Nader

You´re the MAN!

Connecting the drivers
 

Connector side of motors wiring:
Attachment 7725

Driver side with separate grounds for motors wiring:
Attachment 7726

Arrangement of the motor/driver wires:
Attachment 7727

Preparation of wires between the driver and the DC power supply.
Attachment 7728

Attachment 7729

Placing the drivers and its wiring. Duct covers removed to show the routes better.
Attachment 7730

Attachment 7731

Details of power supply connection. To avoid clutter around the driver, the second set of ground wires are connected on the power supply side, rather than the driver side.
Attachment 7732

Attachment 7733

Spindle UVW connection:
Attachment 7734

Connection route of the VFD switchover switch and the mini keypad to the VFD. Another Estop is also routed through this cable duct.
Attachment 7735

Mounting the 5/12 VDC power suppy:
Attachment 7736

The PWM to 0-10V board is still under development, therefore I have to run the spindle in manual mode. Upon completion, I will start a separate thread for it.

Here are a set of carbide bits, newly bought. Although I was told that they are usually used by stone cutters but they work outstanding on MDF. On the other machine, a 6mm diameter tool cuts 6 mm depth per pass @1700 mm/min without any deflection in the tool. I have not tested them beyond this limits but I suppose they have the potential for more. Wall faces are smooth with acceptable tool marks.
These are 5,6 and 8 mm shanks.
Attachment 7737

These I have bought to test the 4th axis. 6mm shanks:
Attachment 7738

Nader, nice panel layout. Ideally those drivers should be mounted vertically so that the heat can dissipate off the fins of the heatsinks. as they are now you might get hot air pockets collecting under each heatsink. I know you are going to have fans on the case but I doubt much air will move through there. Of course it also depends on how much heat those drivers will generate - it might be of no concern - perhaps Mike Richards could weigh in here, he has far mor experience with these kind of layouts.

Never mind, I see above you have considered even putting in baffles if required - it would help if I read properly before commenting. :o

Nadar,
I second Alan's concern. The drivers might be just a bit too closely spaced to encourage air flow. I not an expert in this as well, it might not be a concern if the drivers never heat up.

Alan, Ken,

Thanks for your comments. You are both right. To tell you the truth, my first layout was that the drivers were arranged vertically, drawing air from above, but in order to have isolation of high voltage to control voltage, and also to have access to the microstep setting dip switches, I had to place them upside down. I just didn't like the idea to read the texts on the driver upside down!!

In the previous machine, the motors were wired unipolar. They actually worked with very little heat generated. The motors were 3 Amps. Now they will be 4.5 Amps and wired bipolar serial (except for the 4th axis which will be wired bipolar parallel) and I am not aware of their behaviour, but we'll see how it goes.

After finishing the panel (which you will see in the next post), I noticed that baffling might not be a feasible idea, but as you may have noticed there is a space between the VFD and the drivers, just above the 5/12 volts power supply. I could add a couple of 12V computer fans if the temperature builds up.

Finishing the control panel
 

This is a single connector that incorporates: Estop signal, Home (X1,Y,Z), Home X2, Home B, Pause, Resume, Zset and a common GND.
Attachment 7751

All the wires that will lead to the breakout boards:
Attachment 7752

Breakout boards are installed and wired.
Attachment 7753

Connectors between the parallel ports and the breakout boards are attached.
Attachment 7754

Den of snakes, i.e. the grounding hub. Two more wires will be passed. 1- the 6mm wire from the machine, 2- the wire that goes into the earth.
Attachment 7755

A thorough vacuum cleaning was in order to remove any residue of snapped wires. This is the panel almost finished.
Please ignore the yellow/green wire that goes from the transformer secondary to the ground. It was an aweful mistake and will be replaced by the negative line, just after the bridge to the grounding hub.
Attachment 7756

Air filters installed:
Attachment 7757

Pictures of the work. Nameplates will be attached later.
Attachment 7758

Attachment 7759

A 60 mm cable duct attached to the panel chassis (with double sided tape) which will carry the cables to the other side of the panel.
Attachment 7760

Nail varnish on M3 nuts and screw ends on the back of the panel to restrict their loosening.
Attachment 7761


Next step will be wiring the machine.

Nader, As clean as one can do…. you’re the guy:)
Very inspiring for many !
Thanks for sharing those. Amicalement, Robert ;)

Nader, that came out professional! Good Job.

