Thread: CNC Gantry Router #A

Hi Rod,

Can you take a couple of pics of the inside of the electricery box now that it is working. I am about to start building in one of them

Here you go Bob
It is not finished as I have to fit a limit switch board and maybe connect the smoothstepper too - one day.

Thanks Rod,

I really thought I was going to get a classified area message and no photo I really just needed the layout to get mine somewhat right...

Thanks...

Hi Rod,

What is the board in the upper right hand corner? It does not look like a DC-06.

Did you clean your case up? Mine is going to need some work before it looks anywhere near as good as yours, it has got sticky things all over it It is all good fun though...

That's a GH-09

Hi Bob,
The board is a bit of electrickery magic made by a friend of ours. It is a 12 volt opto isolated limit switch bob and stopped all the noise on the limits with the smoothstepper.

I pulled out the DC-06 when I had trouble with the Smoothstepper. I might revisit this one day but it will not be in the near future and more likely never. I don't mind operating the spindle in manual mode and the VFD is set to analogue so the rotary dial can be used to ramp up the speed now. I recently got a Pokey and will work on another console with MPG down the track but the new mill will be first priority. It can do a lot of the turn on functions through that.

Yeah I cleaned up the case - well all three of them I got. The plastic labels can be removed easily - just lift one corner and don't be in a hurry to pull it off. I found if you just hold it upwards for a few seconds it gives the adhesive time to seperate and it peals back easier. A heat gun might make it easier for you. Turps or metho should remove all the gum from the cabinet.

The two acrylic labels on the front of the door are there to cover the holes from the power points and RCD. I have the vector artwork for the caution sign if you want it.

I don't know how you can say electrickery stuff is good fun....

Originally Posted by rodm

I pulled out the DC-06 when I had trouble with the Smoothstepper.
I might revisit this one day but it will not be in the near future and more likely never.

.

The DC-06 will run fine from the LPT.

According to your XML you have output pins 1, 14, 16 and 17 free. DC-06 will run the VFD from one pin although two is better.

Having the spindle turn itself off at the end of a job is worth it alone.

And it's so cool to have the gcode start the spindle and set the speed.

Greg

Hi Greg,
At the moment the last thing I want to do is introduce more electrickery problems for myself.
I will probably revisit all this once I have used the machine and forgot about my comedy of errors. With my memory that probably won't be too long.

That makes some sense

I will probably do like you and use the 5 volt lines for the switches, have not got any at present so that will be a learning curve too

Thanks for the hint re the glue etc...

I'm not sure what I will put on the labels, top one will be the e-stop switch.

This is fun, I feel like kid with a new toy

There hasn't been a post for a couple of days so I'll bore you with what I have been up to.
The console I built has a 12 inch touchscreen but the overlay on the screen for the touch bit is reflective and hard to see the screen outdoors. You can see from the photo by comparing the two screens what the problem is. I find I am bobbing around trying ot get the right angle to eliminate the reflections. So the solution was to fit a normal 19 inch monitor on top. I have the screens cloned so both display the same screen and with the 19 inch no problem with reflections. The text on the 19 inch is huge at 800 by 600 resolution and I can read it from the other side of the machine so added bonus. The touchscreen still works so I was pleased that is still functional.

I just tried out the camera for the positioning of X and Y and the on screen image on the 19 inch is huge and real easy to see. I will be using a wireless game control to jog the axes around so more of that when I get it working. I whacked in another USB port while I had the case open as I am running out of ports with all these extras.

Well that was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Loaded the joystick plug in and it worked first time.
I now have wireless jogging and I'm sure I can get some of the other functions of the joystick working soon enough.
Great idea these as you don't have to worry about a cord like the shuttlepro.

Originally Posted by rodm

Well that was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Loaded the joystick plug in and it worked first time.
I now have wireless jogging and I'm sure I can get some of the other functions of the joystick working soon enough.
Great idea these as you don't have to worry about a cord like the shuttlepro.

LOL, never would have thought of a wireless controller.

The machine looks pretty darn impressive rod.

Thanks Chris,
The wireless controller works well and is convenient to use. If you use keygrabber then you can assign all the buttons to the keyboard shortcuts. Very easy to configure and I was up and runnig in minutes.

I never would have thought of a wireless remote controller. You just keep coming up with great ideas. Boy, have I got a lot to learn.

You're machine is just great....and getting better all the time.

Cheers