Got Her Cutting Today #53 - Whidbey Island WA USA
 

Thanks to Travis H's excellent work I have received the laser cut parts and have officially started my project. Attached are some photos of the parts. The Y-Car is simply snapped together at this stage (not yet welded) which shows how close the tolerances are from the laser cutter/bender.

I am sure I will have a lot of questions as I go along.

Hi Joe,

Thanks for taking pics and posting them up. I had fun supplying for the group in washington. I'm amazed at how well they fit. Nicely done Gerald.

Don't forget to c'sink the holes on the side plates of the Y car.

Good luck with your build!

The small bend on 10 30 422 (for the button box) has gone too far and will cause a collision with the y-motor.

Funny,
My bender made that mistake once too. :( Easily fixed with a little muscle though. :)

Yes, I noticed that and will fix it before welding. Thanks for the heads up.

Table Build is under way
 

Well, the steel for the table is all here. I picked it up from a nearby supplier (Skagit Steel for other PNWs who may be looking). What a load on my little Toyota Pickup! I now realize that this MM build will be a real "Hole in the Bucket" type project. I started it to get a machine that would let me cut plywood panels for stitch-and-glue boats that I wanted to build. Now I will have to learn the weld to make the MM. And I will have to learn electronics for the MM controller build. All very exciting and fun. Maybe someday I will get to build those boats I started with!:D

Thanks to all for the inspiration!

Cutting the Rails
 

Well, I started the rails, cutting them down from 2" to 1.1. The process went very well, much easier and more accurate than I had feared. For those of you who may be worried about the process; don't be. Gerald's skate and a slow, patient hand make it very easy and accurate. I have faith that this will be the case with grinding the angle as well.

I used a surplus cast iron wing from my table saw as the grinding table to ensure the cut was flat and consistent, simply moving the angle iron back and forth to cut each section. It made the process slow but the cut is consistent along the entire length. TTFN :)

Nice work, Joe. Thanks for sharing your progress. Keep the pictures coming.:D

Table Welded and Home
 

The table is all welded and brought home on a trailer. It is amazing what you can move by yourself with a good lever and fulcrum. However, for the last bit I got a neighbor to bring his tractor for the lift. Not yet sure how I'm going to turn it over but grinding and painting will keep me busy.

Very nice looking table Joe!

MM is turning Blue
 

Well, I got her turned over (with the help of three other guys - no cranes necessary:)) and have started to turn her blue, as you can see. Tapping the holes in the main beams is almost complete. I figured out that I could simply change the orientation of the overhead arm on the base of the little tapping machine (see above) and get essentially unlimited capacity under the tapping head. The photo shows how well this works using the cross beams and a piece of MDF as the table.

Joe,

You won't be long before you will be cutting. Good progress.

Back to work
 

After a nice break to move a car from Washington, DC to Washington State I am getting back to work. The trip was via the Grand Canyon and the weather was perfect for a Fall roadtrip. This week I will finish up the small welding items (stop blocks, motion sensors, etc.) and get ready to mount the racks.

Making Progress
 

Despite the lack of posts I have made some progress in the last month. The motors, racks, pinions, Gecko G540 and other items have begun to arrive although the power supply is still missing. The big concern now is if the temperature is too low (41F) to use the 3M VHB tape.

Since the smallest amount of tape I could buy was a 36yd roll from ULINE I have decided to tape the base board of MDF to the cross pieces rather than bolt it. Attachment 7055
Hopefully this will obviate any chance of a cutter meeting a bolt head sometime in the future.

Final Steel Pieces in Hand
 

Thanks to Travis who machined the Bearing support bases (M1 20 220) and the Idler Support Shaft (M1 30 224) for me, I have all the pieces to do the final assembly. The electronics and computer stuff are next!

Latest progress, with a great deal of help from Travis (boy am I lucky he lives nearby) I got the power supply and the relay/switch wired and working. Travis will post some photos. Next will be to get the G540 hooked up and a motor turning!

Joe,

Hang in there Joe. You will be cutting soon!

Joe's progress
 

Joe has all his parts to get the motors turning. I'm amazed at how little wirering will be need using the Gecko G540. Here are some pics of the start of his board. It is wired to just be funtional to get it working, then things will be cleaned up and mounted.

I'm pleased to be able to share my help I have gotten from the forum.

Cheers!

Need Help with G540 setup
 

I am setting up a G540 to run a 3-axis MechMate.
The power leads are connected: (Positive to Pin 11, negative to Pin 12 with a jumper between pins 10 and 12).
The charge pump switch is "on."
The Parallel port is set to EPP mode.
One Oriental Motor with six leads, four of which are wired to the DB9 for the X-Axis as follows: Black to pin 8, yellow to pin 9, red to pin 6 and white to pin 7.I have a 3.3K resistor across pins 5 and 1.
The Ports&Pins config menu has been set to enable the charge pump set to pin 16.

When I first powered it up the light went green and I was able to run a text G-Code file in Mach 3 which moved the motor shaft as expected.