Robert, Claus,
Thanks. These works are inspired by your and others works in this forum.

Wiring the machine
 

I devised a sequence for cabling the machine. I made a lot of mistakes on the other machine and this procedure is the result of that experience. It is only a methodology which you can devise and adapt one for your MechMate. It is done in two stages and a number of steps:

Stage one: easy part
1-the 6mm yellow/green ground wire. It is the easiest but gives a measure of length for some other cables.
2-The Spindle cable. The length of this cable is more or less identical to Z and Y motors. The cables that I bought are marked with their length every meter. I cut a cable adjacent to its length mark to keep a record of the length used. Just at this stage I realized that the arrangement of the control panel is crucial for continuation of the wiring. Now that the control panel is ready, other wirings will be easy.
3-The 12x20AWG cable to the button box is the next. This cable is almost equal to the X1 motor length.
4-Routing the X2 motor cable is the next easy task.

Stage two: hard part
1-This stage is a bit hard since the limit switches and the estops should be connected together in series and for this purpose, suitable junction locations should be devised, also consideration for their shield should be regarded. The result would be 2 pairs of wires. One pair will carry the 12VAC, which is a separate cable, which upon activation will de-activate the main contactor. The other pair will go into the button box and joins the 12x20AWG wire to signal pin 10. this pair is only attached to the Estop buttons. A note: I personally prefered not to include the 12VAC cable in the control signal cable, although there was enough wire to do this. I thought AC voltage might noise the control signals.
2-A 2x24AWG cable will be allocated for the X2 home which will also end up in the button box.
3-A series connection for X1, Y and Z home switches with the same considerations as stated for limit switches, which again will lead to the button box. Or as described below, they can enter independently.

The 12x20AWG can be used in two configurations. A 10 wire configuration which has independent home switches, therefore enabling the use of “REF ALL” in Mach. The pins and port will consist of:
Estop signal , port #1 pin 10
X1 Home , port #1 pin 11
Y Home , port #1 pin 12
Z Home , port #1 pin 13
X2 Home , port #1 pin 15
B Home , port #2 pin 11
Z setter , port #2 pin 12
Pause , port #2 pin 13
Resume , port#2 pin 15
GND

An 8 wire configuration which uses X1,Y and Z home switches as one entry (the normal MechMate preference).
Estop signal , port #1 pin 10
X1,Y,Z Home , port #1 pin 11
X2 Home , port #1 pin 12
B Home , port #1 pin 13
Z setter , port #1 pin 15
Pause , port #2 pin 11
Resume , port#2 pin 12
GND

I decided to wire the 12x20AWG cable, from the button box up to its connector, as with the 10 wire configuration, but to connect the wires on the other half of the connector (i.e. the side that is connected to the control panel) as 8 wire configuration, therefore reserving the possibility of changing the configuration only by changing the wiring inside the panel. 12x20AWG was the only cable available in the market which would suit the purpose.

In addition to these stages there will be one motor and one home switch cable for the 4th axis which will be routed separately.

Routing the ground, the spindle and the Z home and limit switches:
Attachment 7776

Attachment 7777

Although it would be very neat to change the wires from the inside of the motor, I am not practicing it, mainly because I read somewhere that opening a stepper motor will ruin it.
I use in between connectors. In my opinion its advantage is that one can change the serial/parallel bipolar wiring only by cutting the motor side connector and rewiring it in a new connector, without changing the motor cabling. The shown connectors are 6 pin.
Attachment 7778

Attachment 7779

A plastic cable duct is attached to the inside of the gantry beams to transfer home side cables to the echain side of the machine.
Attachment 7780

Details of series connection for limits and home switches:
Attachment 7781

Second picture: I don't see a connection between the ground wire and the gantry?

I'd say at the 4th pictur, it's there ;)

Rob, I guess its the Y Car but not Gantry!;)
It should have been visible in pic 2 where it comes out of the cable chain meeting gantry.

4th picture is connection to y-car (see idler roller and spring below)

In principle, there must be a ground connection between the 2 cable chains.

Like this one , looking at the 3rd picture top t bottom (“ from the table to the gantry….” )

Gerald, thanks for your keen eyes. It is apparent that I have forgotten it. It will be fixed by tomorrow.

