Any USB/Ethernet controller suggestions?

[A_Camera]

Current and voltage has little to do with the reason.
DM/Q drives are older technology.
AM/EM drives are the latest technology, with the benefits of auto-tuning and anti-resonance. Both of which mean the drives have much better performance for any given power supply or motor. Stall detection is just an additional feature, which on dual motor axes, can greatly limit racking damage should a stall occur, and can also stop things on single motor axes, should something go wrong. You've got to remember, it's not just over tuning that can cause stalling, crashes can as well.

That is not entirely right. While the DM542T is not the absolutely latest and greatest, it is actually a 2017 product and is in production (by Stepperonline), while the AM882 is obsolete, but still sold, and is advised NOT to be used in new products. At least if we look at what Leadshine is saying about their products. The DM and DQ drivers are not the same, as far as I know, DM is original Leadshine, DQ is fake copy and Leadshine still makes the DM driver. The latest is the EM-S, which probably will replace the DM drivers one day. The DM542E is made by Leadshine and is from 2016 and is in production, the AM product line is no longer in production.

http://www.leadshineusa.com/product-...stepper-drives

[A_Camera]

Jazz, those two videos are not very informative. No data about what "Clive Analog" or AM882 digital is using for motors, power supply or anything. Also, in my opinion, milling air is pretty pointless, if you want to show speed you should run rapid passes, not milling imaginary material. Yes, you say it went from 8m/min to 15m/min so that is good, but still not really say everything about the change, other than you swapped the drivers and the new ones are probably considerably more expensive than the old ones, but which were the old ones?

Yes, I am using 5mm screws and I am not sure you are right about me being far from the speed limit. Perhaps it is possible to drive them a bit faster, but 10m/min is a very good speed, no doubt about that.



Yes, in theory the speed limit is 35m/min for my Y screw (16mm dia, fixed one end 650mm apart, 5mm pitch, 7053rpm limit) but that is just the theory with an imaginary motor and no friction, no nut and a perfect screw, no eBay products, no vibration.

I have no doubt in my mind that digital driver is better than my old analogue driver is, but it is more a question of how much better and why than "it is better because I say so". ...and yes, I knew when I bought my DQ542MA drivers that they were copy of Leadshine drivers, so nothing new there.

There is also a difference in build quality. The machine in your video looks MUCH better build than most other machines I have seen, so of course, that is a huge advantage as well, but none the less, I KNOW that most eBay and DIY machines are not as fast as mine, even if I am not into the speed race and don't care much about bragging, but it is a fact that majority of DIY and eBay machines end up in the 4-5m/min maximum speed.

[magicniner]

Jazz, those two videos are not very informative.

Perhaps you might be informed by the fact that he builds high quality CNC machines for commercial customers? ;-)

[A_Camera]

Perhaps you might be informed by the fact that he builds high quality CNC machines for commercial customers? ;-)

Yes I know. Nevertheless those two video didn't say anything and was not very informative.

[Doddy]

A_Camera : Sorry - completely off-topic but I can't PM you - that video intrigues me - how have you terminated the braid on the CY cable? on your control box (I looks like a copper ferrule, in which case could you point me where you bought them? - or is it simply copper tape?) - If you can PM me to keep this thread from straying too far off topic?

[m_c]

That is not entirely right. While the DM542T is not the absolutely latest and greatest, it is actually a 2017 product and is in production (by Stepperonline), while the AM882 is obsolete, but still sold, and is advised NOT to be used in new products.

That just shows how little you actually understand about the drives and the technology in them.
The DM542 is using technology that must now be well over 20 year old now, just like Gecko are still using in most of their stepper drives. The only real change to the designs has been to use modern components, but the basics of operation are still the same as 20 years ago. It's just smaller components are used.

AM drives, although officially obsolete within Europe (they were superseded by the EM series), are still an active product produced by Leadshine. They use far newer technology, and monitor how the motor is reacting to the voltage/current applied to it, which is how they implement anti-resonance, auto-tuning, and stall detection. DM/DQ drives do not have that technology in them, regardless of when they were made.

[JAZZCNC]

Jazz, those two videos are not very informative. No data about what "Clive Analog" or AM882 digital is using for motors, power supply or anything. Also, in my opinion, milling air is pretty pointless, if you want to show speed you should run rapid passes, not milling imaginary material. Yes, you say it went from 8m/min to 15m/min so that is good, but still not really say everything about the change, other than you swapped the drivers and the new ones are probably considerably more expensive than the old ones, but which were the old ones?

