Thank you again Robert

I will focus my effort to find a solution for this !

Hi all,

Finally, I am back again to work in the machine, so I taught I would share some of the advancement.


--> I found a solution for the previous problem of the damaging that was happening to the V-groove wheels bearings. As it turned out that this was due to fabrication tolerance. In fact no matter how careful is the method of the insertion of the bearing, once it is inserted it stops turning smoothly. So i grinded the inside of the wheel a little bit with a Dremel tool using a sanding bit. Then I applied some Loctite glue and the problem was gone.


-> I redid one of the X rails as it was a little bit out of tolerance. For that, i bought a melamine white panel as Guille and Mike adviced in previous posts.

--> transferred the holes from the old rail to the new one.

--> I also welded the Y-car.

I have now a rolling X and Y axis. Here you go a link to a video showing the advancement
https://youtu.be/lYa0f33XdGE

Best regards.

And here are some pictures :

Nice progress, motion looks smooth.

Bravo !

Rack attached to rail
 

Hi

Some progress :)

- The Y rail rack is attached
- X rails racks in pgrogress

I also ordered the following :

- 2 x Clearpath Servos CPM-SDSK-2310S-RQN for the X-axis
- 4 x 5:1 Timing belt reduction Kits
- 1 x Acorn Centroid Controler

Waiting for these orders to arrive, I will work on CAD for the Servos plates adaptation (NEMA 23 version). I will post some pictures for the CAD solution once completed for criticism.

Best regards.

Looking great! I was too scared to mount my racks to the rails off of the table. I had to rig up a clamping system to get them close then slowly stick them on with the rails already mounted on the table. That 3M tape doesnt mess around! Keep up the good work.

Ted

Thanks a lot Ted . It is indeed a scary process.
I didn't find the 3M tape hear in Morocco. I found one of BISON that i will try as a replacement. Link :

Some other updates :
- The package containing the Acorn controller has arrived to Morocco and it is now blocked in the airport because I must find a way to clear the customs declarations.

- As for the Servos they are still in transit

- The Timing belt are still not shipped from china

Best regards

Hi all

Sorry for not being able to post in the last months.

Here is an update of the build !

- The painting job was done last month.
- Adaptation plates were designed and tested
- Motion was tested using an old Nema 23 stepper
- Chaine carriers were purshased (used) and installed.
- Technic Clearpath Servo were tested using the manufacturer's software but cables are not yet made (I didt'n purshase them to save extra money).
- A control box containing Centroid Acorn system was wired and tested using stepper.

Abdelkabir, great to see the progress! Any pics of the control box?

Ted

Hi Ted

Here are some pics for the control box

Abdelkabir,

Are you running those transformers in parallel? What voltage are the secondaries?

Ted

Hi Ted

I am running them in series. Each one of them is rated to deliver 12V on nominal current and 21V open circuit. So in series, I get 42V.

When running one of the servos I get 20 V in each one them (40V).

I have two others in the same specs in the shelf in case the first ones drop in voltage significantly.

Abdelkabir.

She's cutting :-)
 

Hi dear Mechmate community

I would like to annouce that we have made the first job on the machine today. It was wondefull feeling.

Indeed the machine is not 100% complete, but we needed to see the result of a long journey of hard work.

I would like to thank you all for your efforts and for making this project alive.

Best regards.

congrats "mate".....wishing you a fun & fruitful MechMate journey ;)
All the best....
R.

Well done.
Keep up the good work.

Well done!!! Moved thread to MM Already Cutting!!

Excellent job Abdelkabir.

I can see those Clearpath servos nicely fit in your machine.

I wish you all the best with your project and I wish I could visit you one day when I am on holidays in Morocco.

Keep up the good work and all the best to you!!

Fantastic! Now the fun and learning really begins. Congratulations!

Congrats Abdelkabir, how are you liking the acorn clearpath combo? , I am switching to acorn now. Do you find the nema 23 223oz motors strong enough? Does it cut smooth arches?

Hi All

I would like to thank you all for the encouragement.

For Mark : I am very glad that I have chosen the acorn+Clearpath setup,

I would recommend for everyone who is willing to use these servos to spend some good amount of time fine-tuning them. I had some difficulties tunning the X-axis. If it is not it so, it will oscillate and generate some remarkable waves in the cut.

I would also recommend choosing slightly higher torque ones, especially for the X-axis. I remember that it was one-time shutdown signaling by led flashing that peak torque was exceeded wich is a good thing to protect itself. the thing that you will not find in open-loop steppers. It is also so quiet comparing to steppers.

Overall I am very happy with this setup, especially the acorn controller, the software is very professional and centroid tutorials are a good source for training.

I have to mention also that there is a free version of the software but you can not exceed 50 KB of G-code. the unlimited version costs about 140$.

Somme update to my build
 

Hi comunnity

I want to add somme update to my build:

- First I was working with a 600w router that was very noisy, but It was working fine with small dept of cutting and slower speeds.
- Then I decided to upgrade to a 3kw water cooled spindle and 4kw VFD.
after installing the new spindle setup i was exposed to new problems including :
- A lot of EMI noise witch coused the clearpath servos to shutdown frequently. when connecting the MSP software (clearpath's diagnostcs software) to these servos, i have found the error : "Input timing error". after a lot research in net i came up with the solution of shielding all the signal cables and installing a noise filter in the input of the VFD. so i redid all the cabling in machine and put the vfd in a separate metallic box connected to ground.
- the second problem i am facing right now is to find a soutable gas spring that compensate the weight of the new spindle.
- the third problem is the difficulty to have smooth arches : i have mentioned that before, but after fine-tunning the waves in the cuts are reduced but not eliminated totally. I think the problem is caused by the undersizing of servo's power and mechanical inefficiencies.

Best regards

Abdelkabir, teknic recommends a 75v power supply, they also recommend keeping control and supply grounding separated. If your motors dont have enough torque you should see them fault out with that.

Hi Mark

Thank's a lot for you reply.

I am using a linear power supply providing about 60v and enough power (watts) to feed all the 4 servos. And I am also separating the servos supply groud from the control one.

As for the smooth arches problem, I found in technic's user manual that the suitable steps per revolution configuration for the non-enhanced servos must not exceed 800 step/rev. So when i changed that from 3400 to 800 and redone the auto-tuning the servos where so mutch stable after that.

My biggest problem right now is EMI witch is confusing the servos when the spindle is on. I am trying different solutions right now like grouding/sheilding/filtring.

Best regards.

Abdelkabir, please post what you find with that because teknic does not spec sheilded wire for their motors, But you definately should on the vfd. Are you using their power hub? Ive found their tech support great.

Hi Mark

The machine is working verry well right now. I have found that the problem is the efficiency of the diy shielding that I have done before. in fact, a I used aluminum tape for all the wires (control and spindle), but it turns out that it wasn't good enough to stop the EMI from the spindle and the VFD.

So I redid the wiring one more time but this time with a DIY proper sheilding using a metal wire mesh from a coaxial satellite receiver anntena. I removed the the interior and kept the mesh. and the problem was gone.

I sheiled all cables : Spindle one and also control and signal ones I don't know if it was necessary to sheild the signal ones but I did it anyway to avoid capturing EMI from any external device.

As for the technic's power hub I am not using it.

Unfortunatly I have a bad news : when I was redoing the wiring for the third time, a friend of mine was helping me and he reversed the polarity of one the the servo's power supply line. As a result that servo didn't survive that.

I didn't contact technic's support yet because anyway I must resend it to USA from morocco. And I can't handle this expense right now. So I mounted a simple 2.2 A nema23 stepper as a temporary replacement and it working right now.

I will try to post some pictures soon.

Best regards.

Somme pictures showing the sheilding
 

Somme pictures showing the sheilding

With the proper vfd filter and wire you should not have needed sheilding on motor wires. I am about to switch mine over, will let you know what I find. Thanks