You could use it to machine a small car or something. :)

Krasch: Great job. I too built a shop that I though would accommodate my needs (40' x 48' steel arch building) and am finding it filled up to the point that I need to put wheels on my MM so I can roll it around as needed. (:)Sort of like highways - no matter how much you build, it is never enough!)

Need confirmation on Gantry Setup
 

All:

I am ready to take the metal to the welder and want confirmation on the gantry set up, especially the cable management pieces (10 20 456B, 10 20 458B and 10 20 457B) just to make sure I have them on the right sides and facing the right way. In these picture the gantry is upside down with the holes on the edge on the table.

I threw in a picture of the shop for your edification.

After turning them around:


they look right.

Thanks Gerald

Joe, if it is not too late, can I re-check that?

Look carefully at 10 20 451 W & 10 20 452 W for the marked corner:


Nothing critical, and right now now I cannot remember why the difference is there

Hope it isn't critical. Everything got welded up this morning!:)

Joe

Back to the hard part - the electronics
 

My hat is off to everyone who has a running MechMate. I've taking a long detour building the shop, and can now get back into it since that is finished. I'm going to have to hurry to get a serial # <100!

I left off at the point of my last frustration - the "kitchen table" project. I've recreated most of the schematic using real components for ease of understanding(mine), and found a few things that I am unsure about.

I think I have things mostly routed, but I need someone(anyone!) to bless this for purposes of the "kitchen table" project, and help me with the following questions:

1) The wires from the transformer are supposed to connect to L1 and N going into the Contactor, and are also supposed to connect to L1 and N going to the plug according to the schematic(10 70 115). How is this possible? Isn't this supposed to be 1(L1) from the plug and 2(T1) to the Toroid?

2) I'm using an Enso KSR 3.40/U on/off switch for the project, and it has 3 inputs(1,3,5) on one side and 3 inputs(2,4,6) on the other. Since I just need one wire to be switched, which terminal do i use? Can I just use the simple green/red on/off switch instead? (It only has 4 connectors)

3) The schematic supplied with the Oriental motors is not very descriptive. It splits the six wires into two groups of 2. A and A prime, B and B prime. How do I pick which 4 to use? I'm guessing from other diagrams I've found that it is black & green, and red & blue for A & A prime, B & B prime respectively?

At the risk of blowing a fuse, I'm ready to plug it in and see what happens...:D

Revised drawing
 

I pm'd Lumberjack_jeff, and he was kind enough to confirm some of the questions I had about my diagram and point me to other threads to give me more confidence before I "plug her in". This is my revised "hobbyist" control panel, for any fellow luddites out there. Wish me luck!, I'll let you know how it goes.

Be sure to switch the black (hot) wire. Also, for a kitchen table test, I'd omit the contactor, and add fuses. At least five total; one fuse in the hot lead to the toroid and one between the power supply and each of the four Gecko.

Krasch, you have some serious errors in your diagram - you need to do some more reading of the relevant threads.

Hi Gerald! Welcome back. Yeah I know I have problems, so I haven't plugged anything in yet. I'm reading things for the third and fourth time and poring over several builders diagrams and scrutinizing all the photo's. I'm making progress, albeit glacially.

How I spent my New Years eve
 

I feel like I’m making great strides on my control box, but the more I read of the literature supplied with my components, and the more I look at threads, the more conflicting info I get. Here’s is my updated control box, incorporating what I’ve figured out.

Here are three areas where I’ve had to guess:

1) When looking at the contactor in 10 70 115, “L1” and “N” are connected to the upper middle two (of the six possible) posts on the contactor, which on my TECO CU 16 are identified as (3)L2 and 5(L3) This seems clearly wrong for my unit and just means that you ignore the schematic and go with the numbers on the contactor. But those numbers don’t match the diagram. The attached picture shows the way different people are interpreting the wiring. One has power going into T1 and out L1 another has it the other way around. One has no notation at all, suggests using the middle 2 contacts, and just assumes all contactors are the same!

Since the official diagram doesn’t differentiate between sides of the contactor(both incoming and outgoing are labeled “L1”, I'm guessing that it makes no difference whether you connect power into L1 or T1, but I'm connecting L1 to L1 and N to L2. L1 then emerges from the T1 contact and heads down the black wire to the transformer and N emerges from the T2 contact and goes down the red wire to the transformer. Correct?

2) In the Gecko 203v installation notes I received with my drive, it says, “ (TERM1) POWER GROUND Connect the power supply ground to term 1” In REV 7: August 10, 2009 from the website it says, “ Terminal 1 Power Ground "Connect the negative (black) lead of your power supply to this terminal(Terminal 1)". When I read “ground” I think of a wire attached to a metal post. So which is it? PWR GRND to metal post or PWR GRND to the negative term on the capacitor?

3) There are 2 adjoining positive output terminals and 2 adjoining negative terminals on the toroid transformer for the 46v connection to the capacitor. If there is a thread that mentions this, I can’t find it. It’s not on the Antek website, and it’s not in any diagram. Any suggestion on which +/- pair to connect to the capacitor? I'm guessing outer + with inner -.

