Making Mirrors and Dust Collectors #65 - Pensacola, FL

[smreish]

...I love "production" photo's. Jimmy - great work progress as usual. Thank you for the updates. Pictures make all the difference for us on the "outside" of a build.
Thanks,
Sean

[fredjr]

I'm in the process of building the gantry and having problems with the placement of the closure plates. I have some pictures of the way I think they go. I would like some opinions if that is correct or not before I start the welds. I have the cross tubes drilled and facing down. The clamp strap is inside of the tubes. Thanks, Jimmy

[Alan_c]

That looks good to me. Check again that its square and co planar and weld away

[smreish]

Jimmy,
That looks correct. When the gantry is properly placed on the table the cable chain connection should be the furthermost point away from 0,0 on the table.

Looks correct.

Sean

[fredjr]

Thanks to Alan and Sean for getting me straight on thre closure plates. Now for some more build. Thanks Jimmy

[fredjr]

Time for some update on my MM build. The project is moving along but slower than I would like. The table has been put together and the rails have been bolted on. The gantary rolls on the X rails very well for not to be alined yet as does the Y car. I did extend the cable chain to the full length of the X and Y and made some more chain shelf brackets.The table has been taken apart now to be sandblasted , painted and some parts to be powdercoated. Have started to put the racks on the rails. I know that some people use just tape but I'll feel better with a couple of bolts. While the table was assembled in the shop a lot of customers wanted to know what we wre building. So the had to go through the story of the MM and Gearld in South Africa. Some ask if we are still going to work on cars. One person said "when I was a kid my grandpa had one of those". When it starts to be reassembled it will be at my house. Already making room for it. Things will slow down in the next couple of weeks so I hope to have a little more time. I think that I have everything for the control box build. I have the cad program(Turbocad) and will order the mach 3 program. Have not chose a cam program yet. Here are some pictures of our progress. Now really back to the kitchen table build. Thanks Jimmy

[jhiggins7]

Looking great, Jimmy! Congratulations on your build so far.

What's the significance of the picture of the part in the press. Did you do your own bending?

[fredjr]

John: The brackets that are being bent is for the shelf brackets when I decided to extend the X and Y chain length. They are made from cut off of the angle for the rails. I had to make several of them. You can see them in one of the pictures of the main beam.The shelf for the X is in two pieces so they would not be so long and I could still get them in my oven to powercoat them.Thanks Jimmy

[fredjr]

Need Help: I am trying to start the kitchen table build and need some help. I have Mach3 program loaded on a dedicated computer. I get to the driver test program and get the line off the top of the scale and can only see some spikes a the 80 line and pulse per second was about 12305. It says system excellent. I go thru the ports and pins and think that they are set right but can't get motor to turn. I changed computers and have a good driver test line and pulse rate but motor still will not run. I followed Gecko trouble shooting diagram and came down to: check controller timing G203V Step input Specs: Min step '0' Time = 0.5 uS
Min step '1' Time = 3 uS
Could someone explain this and how do you correct if it is not right?

I have the license Mach3, PMDX, Gecko 203V, and OM PK296AZA-SG7.2 motors. Have a 36K resistor in the 203V, have Anter Power Supply PS-5N38R12. The motor is wired black to A, (3) yellow/A(4), Red to B(5), white to /B(6). I'm using only one Gecko and one motor at the time to see any movement. Can anyone help?

Thanks,
Jimmy

[riesvantwisk]

Jimmy,

I always start at the very beginning when things like this happen, so here is teh list in my head I used when I was doing my kitchen table:

Check...
- Voltage on power supply
- Check voltage on BoB and does the BoB show sign of light?
- Check voltage on Gecko drive and is the Gecko light on?

- When powering up the control box, is the stepper motor energized? You can check this by trying to rotate the stepper, if you cannot rotate it by hand, it's energized.

- Are there 3 wires from BoB to each Gecko connected and do they measure a connection and no shortcut (multimeter check).

- Check if parallel cable is connected from PC to BoB (yes I missed this one myself during a demo I gave a couple of weeks ago )

- Check charge pump.. Do you have the CP connected on the BoB? if so, temporarily disable the CP, Mach3 might not output the CP ay the moment.

- Check if Step and Dir is configured correctly in Mach3 for the outputs of the BoB

- Check e-stop circuit and jumpers on the BoB

Can you post a picture of your BoB and/or picture of the setup in general?

I personally don't know the steppers you are using so may be somebody else can chime in here?

Ries

[Gerald D]

Jimmy, we have all been at this frustrating point. There are a couple of incidents listed in the Troubleshooting forum:

Motors do not turn - Ports & Pins setting for charge pump
Stepper motor refuses to turn - Wiring & jumper errors
Motors won't turn after the setting up - PMDX-122 jumpers incorrect
Cannot get motor to turn - Mach Ports & Pins setup
Motors do not move after initial setting up - Mach setups

[MetalHead]

Ditto on the E-stop. Also the jumpers for the PMDX board.

What colors are on those resistors?

http://www.diyaudioandvideo.com/Electronics/Color/

33k is Orange,Orange,Orange,Silver (or Gold)

Don't trust the guy or the bin unless they came from a true radio shop.

[fredjr]

Good morning guys: Got up this morning with a clear head and a hot cup of coffee and set out to fix "no motor run" problem. Thanks to all that replyed. First to Ries.There is power to the power supply from the wall outlet, there are 37 volts out of the p.s.,and 12v to the bob. The motor is energized and a green light on in the gecko. The cable is connected from the PC to the bob. The wiring from the gecko dir, step, common to bob checked out with a mulitmeter. I think that the jumpers are set right on the bob and the charge pump and e-stop are set right in the mach3. I will post some pictures of the set-up thanks. Gerald, i will read those post again and again and again. Metalhead, the resistor colors are orange, blue, orange, red. They ohm out to be 36.0 k. Is this correct? The power supply is made by Antek not Anter. It is 6n38r12. Thanks again now to work. Jimmy

[bradm]

Jimmy, I'd like to know whether or or not the motor will run in response to a manual step input:

shut it off, disconnect the step input, get a 3-5 volt source (a couple of batteries will do nicely), connect the - side to the common (Gecko terminal 10). Turn on the system, and tap the + side of the voltage source on the step input (terminal 9) a bunch of times. The motor should move a little.

If it does, you know the power, gecko, motor part of the circuit is working and can concentrate on the computer, software, and bob as the source of the problem.

- Check what mode your parallel port is set to in the BIOS.
- Ensure you have no voltage on the disable (terminal 7) input to the Gecko.
- Measure the voltage on terminal 8 (direction). See if it changes as you command Mach to move the motor in opposite directions (this is easier to see and measure than the step pulses).

[fredjr]

Good afternoon guys: A good day of work and the motors turn. Started with one gecko and one motor. Went over all of the wiring connections with a multimeter. Turned on the power supply and the mach program, pushed the reset button,pushed the tab button for cursor control. and pushed the x+ button and the motor turned. Boy did I do a double take. Did not believe what I just seen. Then I moved that motor to rest of the geckos one at a time and they all worked. Really don't know what made it work. Had not been into the ports and pins today yet. They were as I had left if them the last time I had worked on it. Went to my shop and got rest of the motors and wiring and wired all of the motors. It was really good to see all of them turning. Even loaded the "roadrunner" file and watched it run several times. I did make note of the setting just in case they get changed. Did take some pictures and will be posting. Now on to more of the kitchen build. But first time for a beer or two. Thanks everyone. Jimmy

[riesvantwisk]

jimmy,

congrats, will drink on that!

[domino11]

Congrats Jimmy, sure feels good when something ticks you off and you solve it.

[Gerald D]

Jimmy, I reassembled the thread above from smaller threads to make it coherent. It actually makes a fine read on a fine looking machine. Other readers are encouraged to look at the whole thread.

[sailfl]

Jimmy,

Good for you. That is great that you have your motors running.

Now, go to the folder that has Mach3 and save the "what you called your Mach3 setup".xml file. That is your Mach3 configuration file. Mine is called MechMate_CNC.xml.

You will need that saved so if you change the file and things don't work you can get back to the right configuration.

This will save you butt to have a copy some place.

[smreish]

JImmy,
I know this has been mentioned before - but now is good time to copy and backup the mach file. Make a backup as you move forward on each significant change as your set up your machine. It will keep the headaches lower when you have a "good" restore point to go back to. Gosh how I know

Sean

[fredjr]

MM builders: Here are some pictures of last saturdays (1-9-10) session on getting the motors to turn. First picture is one gecko wired to one motor and the pmdx, second is the power supply , third is the pmdx. The leds are on but may not be seen in the picture. The last picture is all of the motors and geckos wired up. All of the wires are "out of the junk box" as Gerald would say. Will be replaced with the real stuff soon. Thanks Jimmy

[swatkins]

Those driver wires look more like they are "off the boat trailer" than "out of the junk box"

Looking good!

[KenC]

Good job.

[sailfl]

Jimmy

Looking good!

[jehayes]

Originally Posted by swatkins

Those driver wires look more like they are "off the boat trailer" than "out of the junk box"

Speaking of boat trailer wires, has anyone used trailer hitch couplers for the motor wire links? I am tempted to do so because they are cheap and available but would like a second opinion.

[smreish]

Joe,
That sounds like a great idea. I would check the voltage and current rating.
Trailer voltage is 12vdc and pretty low current.
Connector should pass 8A @ 80 VDC to be usable.

[lumberjack_jeff]

That sounds like a brilliant idea Joe. Most trailer wiring is 14 awg or bigger.

Four conductors, polarity guaranteed, cheap. Thumbs up!

[Gerald D]

Besser is already using trailer plugs in Australia:
http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showt...3&postcount=29

[fredjr]

Steve: You are correct about the trailer wire. Left over material from a trailer wiring job that was in the junk box . Thanks Jimmy

[fredjr]

Hello mechmates. finally have some time to catch up on my build. It has really been busy at work and around the house with spring projects that started in the winter. Like removing wall paper, priming, painting and then came spring with yard work and pressure washing driveways, sidewalks and curbing. Some of the MM build so far. Have the control box rewired and sandblast and powercoated and mounted on its stand. It will be a free standing unit as I don't have a vacant wall to mount it on. I will finish the "E" stop and other switches as the final aassembly goes. Have powered up the control box and it worked just like the table build. Our sandblast cabinet was not large enough for the table sides and the Y car so we had to send them out for blasting. Our oven was large enough to powercoat the Y car but not the table side so we had to send that out also. All of the parts are at home now for the final assembly. Here are some pictures of how things are progressing. Getting closer to sawdust. Thanks Jimmy