Mounting the Z axis motor. I changed the spring to 2.5 mm wire. The 2.2 and 2 mm wire went into plastic deformation and the spring did not return to its original length.
Attachment 7788

Correcting the missed gantry ground terminal and the arrangement of the cables for the gantry and the carriage:
Attachment 7789

Attachment 7790

Attachment 7791

Mounting the Y axiz motor and spring:
Attachment 7792

Mounting the X2 axis motor. The X1 axis motor will be installed after doing the button box.
Attachment 7793

The Echain and the duct (open):
Attachment 7794

End distributor of the cables equipped with flexible hose type cable glands. These will lead into the control panel.
Attachment 7795

Attachment 7796

Covering the duct and isolating its sharp edge against the cables:
Attachment 7798

Attachment 7799

Cables for the 4th axis:
Attachment 7797


So far the easy part (stage one) is complete. Now to the hard part:

Before starting, I made this correction. The ground wire was removed from the secondary of the transformer and attached to the negative of main power supply.
Attachment 7803

All the dangling wires are guided through a flexible hose. Well almost all.
Attachment 7800

Attachment 7801

The 12VAC (live) wires of the combined limitswitches and the Estop (in series):
Attachment 7802

The cable was then checked for circuit continuity with a multimeter, each time activating one switch and of course checking it for a possible short with the shield. The two cable shoes will go into the Estop button of the box.

Nader: This information and the photos of the wiring are extremely helpful. Thanks for your hard work in making them available. This is just where I am in building so the timing couldn't be better. Thanks again, Joe

Joe,
Glad they are helpful. If you need any details for the photos I can post it in here.

Finishing the button box
 

The 12VAC circuit of the Estop is shown in the upper picture, connected in series, cableshoe attached to end in two of the NC terminals of the Estop.
It might be worth noting that the gray cable is a 2x2x24AWG cable that brings both the home and limit switch of the Z axis. The home switches are tagged inside the box.
In the lower part the wires are identified; some will connect to the buttons, others connected to the 12x20AWG cable.
Attachment 7848

A common ground is bound to the switches and the shield wires connected together and isolated.
Two wires were redundant, but I kept them just in case.
Attachment 7849

The button box installed:
Attachment 7850

Each and every button and microswitch checked by a multimeter against possible wrong signals, shorts with each other, or with the common or with the shield.

The X1 axis motor mounted:
Attachment 7851

The motor cables through the connectors. They are tagged on the cable and on the panel for ease of tracing.
Attachment 7877

Motor cables inside the flexible cable hoses bundled and passed through the glands, off the top of the panel, to provide a clear path of air flow through the fan.
The 12VAC limits/Estop cable and the 12x20AWG cable run through the cable duct to the other side of the panel.
Attachment 7878

Motors tagged too:
Attachment 7879

The next step which is very important is to:
1- check the continuity of the motor wires.
2- check for short of each wire with the shield (it appeared that I had one case short, which was corrected).
3- read one by one the resistanse of the coils from the motor to the drivers, while checking any possible short between the two coils. If you are wiring unipolar, this step is very crucial. On the other machine I had one wire mix up which was corrected before starting it up.

The exit side of the cable duct for the 12VAC limits/Estop cable and the 12x20AWG cable:
Attachment 7880

Again each wire was checked with the related button and microswitch. This is also very important. One might easily mix up the left and right hand glove nature of these connectors and the colours of the wires. I did in one instance.
Attachment 7881

The general view of the control panel, finished.
Attachment 7882


Next, I will be configuring the computer.

Today I had an alarming suggestion. I was told that with a PCI parallel board, it is likely that the two ports (on-board port and the PCI port) do not send signal simultaneously. I don’t know whether it is right or wrong, but I hope he is wrong.

Making the table
 

First of all, I wish you all a very happy and prosperous year ahead.
There has been some mixed activities within the last weeks which I will organize and post.

The main (under) board is placed on the machine and set for its position. With a centerfinder, the two outer sets of the holes are marked.
Attachment 8024

The markings are indented with a center punch and drilled 6.5mm. the previously mentioned template that was used for marking the holes on the table beams is used to determine the respective matching holes on the board. A 6mm spring pin will fit inside the hole and through the holes on the board, fixing it tightly in place.
Attachment 8025

Attachment 8026

By using a piece of carbon copy paper, the indent marks of the centerfinder will be more visible.
Attachment 8027

Attachment 8028

The indents of the centerfinder are not deep enough for a reliable drilling, therefore a center punch is necessary to provide deeper indents for a better drilling. The 3 rows in the middle of the board were drilled 6mm.
Attachment 8029

