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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : The 2350B 64 pin board for my CNC
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Bryan1 Guru  Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1483 |
Harm my house mini does have a cd drive so I just copied all the files on a USB disk to load into the HP mini  This mornings job is running a 20 metre ethernet cable from my wifi router outside to my table where this HP mini is. When I was in the computer shop I did ask for a 10 metre ethernet cable but he only had the 20 so in true haggling style I got the 20 for the price of the 10.  Also got a wireless keyboard and mouse to complete the setup.I do remember in Linux if drivers were needed it would just go grab them but in winsucks one has to identify each one then go search for it. It did look like this win10 install is a barebones one with all the data stripped and I had to make a new account which was done off line just so big brother didn't get a say. |
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| Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1483 |
Well that was 3 hours of fun  winsucks update took an hour  then tried every mach3 exe file I have here only to find all would crash with B109-13 error  So got onto arcsoft and downloaded Mach3 and it loaded first time before running applied the lic patch and did a reboot and now Mach3 is registered Connected up the control board and windows set it so loaded up Mach3 and sure enough the motion card was found Well with all that out the way got a big job of wiring it all up and as enable isn't used I need to move the wire to the 5 volt pullup. Got a few jobbies to do before moving on with this but one happy black duck getting over the first hurdle |
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| Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1483 |
Well tried quite a few things and still no movement from the steppers although they did get nice and hot. Now I did have a 5amp fuse inline with the positive DC and it did blow twice so put a 10 amp fuse in and all good, so the steppers while powered and not running just generated heat and no option on this control board to use enable. I made a simple gcode file to move the X axis 5mm so I could check it with my dial indicator and no movement on the dial at all even when the file is running. Checking with my DMM what says 5V is actually 12 volts and each DM556 has a green led saying it is active. The control board was flashing as the file was running too so it is getting data from Mach3. Anyway enough for today and in the morning I'll bring up my scope so I can check the wave forms on the stepper pins. I am hoping after all this time the steppers are still good. Anyway it has been great listening to the hottest 100 of Aussie songs on JJJ and sipping on a few Coopers Draught. Now as my old shed radio had problems with the volume got that free car radio going and set up all my speakers so when good songs came on the volume was pumped. I have looked at MPG's on ebay and for the price I do reckon a 2040 with the ILI9488 touch screen could easily interface with the inputs on this board so that's a project I will need a hand with. So the quest continues to get this cnc going which may even mean trying out the step/ direction code on the 2040. Edited 2025-07-26 18:31 by Bryan1 |
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| Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1483 |
Well they do say never give up and finally got it all working Just finished calibrating the Z axis and the X and Y axis's are already done so finally got my CNC back |
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| Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1483 |
G'Day Guy's, Well got all the steppers working nicely and my E-Stop and limit switch's all set for active low and checking each input does show each switch is working. Now when I set active low in Mach3 limits it states the limit switches are tripped when clearly they are not. Now when I uncheck the active low the problem goes away in Mach3 but when any limit or the E-stop is press it isn't registered. This board has 4 inputs and I have used all of them with the E-stop, X,Y and Z limits and honestly everything I try just isn't working. Edit: Went for a drive and thought about this, now there is a 5 volt output for the MPG so hooked up a wire to it and connected it to Y and Z axis ground wire. Now didn't get a warning light in diagnostics but got a Driver Watchdog Triggered Alarm so that will have to do I think. I do need to totally rewire the E-stop so thats the next job. Edited 2025-07-28 14:21 by Bryan1 |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7937 |
Probably not applicable here, but some ESTOP circuits are clever. You need two loops (occasionally more), to monitor for breakages or shorted out contacts. Some of them can get pretty sophisticated! Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| PhenixRising Guru Joined: 07/11/2023 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1384 |
Another pet-peeve of mine They are still bypassed. I hit the e-stop and nothing happened. The maintenance guy had shorted both of the e-stop contacts while troubleshooting....but forgot to remove the links. This is one of those ISO9001 facilities with a dedicated "safety officer". He wouldn't allow me to visit until I got insurance on top of my insurance. Idiot had no-idea what was going-on in the plant. My own method was to have a signal from each estop, feeding back to an input and after any shutdown, each estop had to be operated to show a break/make. It was a PITA but so are lawsuits. These so-called "safety relays" are 30 times the cost of a regular relay and are nothing more than another mandatory ripoff. |
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| Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1483 |
Well I did try just about everything, soldered the E-stop and all the limits onto one wire then plugged it into the +5 volts socket. Well the +5 volts was actually +13 volts and when a limit was closed that that 5 volt socket went to zero volts. Then I decided to try and raise the Z axis only to find Mach3 had stuffed up my settings and the global setting was something like 1700.2281 on the Z axis. Even the Y axis was stuffed up now as the same stepper is used and the X axis was still Ok I was able to fix the Y axis. Now both the X and Y axis still works. Mach3 in it's glory also changed from mm to inch and when I went to move the Y axis had to hit the stop on the screen to stop the axis crashing into the side. Now as the Z axis wasn't working I edited the file to lower the global down to zero only to find it had gone the other way the same amount. So got sick of trying and if it is still the same in the morning I will uninstall mach3 and reload it saving the axis settings of course. The manual for this board isn't clear on the inputs at all and with no clear socket to connect to the cnc ground does cause the problem I'm having with the limits. Now when I did have the watchdog fault working putting my DMM on the input didn't rise in voltage at all yet the error was seen which had me completely boggled. so with my E-Stop configuration on side of double pole switch, one goes to the input board and tried ground and a couple of sockets like the one I said above and also the +5 volt socket for the A axis with the same results. |
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| Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1483 |
Well another day of fun with this cnc, to get the z axis working I bypassed that board and connected directly to the motion card. Then found Don't click on the top left of the diagnostic page X Y Z buttons as I found just doing a 1mm move the cnc went off on a tangent to find a non existent home. I had put a 5mm drill in the spindle and when the Y asis started moving the Z axis went down and the drill was dragging across the table. Found the calibration was way off from the day before so reset it over 2mm using my dial indicator and found when I made a G-code to drill the holes in the board the X axis was actually 102mm Now I had to stop the code and after that Mach3 wouldn't allow the X axis in the code to be shown so joined the Mach3 forum and asked the question there.For the spindle I just used that 30 volt 10 amp power supply and set it to 20 volts which gave 10,000 rpm. So all good frustrating fun again and looking forward to more fun tomorrow. |
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| Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1483 |
Well found out the reason X wouldn't show as no carriage return was done small thing but it was suggest putting % at the end of the gcode to overcome this problem. So will check tomorrow then the fun can continue. |
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| Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1483 |
Well I have found the Mach3 forum has been great to me and finally got the user manual for Mach3 which will answer most of my problems. Now it has been that long since I used Mach3 I couldn't work out how to get the jog mode going and when I read the manual it came flooding to me just use the TAB button to get the MPG showing. I also reckon I found a cure for the steppers over heating, I have some old 24 fans and on measuring up they are the same 70mm X 70mm mounting holes so now the steppers have a fan bolted to back of them with the air blowing into the stepper. Now for further updates I will use my original thread in the other stuff forum then members can see the full evolution of building this CNC. Cheers Bryan |
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| Volhout Guru Joined: 05/03/2018 Location: NetherlandsPosts: 5090 |
When your stepper motors are overheating, you should limit the motor current in the 556 stepper drivers.that may come at little loss of speed or torque, but will make sure your motors survive. Volhout PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS |
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