Thread: Making a new CNC machine

Originally Posted by WillyInBris

I am now a dad since 0305 this morning mate --snip--Sean

Three in the morning. Oh-oh; not an auspicious start.

Congratulations to both you and Angela. Life as you used to know it will now cease to exist as you dedicate all your free time to filling one end and removing same from the other end.

As to the motor; thanks Sean, I will try to pick it up tomorrow morning sometime. Does it have any connectors attached to it?

Bob

Congratulations Sean

Bob if you have a multimeter check the coils and see if there is a broken or cross wire internally or check the resistance of each coil (should all be the same IMO)

Sounds like your drivers and PSU are fine just a dud motor.

Amazing set ups

Hi Ch4iS

I tried that and got about 1.6 Ohms on both circuits. Now here is a funny thing. I set up Willy's motor using exactly the same specifications and just holding it in my hand (the motor I mean) I tried to spin it up using figures like 320 * 4000 * 200 and it also choked. Yes, that is correct, I choked it in my hand. I had to reduce the figures to the same as the original to get reliable performance.

I also tried this in the other outputs from the drivers and the same thing happened. Is it possible that these motors NEED a load on before they will work properly? But even then, it doesn't explain the poor performance measured against the other motors.

Anyway, I have reinstalled my original motor and although I would have liked more speed, it would seem to be working accurately but slowly. (Relatively that is.)

Apart from the problems with the X axis, I have now finished boring all the holes for the clamps (all 576 of them) and I have also knocked in all the T nuts.... Wouldn't you know it; I had done all but 9 of the holes and the bit broke so I had to finish off the job with a drill. It was my fault that the bit broke as I was drilling a 38mm deep hole with a bit that had only 25mm of cutter so the last bit of the hole was cut with the shank of the bit plugging up the top of the hole. I am just thankful that I managed to cut 567 of them before it succumbed to my mistreatment.

Things left to do include the cable carriers later this week I hope and then level the whole table relative to the spindle.

Whilst boring all those holes today I was also thinking about the vacuum that I would like to have on the head. I was thinking that it is a mistake to attach the vacuum to the spindle carrier which moves up and down and that much easier option would be to affix the vacuum to the bottom of the Z axis carrier. The pipe of the vacuum seldom needs to move up and down but does need to be situated close to the cutter head. Most of the boards I machine will be MDF or timber or plastic. As such they have a flat surface and all I will be doing is cutting a small groove in the surface of this material. I hope to able to modify a standard vacuum head to do this. Luckily I picked up a big orange vacuum cleaner at the auctions for $10. It works well.

Bob

Its coming together quick

Nope no load is needed, by grabbing the shaft you shouldnt be able to stop it they should have enough torque to keep spinning.

Have you shot keeling an email to ask if they can shed some light onto the problem?



So far all drivers are setup the same in mach 3 correct?
and the X axis motor will not run fine on either your Y or Z axis driver?
Willys motor will not work correctly on either the X Y or Z driver?
but the Motors connected to the Y and Z axis work find on the X axis driver?

If willys motor didnt work I would say it was the driver but if the other motors work fine on it im just as baffled as you.

I thought that I'd leave the motors alone for a bit while I wait for the cable carriers to arrive.

Meantime, I thought that I'd beef up the spindle mounts by putting another one above the existing one.

When I was drilling all those holes in the table I saw that the even though the existing clamp could hold the spindle quite rigid, it was still possible to move the spindle to a different angle. ie not 90 degrees to the table but maybe 87 degrees or something.

Well the cable carriers are in and they make it all look a lot more professional. I haven't taken any photos yet, so you will just have to take my word for it.

I am currently attempting to integrate the DC-03 speed controller into the system. I was speaking to Peter Homann for a long time yesterday and he sorted out my immediate problems without any regard for his time at all. Thank you Peter, that is great support from you for your products.

Since then, I have moved on to the next step of the integration and I am now trying to set up the output side of the DC-03 and the input side of the VFD. So far, no matter what I try I am unable to get a signal to the VFD that will tell it to spin up. I am beginning to suspect that I don't know what I am doing.

I used the excellent documentation that was written by seafurymike and even though it doesn't directly address my system (I don't have a smoothstepper) the clear and concise explanations he gives should have enabled me to easily complete the project.

I will try asking Peter Homann for more help tomorrow.

Bob Willson

Well I'm stuck again.

I hope that someone can help me.

This thread explains the problems that I am having getting the speed control of the spindle to work properly.

Hi Bob,
What are the overall dimensions of your machine?
Regards.

Hi nofunatall_00

The machine overall size is 2metres long by 1 metre wide and just aver a metre to the top of the table itself. This however, only gives a cutting area of 1600 * 800.

I could probably squeeze a few extra mm out of both axis but I don't like getting that close to the edges.

I am presently waiting for a new and bigger 80 volt power supply and also a new and bigger motor because I was having trouble driving the x axis at anything over 1.5 metres a minute. The machine kept losing steps and so I concluded that I just needed to use a bigger hammer to get what I wanted.

I am still not positive that this will achieve what I want as one of the tests that I gave the machine was to issue a Mach command G0 X0, (fast move to x0) and I then went up to the other end of the machine and pushed against the gantry in an effort to stop it moving. I am quite a large man but I seemed to have less influence on the machine than an ant would if it tried to push a brick. It was like an irresistible force meeting a movable object.

Bob Willson

Did you tight area sorted ? do you need some lanolin .

I think above your talking torque you machine has that its the speed that's the issue and with the motor and driver + PS I think you will get what you need.

if the end who did you order the PS from.

Sean

Hi Sean

I got the motor from Ausxmods because it was a little cheaper than everybody else and he had them in stock. I also ordered some of his 4 pin connectors so that I can easily swap out a motor if it becomes necessary

I got the Gecko Vampire driver from Peter Homann because it was $20 cheaper from him.

I am buying the power supply on Ebay from Antek because they are the only ones that I could find.

All up, it willl cost me nearly $500 just to upgrade that axis. $200 of that is the PSU

Would anyone like to buy a Keling KL23H286-20-8B 425oz Nema 23 stepper motor with matching Keling 4030 driver? Just kidding, I will keep or when I add a fourth axis or something.

Best $200 bucks you'll spend for a shop bought PSU.