Attachment 8030

A countersink tool with 6mm drill is used to provide the countersinks for the M8 screws.
Attachment 8031

Since this machine will be used for jobs other than cutting, I need some work holding facilities.
The space between the table beams will be marked for holes which will be later used for different kind of clamps. These holes were marked with pencil and drilled 5.3 mm.
Attachment 8032

Next they are drilled with a stepped drill for making countersinks for socket head screws. The depth, enough to hold M8 nut.
Attachment 8033

The next step will be to drill the through holes to 9mm so that the M8 thread could pass through it.
The nuts,along with a washer are coated with epoxy resin and inserted inside the holes. Additional resin is applied to the exposed part of the nut.
While it is setting, a screw should be fastened from the other side so that the nut stands vertical in position. This is very imporatant.
Attachment 8034

Attachment 8035

The main board in place:
Attachment 8036

The second board in place. Again screws must be fastened from below to keep the nuts in their vertical position. They should remain until the resin is completely set.
Attachment 8037

Darn Nader,
this simplistic but soooo effective approach is indeed nice & fresh to see. I like very much the way you approach you work & methods to execute !
To each it’s own, but for me,….yep …I like what I see….. :)
Thanks for sharing, it’s keeps my inspiration up !
Amicalement, Robert ;)

Nader: As always, very nice work. I will use your technique when I do mine. Joe

Hi Nader really proffessional build. To bad your MM is not working it would have zip trough those holes in no time.

Thanks Robert and Joe.
Thanks Normand for reminding me of the problem. I have to find a solution for it.

Looking at your build I cant wait to see what you will be making with the machine.

I made a few clamps. Some from the tailings of the rails and some from 50x50x5 angle iron. Pieces cut, deburred, phosphatized and drilled a 8.5mm hole in the middle and 2 or 3 holes drilled and tapped for M5 screws. These screws are necessary to bite into the wood they are to hold in order to secure them on the table.
Attachment 8058

Attachment 8059

M8 Grip knobs are not available for longer than 60 mm. I bought some grips with internal M8 thread and thread rolled screws which are available in 1 meter lengths. The screw is cut to 120 mm and was fixed inside the knob with Loctite
Attachment 8060

Attachment 8061

If you intend to use your machine for mostly cutting jobs, then Normand’s note is quite valid, but if pocketing and 3D carving is what you mostly do, then the arrangement that I chose would be practical. But since profiling and cut-out is almost inevitable in most jobs, I devised another spoil board. It is cut from the scrap boards laying around the workshop, in different sizes, and drilled with a template, again made from scrap boards. It will sit on the main spoilboard and will be scratched, leaving the main spoilboard intact (I’m really spoiling the spoilboard!).
Attachment 8062

Below pictures show the configuration of the clamps in action. Please note that the knobs are not fully tightened to show the arrangement.
Attachment 8063

Attachment 8064

I wouldn't do anything with it, I would rent a showroom and have body guards to watch it while I would do the entertaining and answering questions.

It's almost a shame to make dust with that kind of tool

Absolutely True, Mars

hello atif - miss you - why did you stop posting?

Hello all,

Sorry for the delay. The machine is running but I have been through some adjustments, fine tunings, last minute works and also a lot of work on Artcam, DeskProto and PowerMill, CNCToolkit, and finding software for 4th axis. As before, all works are documented and I will tidy them up and post them in a short period.

A note worth reminding:
 

In one of his posts, Gerald suggested to isolate the motor’s shaft end opening, to be sealed with some adhesive tape.

Attachment 8340

Some other modifications were done prior to starting. I replaced the springs that hold the motors to the racks with the same number of turns, but with 2.2 mm wire. Now the gantry is really hard to sway. The reducers that I made are quite heavy and the current calculations for the spring tension don’t apply.

I also relocated the spring anchor as was shown in picture “Zgearbox05”, a little further up in order to provide more leverage.

The grub screws were another problem. Using Loctite would solve the problem forever, and I mean forever. That would include no possibility for the replacement of the pinions in the future. I tightened them, injected a couple of drops of aceton into the hole to reduce the surface tension and then some nail varnish around the screws. Later, I can loosen them by using some aceton.

Some notes about attaching parallel port boards:
 

Installation is quite easy. You open up the case, put it in place, start the computer and install the provided software. Mine is a Wipro (around $11) which works fine. You then open the device manager and note the port number from its properties which you will need later to enter in Mach.

I see a delicate problem though, which might be nothing more than an obssesion, but I appreciate any comment on it.
The parallel port inlets on my control panel are isolated from the common ground and the earthing (which are virtually the same).
I ran a ground wire from the computer case to the “earth hub” inside the control panel. From which a single 6 mm ground wire leaves for the earth well.

Now the tricky part:
The PCI parallel board is screwed to the case itself, so this one is actually attached to the common ground.

What is happening:
When the panel is off and the computer is on --- I see the LED’s on the breakout board having a dim glow.
More strangely: the LED’s on the 12/5 VDC power suppy also have a dim glow.

Now:
When I disconnect the power supply wires from the breakout board, the glow on all LED’s are gone, which indicates that there is a current flow from the computer to the breakout and to the power supply and back.

I wonder why is this happening? What is astonishing is the fact that all LED’s glow, disregarding the fact that some pins source current, and some sink.

So far there has been no problem regarding its operation, but this phenomenon annoys me. I hope someone could help me to figure this out.

Setting up the Mach
 

I do not have the Mach3, but I have an old version of Mach2 which served me fine through years. I suspect I could activate the Z setting function with Mach2.

Posting the xml files will do no good since you all work with Mach3 and I suppose the xml configurations should be different. But I have provided the parameters for my tuning which might prove to be a useful guideline to set the machines.

Three configs were devised:
1- XYZ config
The B axis was used to slave the X2 axis for X axis.

2- XYZ-A config
The B axis was used to slave the X2 axis for X axis.
The A axis was used for rotary motion.

3- XYZ-B config
This config could be used with RhinoCAM, since you can define 4 axis milling strategies both in XYZA and XYZB.
The B axis was used to slave the X2 axis for X axis.
The A axis was used for rotary motion.

Since I had extra input pins, I assigned home switches separately to each pin, therefore accidental clicking on the “ref all home” will do no harm.

The following pdf files are the first two configs. Also a blank sheets which you might find useful.

Attachment 8341

Attachment 8342

Attachment 8343

Something strange:
 

During setting up the Mach, I had the VFD switched off. As you have noticed, an automatic fuse is installed inside the panel which isolates the VFD, monitored by the “VFD Online” signal lamp. This has been implemented to protect the VFD, while going down its shut down sequence (which is quite long when you are testing the integrity of the panel). When I first switched on the VFD, and started the machine, the motors started vibrating and moving back and forth in an uncontrollable manner, when I turned the knob to increase the rpm. I shut down the system and tried to figure out what was the problem. Certainly it should be a noise, but where? To bring a long story short, the problem was in the DELTA’s “original part”, EMI filtered, and shielded cable that connected the mini keypad to the VFD.

You could see the initial arrangement of that cable in picture “panelwiring28”. It exerted a profound noise on the ribbon cables that connected the breakout board to the DB25’s mounted on the panel. By relocating it according to the below picture, keeping it out of the ribbon cables, all troubles were gone.
Attachment 8344

Lessons learned:
1- When installing the VFD inside a panel, take extra care in isolate the wiring.
2- Never trust that decorative glands named noise filters on any connecting cable, disregarding of who is the manufacturer (period). It is an aesthetic something, only to cost me $25, which I could do it myself with a tenth of that price and wasting a whole afternoon to track a defect.

The big enemy of LocTite is heat. To loosen a LocTite joint, just apply the tip of a blue flame for a short period.

See this post.

We changed from Mach2 to Mach3 some years ago. There wasn't a big change between XML's. But I do remember that the step and direction pins became reversed with each other.

When we built our machines, we were concerned about the type of issues you faced, so we adopted the following:
- no connectors at the control panel. Run cables through glands (cord grippers) or just holes directly to BOB and drives
- mount the spindle VFD in its own enclosure away from the control panel

Gerald, thanks for all your helpful notes.

Actually I made the parallel port connections from Alan's thread. The metal part on the DB25 does not touch the control panel. So even if the parallel port cables should be internally shielded to those metal parts, there will be a discontinuity. It seems that there must be a problem with this isolation. I will check that out and post.

From what you mentioned about mounting the VFD inside the control panel, I assume the whole control panel has been turned into a noise trap due to VFD's function. Is that right?

I will also try some arrangements for future to route the cables directly to the drivers.

nader
very good joop ..bravo and good luck
kostas