Shortly thereafter, when I tried to run another test file, the fault indicator light went red and it will now not go green nomatter what. The hardware had not been touched between tests but some Mach3 buttons might have been pushed (however not sure which, if any).

I have disconnected the parallel cable and the motor and tried to get it to go green but no luck.

Any thoughts? Could it be a mach3 issue?

Thanks
Joe Hayes

BTW - those are Travis' bike in post #18 above, not mine.:)

Joe

I don't know mach at all as I'm using EMC, but what you describe sounds like a charge pump issue. I'd reset mach including the ports and pins thing and try again.

On EMC there is and enable button which in essence tells the computer to start sending the charge pump signal, I don't know if mach has similar but that's my guess if you haven't touched the hardware.
Did some reading of the Mach manual found this which would also explain it:

4.12 Charge Pump — a Pulse Monitor
Mach3 will output a constant pulse train whose frequency is approximately 12.5 kHZ on one or both of
the parallel ports whenever it is running correctly. This signal will not be there if the Mach3 has not
been loaded, is in EStop mode, or if the pulse train generator fails in some way. You can use this signal
to charge a capacitor through a diode pump (hence the name) whose output, showing Mach3's health,
enables your axis and spindle drives etc. This function is often implemented in commercial breakout
boards.


Only other thing I could think of is a bad connection on one of your DB9's so i'd also try unplugging the motors then plugging them in one by one as described in the G540 manual to check this.

Good luck, Hope this helps

Jed

I had this problem with my g540 about 3 months ago. I would turn on the controller and got the green light. I cut something out and then turned off my controller. Than about 5 minutes I tried to cut something else out, turned on the controller and was presented with a red light special. I would have to flip the switch on and off about twenty times and then it would finally give me the green light. Checked all my settings, sent it into Gecko and was sent back saying that all was ok except that it was turned off? Didn't understand that one but they gave me a free driver version... I think.... and it was good to go. Im thinking it could be one of three thing..

1. Your db9 connectors could be the cause. Loose connection?
2. Your charge pump needs to be turned off.
3. Possibly a faulty drive... Not at the top of my list.

Can you unplug your db9 connectors and see if you get a green light? Not sure if it will give you the green light doing this.. I cant remember what I did. Then plug one at a time and see if one of them is the prob.

Maybe get the old multimeter out and test to see if you do have the recommended resistor settings.

I will go through my journal and see what steps I did to troubleshoot my problem.. A journal is a must..

Good luck

James: I will run your suggestions tomorrow and report back. I am using the screw-type DB9 connectors so I don't think it is a loose wire but I will switch it out and use a another motor as well. I assume all 4 motors do not have to be in the circuit to test?

Thanks

Joe

Joe

No they don't, when I did mine I started with G540 plugged into parrallel port then switched it all on, hit the enable button in emc and got the green light on the gecko. From here I plugged one motor in at a time ensuring I had the green light still after each connection.

I'd suspect that the line below from the mach setup manual is the issue:

is in E-stop mode, or if the pulse generator fails in some way.



since you are still in testing mode a good way to test if this is the issue is to remove the front cover of your G540 (using a small flat blade srew driver) then on the inside next to the output connectors (from memory) there is a little switch if you move this switch to it's opposite possition it will disable the charge pump. try running your setup again and see if you have the same issue, if you do then it's simply that the chargepump signal is not getting through (either mach has entered the estop mode or something else has happened). Once you have tested this move the switch to it's original possition (I would not advise in anyway that you continue to use it without the charge pump).

Try this and let us know if it works the question then is what is causing the charge pump signal to stop.

Good luck

P.S. disabling the charge pump is covered in the G540 initial setup guide if you are looking for better help than I can provide without it in front of me.

With all this unplugging and replugging, you have to be sure that there is no power left in the capacitors before you make/break the motor connections.

Note that if the charge pump is enabled, then you cannot get the G540 to go green without the parallel cable connected to the computer, with Mach3 running and not in Estop mode. You can get it to go green with the motors disconnected.

G540 Startup issues
 

One nice change in the newer model is that Gecko has made the Charge Pump switch accessible from the top without having to open the case.

I will try all these suggestions this AM and get back to you. Thanks

Joe

James/Jed/Brad: Much thanks. I rewired and double checked. Also reinstalled Mach3 using the G540.xms profile from the Gecko website (some issues found with that file to be specified later). The bottom line is I got a consistent green light. The problem seems to have been with the charge pump settings. I will be running the motor tests tomorrow and will let you know how that goes. Joe

All: OK, I have configured Mach3 using the G540.xml file and in accordance with the Gecko instructions. I have tried two motors on each of the Axis db9 connectors and all work with both motors except for the X-Axis, which does nothing but heat up the motors slightly if it is left on for an hour. I slaved the A-axis to the x and it moves both with G code running and with the jog keys. I also swapped the pin assignments between the X and A axis but still got no movement on the X but full movement on the A.

Therefore, I am assuming the x-axis driver is kerflooie. Is there any way to test this without sending the G540 back to Gecko? If not, I am sure they will sort it out as they have been very helpful so far. Thanks Joe

Good progress Joe! Way to work thru it. Looking forward to hearing those motors turning! :)