Thread: 6040 CNC questions

Here is yet another take on which spindle to get:

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/sa...ml#post1539447

It seems that there are a lot of opinions on spindles.

Have so far sent 2 emails to Carving-CNC asking a question about a 4th axis without the controller board (don't need one with the Geck G540), so far no reply.

It is hard work spending money!

Don't want to order anything else until the basic machine and 4th axis is sorted.

Originally Posted by rodm

Check with him but the spec says F65 x 245 then the description says 80 by 245.
In the tables there is no listing for a 245mm long spindle but there is a 65 by 205 air cooled spindle that is 1.5kw.
He is an on seller and it is a really bad job of copying and pasting.
I think you will find it is 65 diam on an air cooled 1.5kw but make this point clear to the seller.
Thw water cooled are 80mm to allow for the cooling jacket.

Just got this answer back, so it appears that they do have 65mm water cooled spindles, man this gets confusing

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.
Yes, this air-cooled spindle comes with 80MM.
We just have water-cooled soindle with 65mm.
Thanks

Regards

- love-happyshopping

Originally Posted by Big Shed

Just got this answer back, so it appears that they do have 65mm water cooled spindles, man this gets confusing

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.
Yes, this air-cooled spindle comes with 80MM.
We just have water-cooled soindle with 65mm.
Thanks

Regards

- love-happyshopping

I believe he is mistaken

Air-cooled from what I've seen is always 65mm with the watercooled being 80mm.

When I purchased my 1.5KW air cooled some time back (about a year ago) he had the same error in his ebay listing of listing it as an 80mm spindle.

I have a couple of air cooled 1.5kw spindles, 80mm dia.

I asked for 80mm dia. Original one was water cooled 80mm, so I did not want to remake the brackets unnecessarily.

Probably said before, I will never have another water cooled one. Air cooled is so much simpler.

Greg

My mistake

getting back to the chinese machine.
I got the LS244 ic's today and glued them in.
Bugger me it works
Couldn't get it to go and spent ages reading then found Mach won't work with 64 bit win. Bugger i had just done a nice fresh install of 64 Start again with 32 bit and it goes.
Did the motor tuning and got it to max, 4600 mm per min. Had to find out how to make it go faster. The tuning screen had the sliders all the way up. Tried the 35KHz setting and 6500mm/min start to get some funny sounds. At 5500 sounds good.
Have to get some more volts for the power supply and see how fast i can get it to go
Will keep u all posted
Mike

I can't get even close to that sort of speed and I've got it running on the G540!

I guess not all 6040 are created equal - except the supplied controller of course

Snowy
Shouldn't joke about the chinese controllers if they go faster than a gecko

Mine is runing off only 24V and is set for 3 amps. The motors are labeled as 4A
Sorry i know very little about the geckos. What current have u got it set to? What voltage?
The Gecko should be a lot better than the thing i have but now i have done all the mods and seeing the speed i get its not bad. Will probably pump it up to 35V and see what it can do. Any more than that will have to change the controller.

I have a 48V power supply and the current resistor is set to 3A which is the marking on my motors.

Seems odd. How fast can u get it to go?
Maybe the smaller motors are a lot lower power. Where did u get the machine from.
How many micro steps

Originally Posted by snowyskiesau

I can't get even close to that sort of speed and I've got it running on the G540!

I guess not all 6040 are created equal - except the supplied controller of course

i recommend doing 10 laps of the x axis , and coming back at 1/2 speed each time ,a " DIAL INDICATOR " will show up any missed steps , high speed is fine for jogging , but steppers loose there power at high speed ( do it 100 times to see by eye , might have to wright g-code , sing out if you need help writing g-code )

SDS
I intend to do that but have to get a clock first.
Left all those sorts of things with the business when i sold it
Still have lots to learn about mach and the other software before i do anything serious

you dont need a dial indicator , well you just have to run it 10x more to see it by eye

in mach3's folder , there is a "Porttest.exe " run that , make sure 35,000ppm is running fine

make sure you run " mach3 " on a clear PC , no other programs a minimum windows install + notepad, then get the latest updates ,1 PC dedicated to your machine ( yer you have a fresh install < this was for the " stalkers " of the site



then run

g-code , open " note pad " and dont type any thing in ( )

f ( your speed ie " f4000" ) (f = feed )
x550 ( run your x axis too 550mm from zero)
f ( 1/2 your speed , ie f2000)
x10 ( run x axis back to 10mm from zero )

(now copy and paste that 7x , re copying all the copy's every time ) , ( 1 , 2 , 4 , 8 , 16 , 32 , 64 , 128 , then )

x0 ( bring x axis back too zero )

( now save the notepad file , and open it it in mach3, eather change the TXT file to a TAP , or make mach3 look for TXT files on the load G-code page )

(if you set your x axis to approx 5mm from bump stop , zero x , wind the z down , into a sacrificial layer , and spin the spindle by hand to cause a hole , then wind it back up clear )

(click run g-code , it will do its thing , 128 laps , 2x as fast in one direction ) if you were to set the same speed in both directions , lost steps will cancel each other out

( crank the spindle back down too the first hole , and see if it lines up, if not your , too fast for jog )
once it stops in the right position , knock 20% off your max speed & max acceleration ( at least ) , its only the jog ,. 90% of the time the bit will be in the dust running at a slower speed , last thing you want is lost steps because of jog speed or acceleration


this a good test too try again with the spindle running , to look for noise from the VDF


wow you just wrote g - code , dont be scared of it ,
oh ,and since you made saw dust with your machine for the first time , we expect a photo of the saw dust

I ran that test but added some x axis to make big rectangles. Was running for nearly 1 hour and it suddenly stopped. I had put a bit of plasticene on the table to mark the origin and kept the cutter low so i could see the mark. It didn't seem to be missing steps up untill it stopped then was out by a long way.
Ran the Mach test for the port and when it first starts it reports excellent but then imediately changes to pulsing too fast, even at 25KHz. The pulse rate at the top never goes above 21khz.
Need to get the smooth stepper going i think