Help in initial setup.

[hjl4]

Ok I hope someone can help me with initial tuning of my X axis DC servo motor.

First odd thing to mention, is when I enable the drives (power up), and go to hyperterminal, I never get the "LKR" header displayed as the Viper manual says it should be.
Second, I can read the motor position and the value changes if I turn the encoder/motor.
The number of steps never changes though.
Third problem, and it has got me stumped, is that on power up, after entering a KP value of 100 while in bank 0, the motor will turn at a repeatable rhythm/cycling. The shaft turns 1 step ccw (probably more, but in total the shaft rotates about 1/20th of a turn), and does this 4 or 5 times in a ccw rotation.
After 4 or 5 "steps", the motor returns to where it began in one sweep. and then the cycle start all over again rotating in the same direction.

Entering a loop value of 7 and saving it in hyperterminal via the s command, stops this motion/searching.
But then I want to increase the stiffness of the motor by increasing kd and kp, and there is no effect . Even after saving the settings, nothing changes.
If I go above 1000 in kp settings, the drive flashes the red LED slowly.

Also I am using a bob campbell breakout board, and the EPO (emergency power off) switch has no effect on the drives. Again poor literature to blame?

In any case, I'm sure I will find more trouble, but I need to get over this initial motor setup.

So if anyone can help, it will be appreciated.

Thanks.

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[hjl4]

BTW, I am using 3 Viper 200's as my servo drives.

[Larken]

So with hyperterm connected and running, you apply power to the drive and nothing displays ? But otherwise you can comunicate to the drive and read parameters ?

Are the other axes working ?
What powersupply voltage are you running ?

Does the motor lock when power is applied ? How stiff ?

What is the readout you get when using the 'm' command as you turn the shaft ?

Larry

[hjl4]

Hi Larry,

Ok, so this morning I turned everything on, computer power+viper power, (which starts up at the same time the computer does), and for some reason, the motor was holding fairly stiff. So I programmed the loop to be 7 to stop oscillation . I then tried to increase kp, and then tried to move the motor.
So I wanted to see how stiff it was, and managed to turn the motor by hand a bit, and then everything went dead, meaning the drive was no longer holding and the red LED was flashing rapidly. I could read the encoder , but nothing else. Even after powering the board on and off several times, the motor no longer holds. I can still get a hex reading off the encoder position. I can still communicate with the Viper.

Do I have to select a bank, such as 1, so this programming takes place?

Any help is good.

[Larken]

Your controller should be powered up .. After the computer powers up.

What is the power supply voltage ?? More than 65 volts eh ?

[hjl4]

Ok so I will change the startup of the Vipers for after computer has booted up.

The voltage is 96VDC.

Thanks for quick reply.

[CNC-Joe]

hjl4,

Some thoughts:

1) Make sure that your communication cable is working and wired correctly betweeen the Viper200's and the computer. ( I think that it is, as you are seeing changes on the encoders.

2) Power up the PC Computer first, get into HyperTerminal and double check your settings - it should be Com1 (make sure the comm port is enabled in our bios),9600 Bits Per Second, Data Bits 8, Parity None, Stop Bits 1, FlowControl None.

Note: Make sure that you have the jumpers off, to start up in protected lower current mode.

3) Then power on your Larken's - you should see the LKR logo .

Check your encoder optical disk - make sure that it is not touching the emitter/detector. I had my optical disk touching my emitter / detector and was getting some weird results when mine was touching.

Good luck!

[hjl4]

Thanks cnc joe,

Ok so I started with another Viper board, trying to eliminate the possibility that one is not working.

I now have LKR on the screen in hyperterminal, as I power the boards after the computer has booted up. The first board even though I'm not using it at the moment, also displays LKR.

Then I enable the power to the motors/drives.

The X axis motor now holds well, with no adjustment done yet.

Now as I try to increase KP, lets say to 100, as per the example in the manual, and run the s command to save it, the motor lets go and becomes freewheeling. I'm in bank 0 at this point.

Do I have to save when increasing the value or changing settings in hyperterminal for it to take effect or is enter/carriage return, sufficient enough to see the change?

I have increased KP to 2400 and still the motor is freewheeling with no oscillations. Anytime I try to adjust anything, the motor just lets go and becomes loose.

Thanks for help guys.

[CNC-Joe]

Hi hjl4,

I'm by no means the viper expert - so take what I say with a grain of salt, k?
If you're using Bank 0 - to tune the Vipers - there is no need to save after changing settings. Only save when you finally get the Viper tuned to the servo, and that might take some experimentation. It took me a bunch of sessions.. but the "right out of the box" settings actually worked pretty good with my SEMco Servo's

So - don't even worry about saving - just play with P, and D until you get all the parameters tuned. Write them down on a tablet for in between work sessions on it.

Check that optical encoder disk - make sure its not damaged or touching the emitter/detector.

Good luck and keep plugging on it.

Joe
CNC isn't a passion....its an obsession

[hjl4]

I think I'll go over my connections to the Vipers again today, and try to make sense of all this. If I could only get one motor running, then I'll be able to set the other two.

On another note, I'm still lost as to how to get the spindle going, as there is only three wires going into the original Westamp board.
Two are tach, and the last one would be analog +/- .
The trick will be to interface the spindle to a bob campbell BOB and get Mach 3 to control it.

For now, my efforts are on getting the Vipers to control the axis servos.

I hope Larken will be online line today as this is a long weekend and three days is a long time for any help.

[CNC-Joe]

I can't help you much there on the Spindle, as mine is manual.

However - there is a guy on the CNC-Zone called "Al_the_man" who seems to have done a lot of these things. You might try to find a post and shoot him a personal message.

I'm still trying to get my fault line working with my CNC4PC C1 Break Out Board.

You're right - Monday is a holiday in Canada.

[CNC-Joe]

hjl4,

Your servo's should "lock up" when you apply power to the viper200 card.
Go over your connections.

you might try reversing your power to your servo too... keep your hand on the E-stop button or escape key if you're using mach3 - in case it takes off on you.

Also - check your servo motors by putting some DC voltage to them, to make sure that they move and work. I used a 12 volt car battery charger for this.
They should change direction when you change polarity on the wires.

[hjl4]

Thanks Joe

Yep the motor locks up upon powerup. When i try to do anything else, like increasing loop, the motor moves and stop within 1/8 of a turn. An error flashing lite on Viper board rapidly flashes.

Something tells me the encoder is working as the Viper recognizes that either steps are out of place or missing and then stops and shut all power to motor. I have to restart the Viper to get back to the motor lockup stage.

Strange but I`m still working on it.

I`ll certainly lookup Al the man for my spindle problem.

[hjl4]

Wow, I can't get anything going.

This should be so simple but obviously I'm doing something wrong, as nothing works.

Today I spent a good part of the day rechecking my wiring to the Viper boards , the Bob Campbell breakout board and the computer.

Power goes in the Viper boards, but that's as far as it goes.

I can communicate with them using the m or ? commands in hyperterminal , but never have anything come out to the motors. In the beginning, at least the motors would hold with the default settings. The rapidly flashing LED tells me something is wrong and the only way I can stop it is to give the x command.

But in any case can the encoders cause these problems? I get good readings from them. What about the tach wires from the motors (currently they are not connected to anything as there is no provision on any of the boards for it).

I'm at a total loss here.

To this day I have never been able to oscillate or properly set up the motors.

I'm stating to wonder if this was a good idea.

Maybe tomorrow I will post some pics or draw a schematic of my installation.

Any help is appreciated.

[hjl4]

So I had more time to play with the Vipers today, and I found that on the two boards where the red LED was flashing rapidly, the 10 amp fuse were both blown.
How this happened I'm not sure, but it has something to do with me trying to rotate the motor when checking the stiffness or holding power. I know now why it would hold fairly well and then suddenly let go. The 10 amp fuse would blow and the power side of the board had no power in it hence the rapidly flashing LED.

This is still theory, and I'll confirm it tomorrow.

I will uninstall Mach3 also to free up the parallel port, as Mach3 locks/reserves the port so no other can access it.

Maybe then I'll be able to see some results in hyperterminal.

I'm just trying different things as no one seems to have been in this situation.

As for the Westamp spindle drive, I'll have to keep digging deeper into how a single wire can literally rotate the spindle. I know this, because applying 1.7 Volts of dc power to that wire will run the spindle around 2000 rpm. Reducing the voltage on the wire to 0.5Volts, the spindle turns at about 30 RPM.

