BoBbing up and down like this
About three weeks ago, I found my machine was cutting parallelograms, not squares, so I decided on a radical dismantle and reassembly to align everything back up.
When I connected the electronics up again, something caused the BoB to fail. The fuse had gone, but replacing it did not bring the system back to life.
The BoB is a PCF07343 from Tonman in China. The control box kit came from MD about 2 years ago and has PD2064M drivers, also from Tonman.
The BoB and drivers have shrouded header sockets which connect with a ribbon cable using 16way IDC connectors.
So the obvious solution is to replace the BoB like for like. I emailed MD for a price, but no reply (to be expected really). A forum member had a spare and was willing to sell and we agreed a price, but in the end he couldn't locate it. I then emailed Tonman who seemed to be willing to help and I asked a friend who speaks fluent Mandarin (and lives in Shanghai) to call them and buy one to bring when he visits his parents in July.
He reported back that Tonman no longer make them (great !!! just effing great !!!).
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Now I am left with interfacing the drivers to a different BoB
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The pins on the driver are :-
| 1 |
Step - |
|
| 2 |
Step + |
|
| 3 |
Dir - |
|
| 4 |
Dir+ |
|
| 5 |
Free - |
_enable ? |
| 6 |
Free + |
|
| 7 |
N.C. |
|
| 8 |
N.C. |
|
| 9 |
N.C. |
|
| 10 |
N.C. |
|
| 11 |
N.C. |
|
| 12 |
N.C. |
|
| 13 |
C pole |
Timing |
| 14 |
E pole |
" |
| 15 |
C pole |
OH (overheat ?) |
| 16 |
E pole |
" |
I am going to connect step+ and dir+ to +5v and use the step- and dir- to control the stepper. All the other pins will be unconnected. I am presuming that internal resistors in the driver will take care of the 'Free'. I have no idea what C pole and E pole means.
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Anybody with more positive info on the PD2064M pinout please let me know.
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I have a couple of BoBs that I made using boards from http://www.embeddedtronics.com/ and the non-isolated connections to the port will go direct to opto-isolated relay boards to control the spindle and coolant. This way I will have no black box electronics, I will have the circuit details and I have spare opto-isolators if I blow any.
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The charge pump on the BoB never worked and had to be jumpered out, so I am not bothered about this facility.
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So what's the point of this post ?
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If you have a MD supplied SBox controller, don't expect it to be repairable if it goes wrong. It is obsolete, old tech, crap and expensive crap at that.
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By the way, if anyone can see anything awry with my ideas above, let me know, I am in a waiting phase while components arrive.
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Cheers, Rob-T:chargrined:
