Some serious stuff happening on here at the moment.
Thought I might lighten things up a bit.

A friend of mine has a collection of big motorcycles.
He has just got a new house and he intends to have a man cave.
He asked me to make some stuff to hang on the walls.

Attached link to the outcome of his request.
I will get post better photos when it gets hung.

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1Q...ZERGpUd0xuUlBR

Great collection and finish.

VERY nice AL.....your really getting a PRO at carving ;)
Nice sharing these.
Later, R

Really impressive work, Al. Thanks for sharing.

Wow nice Al!

Year 4 report
 

Well Mechmaties,
Another year has passed.
#114 has turned 4 and I have turned 60.:eek:

Yet again my machine has kept me afloat.

The Gothic windows was a big project but very rewarding.

There was what I thought at the time a problem with the driver board.
I replaced it.
With hindsight I think the problem was elsewhere.

The Ships wheel was interesting,
It also proved how accurate the machine can cut.

Many thanks to mt friend Nick for the motorcycle work.
It resulted in work from other people when they saw the engines.

Just finished the change over to Linux today.
That topic is covered in another section.
It was not easy but I felt it was necessary.
I will post a PDF of the process when I get around to it.
It might help someone in the future.

What will year 5 bring ?

...;)

Al,

I look forward to the PDF discussing the process of converting from Windows and Mach to Linux.

PDF posted in the Cnc motion control software section.
Any questions, feel free to ask or send me a pm.:)

Awesome work!
 

Hello Al, its an awesome work, really inspired me here in the other side of world, your persistence and frequent strugle with rain and materials avialability its an example of endurance! Keep on moving, i´m 60 too and will start a build thanks to your amazing work! Thank You!:D:cool::)

Old rust,
I am not worthy.
Perhaps one day I may look upon your creation.
Enjoy the experience.:)

Hello all.
Just back after 5 months in Vietnam.
Missed my machine a lot.
I will reconnect the computer and machine later today and see if we can talk.

Good to see some new builds started and others progressing.
All the best.

C.r.e.
 

I have met an American a couple of times recently.
He saw active service with the Corps of Engineers in Vietnam.

I myself served with the Corps of Royal Engineers.

Our conversations prompted me to do something I have been thinking of
for the last 30 odd years.
Here is the result.

I don't know what the wood is.
It is a chair seat that has been in the wood pile for 12 years.
420mm diameter.

Funny where inspiration comes from.

Stunning work! Thanks for sharing. Always good to hear from you.

Nicely done Al....;)

Very nice

I took the plunge and ordered a spindle.
It arrived yesterday.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/WATER-COOLE...sid=m570.l1313.

If anyone has information about wiring can you point me in the direction.
I do not want the magic smoke to escape.
I found this.
A lot of reading to do.
https://www.cnczone.com/forums/cncwi...310-posts.html.

Thank you.

Writing is really not that bad. The settings and in VFD and mach can be. If you have questions, we will try to help. I didn't use that drive but others here have.

Thanks Paul.
A few questions.

Attached is the schematic for wiring.

It shows R,S and T for power in.
I have 220v single phase.
Does it matter which 2 I use and what about the polarity?

Same question for the motor terminals U,V and W.

I think I will be setting the speed via the dial on the inverter to start with.



Can I run the output cables from the inverter through a relay then from the relay to the spindle to turn off and on(M3,M5)

I can wire a plug and change a light bulb but a bit cautious doing anything else.
I got an energy chain, fitted and working.
My home made one was wearing out and starting to sag.
Improvements due.

The load leads (U, V, W) should not have a break in the line, the VFD needs to see the load for the bus. To properly active the drive you should use modbus to the vfd to set the speed and direction when M3 M4 is called through the RS485 port, however you can instead use contacts from your breakout board to close the run circuit on the VFD but your speed option will have to be manually controlled.

I do not have an RS 484 port.
Attaches is a picture of the board that I have.
Will this work with the inverter?

Looks like it will work, it should be a bit tricky.

On the inputs, I've generally wired to the first and third. Make sure you're over-rated on the inputs by 2/3.

On the spindle output, you definitely should not try any form of switching between the VFD and spindle. That would break things in ugly ways.

You mentioned that you might want to place a relay there. You would place the relay so that it controlled the forward speed selector on the input to the VFD.

Looking at that board, and at https://www.manualslib.com/manual/12...page=12#manual it appears that there is a 0-10V output to control the speed. That would be wired to the corresponding input on the VFD.

You only need a serial to rs485 converter then run a serial cable from PC to the converter and the converter to the 485 on the vfd

Thank you Paul.
I will look into that.

About the earthing.
I have an earth from the machine frame to a spike in the garden.
Can I earth the VFD to the frame or should I run out a separate earth wire?

Straight to earth ground only needed if you experience EMI interference.

I got power to the VFD.
Parameters set.
Coolant pump and tank installed and working.
Probably Monday for VFD to spindle.
The fog is slowly clearing:)
RS485 on order.

Al,

Sounds good. Thanks for sharing your new venture.

VFD and spindle wired and rotating.
Onward to the next job

Awesome

Bracket modified, drilled, tapped and painted.
Z slide drilled and painted. (Yellow, sorry)
Spindle mounted.
Cable and pipes routed through energy chain.
More to do yet.

Well it works.
Under manual speed until the RS adapter arrives.
Still a few wires to tidy up.
Glad that job is done.
Taken a few years to get there.:)

Lots of information in the instruction manual but hard to understand.
It doesn't tell you how to do things, just information.

Machined some wood to thickness, will run a job tomorrow.

I would like to get Pathpilot to run but I am stuck on the pin settings.
It keeps rejecting mine.
One job at a time.

Nice!

Sorry, I have no experience with Pathpilot.

I have a problem that I need some help with.
It might be electrical noise.

Sometimes when the spindle starts or stops the Yaxis jumps.
More often it is when it stops (the very last 1/10 second).
On occasion the spindle will growl on start up

The X and Z are fine.

I put in a separate earth on the VFD, also it is on a separate circuit breaker.
The separate circuit helped but it is still not right.

I don't know what to try next.
Any ideas ?:confused:

Make sure you have RF chokes installed at the output of the VFD. VFDs are big source of RF interference. I removed RF chokes/toroid cores from some old scrap monitors. You will see them as a thick piece of plastic over the monitor supply cable or connection cable. Remove them from there and slide your wires (the one which go to the spindle). If there is a room you can winde a few turns as well. Install it at the VFD side. This should prevent RFI.

Milosh

Thanks Digger.
I found 3 of different sizes on old cables.
Put one on each of the VFD output wires.
It made no difference.:(
Will have to see if I can find bigger chokes.
Perhaps more than one per cable is needed.

If the hole is big enough, try to run some turns. More turns, more inductance. Also, it may help if you try to physically separate spindle cable from other cables.

Thanks again Digger.
I removed the spindle cable from the energy chain.
Now it works:)

No problem. Glad it worked. :)

What sort of cable are you using for your VFD to spindle? I run mine in my chain with everything else and have never had a problem. My cable is shielded VFD cable.

It is shielded and shield is grounded at vfd side.