You are making great progress!

(I have made a note to look at your last post in more depth later today)

It is traditional for contactors and disconnect switches to enter the (mains) Line at the L side and connect the load at the T side. When these components are mounted on the DIN rail, the L's are on top and the T's at the bottom, and the logic is to have the Line at the top and the load at the bottom. But, as you figured out, it makes no difference to the function.

It is preferred to connect the Geckos as close to the capacitor as possible (shortest copper wire), so the connection is generally to the capacitor terminals. But, the negative capacitor terminal is also connected to the ground plate/post.

I am not clear whether the device you purchased from Antek is only a transformer, because you are drawing a complete power supply. If it is a complete power supply, I don't understand why you are adding a capacitor?

Thanks Gerald! I did purchase a complete power supply from Antek (PS-4N42R12), and it looks like it has two 10000uF capacitors installed on it. I purchased a separate capacitor thinking I might need one, based on pictures of several builds,. The screw terminals on the extra capacitor sure made for an easy 4 wire connection. I guess I can just use the two DC terminals on the PS wired directly to the 4 Gecko's instead.

The early geckos were fussy on how to connect them to the power supply. With the recent geckos you can very much connect them anyway you want to. I would leave out the extra capacitor and go back to the terminals on the power supply.

I agree, no extra capacitors will be needed for the G203V series of drives. Marriss has mentioned this on his Yahoo groups many times. Might also be in the manual (not sure though at the moment).

Fixing the spider
 

With the help of a friend who explained "the obvious" on the schematic, I got the lights to flash on my BOB, and so all I need to do is figure out EMC2 to get my motors to spin. The next project is fixing my spider. As the attached photo shows, my tapping skills leave something to be desired. Crooked bolts weren't the only problem, as the hash marks used to guide hole placement proved too narrow for my z-slide. Faced with the prospect of welding and re-tapping, I decided to try another approach. I modifed the bushings by adding a 12mm dia. neck and pressed them into the spider. This virtually guarantees my bearings won't be misaligned, and seems to make the whole assembly more solid.

Krash, good progree, you will get there in no time.

on the EMC2 front, have a look here

you will have the motors singing in no time.

Serveral months since update? Did you give up?

You sound like me. I feel your pain!

Jason

After a 4 year hiatus, I'm back at it
 

OK, well, marriage, a child, and 4 years in the Gulf earning a salary made for an unavoidable interruption in my project. It sounds like I won't qualify for the longest build, but I still have time.

I dragged everything out of storage and have moved it to my shop and am in the middle of yet another round of parts shopping*. The first thing I noticed(now that its not stored in the living room of my apartment) is how small the table is. Then on closer inspection, I see RUST!. Should have painted more before I left. I'll have pics and an update on progress soon now that I'm gainfully unemployed.



*How does anybody do a 3 week build? I've probably spent three weeks of my life just ordering parts! Just snatched 5ft of cable chain off E-bay...:)

Welcome back, Krasch!!

Krasch,

It is not how long it takes to build the machine but how well it cuts when you get done that matters.

Hang in there, you will get it done and after looking at the bridge you built, I have a feeling that it will be a well built machine.

Good luck!

The quick and dirty router mount
 

I'm making great progress although my pace would have me fired if I worked at a flat rate. With so many items to work on, it's hard to focus on any one. I'm working on individual components and trying to get one completed. With that in mind, I'm tackling the z-slide. I finished tapping the holes, mounted the rack, made an extra long bracket for the compression spring(must have ordered the wrong length), and am making a temporary router bracket out of box tubing and hose clamps. I would have made something prettier on the milling machine I just bought, but it is DOA at the moment, so I may actually make that my first Mechmate project like some others have done.

I took the opportunity to try riv-nuts for the cable chain mounts, rather than use self tapping screws. It probably wouldn't working for heavier loads, but 5/16" nuts seem pretty solid. I mounted the brackets for 5' of cable chain on the gantry(seems a little long), and need to find some more for the table.

Looking good, keep going. This machine will change your life.
Cheers
Tim

Whipping out a CNC Control Box like I new what I was doing
 

The mechanical part of the machine is coming together and I'm confident I can get that part done. That forces me to take another run at the only insurmountable hurdle in my life - the control box. The two components that cause me the biggest problem currently are the contactor and the SSR to the router. Worst case, if I can get confidence the contactor is sorted, I could just toss the SSR and plug the router into 115v AC and be done with it.

Using the Americas 115v single phase Drawing 10 70 115 that I hope is still active, I've elimininated all the non-essential parts, and I come up with my "real world" version of what I think it should be (seen below) relying substantially on help getting it wired this far from a friend who is an Electrical Engineer. We actually plugged it in and the contactor makes a loud clicking noise like its switching something. Still the contactor is mystifying due to the fact it has a lot more contacts with different identifiers than the MM schematic indicates, and is way more complicated than an average person(me) can comprehend.