Any ideas?

[hjl4]

Well my theory didn't have much to stand on and I still have no results.

However I think I have a problem that's maybe worse. The Viper come with a 10 amp fuse and each time after setting the KP above 250, it blows.

I need help in figuring this out.

Could it be the motors are too big and the Vipers just won't cut it? This is a relatively average size mill. A Tree Journeyman 300.

[hjl4]

I can read the motor position in hyperterminal, but I have yet to see the steps change even after rotating /moving the motor shaft. ??????????
Only the position changes. Is that OK?

[Larken]

You don't 'need' to make the motor oscillate to tune the drive. Are you increasing KD when you increase KP ? You should have KD 2X what Kp is.

Are the still motors holding when you turn the power on ?

I can read the motor position in hyperterminal, but I have yet to see the steps change even after rotating /moving the motor shaft. ??????????
Only the position changes. Is that OK?

The (S)teps only change when you give it steps from mach 3. (??????????)

The (M)otor(encoder) should change when you turn the shaft.

I will uninstall Mach3 also to free up the parallel port, as Mach3 locks/reserves the port so no other can access it.

What else needs to access the printer port . I don't understand ?

How this happened I'm not sure, but it has something to do with me trying to rotate the motor when checking the stiffness or holding power. I know now why it would hold fairly well and then suddenly let go. The 10 amp fuse would blow and the power side of the board had no power in it hence the rapidly flashing LED.

Its not hard to blow a 10 amp fuse on a big mill by torquing the motor. But most mill motors have a continuous current rating between 8-12 amps, so don't put too big a fuse in it.

Larry

[i_r_machinist]

Don't give up! I know how you feel! Quit worrying about the spindle drive. Not important at this stage. I finished my build by taking very small steps. Read the sharnoa build posts. I would print it out and have to read it over and over until I understood what these guys were telling me. I had problems with every step, but they drug me to the finish line.
I never got my motors to do the ocillating thing while tuning. I did get them to hold real stiff without getting hot and left it alone.
The satisfaction you will get from completeing this is well worth the frustration of the learning curve.
have fun
i_r_machinist

[hjl4]

Wow what a learning curve. I'm writing all my notes down, so as to be able to post it for everyone to see how it's done. But before that, I have many hurdles to go over.
Larken, I'm sorry but your manual has failed me too many times. It needs a good rewrite.
Now, I finally got to saving a configuration in Bank 1. Step multiplier of 4.
Unfortunately I have a yellow current limit LED that refuses to go off.
I tried adjusting the trim pot, but to no avail.
All my boards are now doing this. A constant yellow LED.
What gives. The only way to stop it is to remove the power side input plugs.
Alot of things could of made my life easier.
Being a mechanical/electrical engineer, but not that familiar with hyperterminal has left me to rely on your manual 100%.
How wrong. Only today after all this time I was able to save setting on a bank and have the motor holding consistently.

First, when adjusting kp,kd ect....the manual says to start at a low setting. The instuctions are adjust kp=100, ki=0, kd=200, loop=0
Well for all of you who have suffered endlessy, The k is not necessary in any input and so is the = or equal sign.
When typing in your settings, It should be read as p100 cr i0 cr d200 cr l0 cr.
cr standing for carriage return or enter. p for proportional, i for integral, d for derivative, l for loop. Makes sense? Also you must select a step multiplier, meaning take the little jumpers that come with your kit and stick one on the board, or you won't have any results.

This has really p____d me off.

Also the Bob Campbell break out board manual, has alot to be desired. It shares the same layout and format as the Viper manual. Lots of info, but no explanation as to why you have to or not follow a step.
An xml file??? For what???.
Please let me know what the constant on yellow LED stands for and is their a reset?

Thankx.

P.S. If I would be building routers and mills using my product, for example Viper boards, and I sold my boards only to general public, I would make damn sure to have a fool proof manual to go with it.
Example of wiring diagrams and explanations as to why all steps are needed.
Thats where that damn EPO or EStop wiring would of saved me so much time. The bob campbell board is not Viper friendly period. Larken you should have your own breakout board. If you do, why is it not available.
Did I again miss something??
I'm totally disappointed.