this mod in an post on another thread.

[hjl4]

Ok, thanks everyone. Nothing working yet except the Vipers are holding well and probably waiting for step and dir signals.

My new problem, and probably why I can't get the Vipers to move with Mach3, is the Breakout board's voltage coming out of the X Y Z and A axis step/dir and common screw terminals, is always putting out negative 5Volts . The common should be +5 Volts for the Vipers. I tried changing the common output by changing the jumper position on Bob Campbells bob. Did anyone ever encounter this problem and what can I do to remedy this.

[CNC-Joe]

Hi HJL,

I bought a Bob Campbell board, too. But I have used CNC4PC C1 Break out boards on 2 metal lathes conversions, and a cnc router I built, and decided not to chance taking a whole bunch of time on the Bob Campbell Board... I'm sure its a good board, I just didn't want to try tackling 2 big projects at the same time - and ordered another CNC4PC C1 BOB. (great product and customer support by the way). So, sorry - but I can't help you on the Bob Campbell BOB....

Do you have any other CNC machine that you could route the Step and Directions over from that controller ? (just an idea). It would be great if the Viper had a step/direction generator on it - just to test the connection to the servo.

With all this stuff..its important to take it slow, and a piece at a time.

Don't attempt the micro-stepping untll you get it working without the micro-step.

But - once its up and running - you will really appreciate the Viper board and how well it runs.

[Dstamp]

How is this project going? Machine running so well you haven't had time to tell us about it?

[diyengineer]

Any update? ?

I have 3 viper drivers im about to tune.. Your thread is pretty scary..

[hjl4]

So here is the long awaited update. The Journeyman 300 works like a charm.
My maximum IPM is at 165 and I will post pics of my machine, maybe a small vid.
At the beginning I blamed the Viper drives and were frustrated with them. Turns out the Break out board was the problem all along. It to this day, still is. I had to modify a few things to make the board work properly with the Vipers. Don't get me wrong, Bob Campbell boards are good units, just not the one's I picked. They even replaced it with another board at no charge, but same problem.

The Vipers are maintenance free and have never overheated yet. Just a tip, the default fuse that came with the Vipers were 10 amp and that is far from enough to run a medium sized mill.

In anycase, Go with the Vipers, they perform well and if I had to do it again, I would defenatly chose them again.

Sorry Larken for the rudeness sometimes, but when your boss is breathing down your neck, stress can bring the worst out in you.

When I post the pics I hope you will like my work and maybe offer some suggestions.
P.S. No one has given me any input as to how I should of had the Spindle wired. Well it was as simple as using Mach3 and Bob Campbell BOB. I can get into details here, but it would mean me typing more, And my patience with the keyboard is thin.

[diyengineer]

How big were your servos, along with mill, and how big of fuse did you use?

[hjl4]

To this day I still don't know the size of these servos, but they measure around 10-12 inches long by 5 inches in diameter. I'm at home at the moment, and don't feel like driving in the cold to go measure them. They are quite big. All are DC servos.
They run super smooth thanks to the Viper.

The fuses in the X and Y are 30 amp at the moment, and the Z is at 20 amps. They all work remarkably well, but if they go, I can up the amp fuses to 40 no prob. There is quite a bit of room built into the Vipers and with 40 amps, I would probably be over the continuous duty/amp rating of the motors.

Hope this helps.

BTW, getting the Spindle to run with the BOB is as simple as hooking up one wire with a small cap to the A-axis of the BOB and setting up Mach 3 to recognize it as Spindle and output a PWM signal. It works so well, when running a G-code, you can change spindle speed on the fly. I get an accurate 60 - 4000 RPM using the original Spindle drive.

Its a little more complicated, but I will get into details about it soon.

I just thought no one was interested so I just went quiet.

[Larken]

Glad to hear you got it all working. I wasn't sure if you had taken a sledgehammer to it. LOL


BTW, diyengineer, good thing you asked !

[cwaugs]

Hey hjl4, just getting some time to stop by here again. Do you think from this side of it that the step by step video would be a good idea? Finally got time to fire everything up on the YCM-40 up last night and wouldnt ya know it the transformer hums real loud and flips the breaker. so's I gotta sort that out and might actually get to do some cutting with my machine. Wayne.

[diyengineer]

when the servos actually get power can you feel them move or lock up with your hand? Do they make noise? Anything? Mine are not getting power at all from the drivers. Just thought i would ask you if you had any issues. I have 105Volts going into the driver, but nothing coming out at all...

To this day I still don't know the size of these servos, but they measure around 10-12 inches long by 5 inches in diameter. I'm at home at the moment, and don't feel like driving in the cold to go measure them. They are quite big. All are DC servos.
They run super smooth thanks to the Viper.

The fuses in the X and Y are 30 amp at the moment, and the Z is at 20 amps. They all work remarkably well, but if they go, I can up the amp fuses to 40 no prob. There is quite a bit of room built into the Vipers and with 40 amps, I would probably be over the continuous duty/amp rating of the motors.

Hope this helps.

BTW, getting the Spindle to run with the BOB is as simple as hooking up one wire with a small cap to the A-axis of the BOB and setting up Mach 3 to recognize it as Spindle and output a PWM signal. It works so well, when running a G-code, you can change spindle speed on the fly. I get an accurate 60 - 4000 RPM using the original Spindle drive.

Its a little more complicated, but I will get into details about it soon.

I just thought no one was interested so I just went quiet.