The router SSR looks somewhat more intuitive - it sure has fewer places to put wires. My guess is that the L1 wire from the router attaches to Output contact #1 and then I jam another wire into the L1(T1?) port on the Contactor and run it to Output contact #2 on the SSR. The low voltage Inputs go to the BOB? a pushbutton?

Reading posts from others for months has brought me no closer to a solution, neither has the official literature. If anybody wants to share their wisdom, or at least point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it.

Metalhead Mike made a video of the correct way to connect the contactor. Check with him to see if he will share it with you. I know it helped me understand how it works.

A picture in plain English
 

Thanks Kelly for the heads up. I've found some videos on You Tube, but none that go into enough detail. I'll PM Mike.

I just found a decent picture explanation of SSR's:http://www.electronics-circuits.com/.../doc00042.html which solves that issue. The picture shows that the signal comes from the BOB as I suspected. On my PMDX-122, it looks like the J7 pinout.

Terminal Blocks
 

I broke a tap on the x-rail rack, and decided to shift gears while I wait for the tap extractor to arrive in the mail. I've been studying what i could find online about terminal blocks, and it looks like it could be the subject of a whole tutorial. Using these efficiently, I avoid having to jam multiple wires into one terminal - a serious no-no I'm told.I do this by taking one wire from the PS and connecting 4 terminal blocks with a "jumper". I then run a wire to each gecko. I used the same approach for wiring the gecko ground terminal.

By perusing the IMO terminal block catalog, I also found a more elegant way to incorporate fuses using a fuse block terminal. This removes clutter that comes from using a floating fuse connector or non-din rail alternative.

I used the DIN fuse blocks on my machine as well. They are quite nice. There are also earth grounding terminal blocks. I found these at https://www.industrialcontroldirect.com
Can save having to run earth ground wires all over the control panel.

Video 19.95 plus shipping. It shows how to get the latch circuit to work and explains how the coil works.

factorymation.com is my source for all those wonderful things!

Isn't it time for a complete Control Box Tutorial?
 

Thanks Mike, I admire your entrepreneurial spirit. I think what would be revolutionary is if you did a complete start-to-finish tutorial on how to build a control box. I have built several PC's using a tutorial http://mysuperpc.com/ and was very satisfied I understood what I was doing. 4 years into reading posts on MechMate I'm still not there yet.

I am almost finished with what "I think" is the correct approach, but I don't yet have the enthusiasm to flip the switch and potentially witness several thousand dollars of expensive electronics get fried because I miswired some 115v connection. A few hours spent creating a decent $100 tutorial might increase the number of Mechmates completed from 118 into 1018 Mechmates,or maybe ten thousand and eighteen.

Kitchen Table project now actually on Kitchen Table
 

Nobody in my family is eating until I get this figured. I have questions:

1) I'm connecting the control signal for the SSR to the router. The control signal side of the SSR says it needs to be connected to 12VDC (+ and -). The PMDX 122 User's manual lists J7 as the "Relay Contact Connector" and has THREE pins-
a)N/C
b)RLY COM
c)N/O

Clearly, none of these match the SSR, but this is the Relay Contact Connector. I have no confidence in this, but I'm pretty sure the SSR is a normally closed connection, so I guess I could attach the wires to a and b, but have no idea which way.

Alternatively, J8, which is identified as a "control output connector" HAS SIX pins-
a)gnd - connected to PSU gnd
b)+12v - connected to PSU +12v
c)pin17
d)pin16
e)pin14
f)+5v (says it can be an output for external sensor power OR an imput)

A random schematic I printed several years ago from the MM site indicates I should use pin f)"+5v" and e)"pin 14" for the "+" and "-" terminals respectively on the SSR. Is that possible?

Next, we have the jumpers. Since I'm using Gecko 203V's, I'm told in the PMDX 122 handbook to focus on JP1,JP2,JP3, and JP5. How I have set them:

JP1: set to jump 1 to 2(+5v to 2-9com) to power the Geckos.
JP2: set to jump 1 to 2(always to 2-9 enable) since I am not using e-stops, charge pump, or fault circuits
JP3: This one I don't really understand. I jumped 1 to 2(not e-stop/fault to Output enabled) because I want to ignore the charge pump.
JP5: set to jump 1 to 2(out to dir) because I think the data buffers are output from the PC, and the other options have a warning attached.

I think I'm OK here, but the PMDX manual is written in Greek, so a heads up if I made an error would be great.

They have the manual in english on their site

Thanks Pete. by "Greek", I meant the PMDX-122 manual I have is unintelligible. Since you were kind enough to respond, I looked at your build thread and noticed you used a PMDX-126. It looks like your control output connector(J8 on the PMDX 122) is J6. Did you use that to connect the Solid State Relay for the router? If so, did you use pin #1(+5v) and #3(parallel port pin 14) for your connection? An answer would solve one of my problems.

I know what you meant. I had to pick a little. Sorry, I know it can be frustrating. I used a different setup than the one supplied on the prints. Give me a minute send you a PM