They where never intended to be informative but purely to show difference Digital drives made compared to Analog. The spec is irrelavant in this case because nothing changed other than Analog drives where swapped for Digital.
However there was little more to it than just that.?
The machine was Originally built as favor to help new forum member who had very very tight budget. It was actually mostly built by Clive S using my design and little help from me regards machining etc and with spare component's we had laying around left over from previous builds. However the member Hit hard times and pulled out leaving Clive S with the machine which I then took over and upgraded to pass on to a customer. Hence why the videos are in different locations. This was the end result See pic.

The Original control box used the parallel port (Mach3) because of budget and was also housed in MDF box to save money. Obviously I couldn't sell it like this and won't use PP on anything I sell so new Control box was built. This gave me the perfect opertunity to see what difference individual components made.

So Orginal spec was 35Khz PP thru cheap BOB with leadshine M752 Copies(400Ms) spinning 3.1Nm 4.2a steppers with aprox 55-60Vdc. 10mm pitch screws.
This setup actually struggled to reach much past 4700mm/min.
So the first change was to swap out the PP for Cslabs IP-M 100Khz controller. This allowed the same setup to reach just over 6000mm/min before the drives couldn't handle the resonance and went into melt down. Next change was to adjust the Micro steps with the intent to move the resonance around, 800ms gave best performance of little over 8000mm/min before stalling occured.

The next change was the Am882 with 1600Ms which instantly transformed the machine into an Animal. The Max Rapid velocity with 1000s/s Acceleration was actually well in excess of 20mtr.min but it ran stable at 15000mm/min and would cut at this if required in certain materials, it happily surfaced the bed at this speed. The Actual Velocity and accelration was dropped to sensible 10M/min with 1500s/s acceleration for the customer who was new user.

Hopefully this level of detail meets your approval.

Note on the letters DM.!!. . Just because some Chinese Ripoff shop sticks DM on the front doesn't make them the same DM drives sold by leadshine nor does it mean they have same technology in them.
Leadshine DM are lower range of Digital drives the D identifies this. There Analog drives just used M. ie: M542 or M752. You will see loads of cheap knock off drives with DM or DQ before numbers but most are Analog not digital.
The AM and EM series are more advanced Digital drive and the AM have been superceeded by EM series and are just now becoming harder to find but still about. The EM are current and to be honest having used many sets there is very little difference between them. EM are Slightly smoother at lower RPM's but other than that no difference. So much so I've even mixed AM and EM on same machine, my own, and see no difference when using.

Whether you want to accept it of not the real truth is that Digital drives like the AM or EM are massive improvements on analog drives which transfers directly to very respectable performance gains even on the most well built machine with huge improvements in some cases because of there advanced resonance handling when using motors that are not exactly best quality.

Yes, I am using 5mm screws and I am not sure you are right about me being far from the speed limit. Perhaps it is possible to drive them a bit faster, but 10m/min is a very good speed, no doubt about that.

Yes for Analog drives I agree that's very good speed, mostly made possible by fact small machine and well made by your self. But just for the record my very first machine which used 5mm pitch screws would spin well above 10,000mm/min and that was with 1500mm length screws and Gecko Analog drives so your little machine still as lot left in it trust me.!

I KNOW that most eBay and DIY machines are not as fast as mine, even if I am not into the speed race and don't care much about bragging, but it is a fact that majority of DIY and eBay machines end up in the 4-5m/min maximum speed.

Yes build quality makes big difference but your observations are not a good indicator because it could be just case that the machine is dumbed down lower and doesn't mean it couldn't go much faster if required.
I've built many machine which could easily be tuned to travel at twice the speed I supply the user with, hence above machine, but in truth most are frighted to Jog or travel at these speeds and rarely can they cut at these feeds because they cannot clear chips fast enough.

That's me done with this topic now but to all those looking for drives then stay away from Analog drives, Even the cheapest Digital drives are better than Analog and the price difference is nothing.

[jtar40]

I am using UC300ETH and UCCNC. It works just as well with Mach3 but I like UCCNC more. I would definitely recommand either UC400ETH or UC300ETH. If you don't need more inputs than what is available on the UC400ETH and you have no need for extra ain/aout then the UC400ETH is an excellent choice. You don't NEED to get the UCCNC software, but at that price it is definitely worth to try. You can also just download the software without license, it will in that case run in demo mode, which includes everything except motion commands. That way you can try it out and see if you like it or not, but it isn't very expensive, so it is worth to get a license because that would definitely show the advantages of it over Mach3, which is considerably more expensive than UCCNC. Also, UCCNC is actively maintained and developed, Mach3 is dead.

If you want new drivers, I'd advice you to get DQ542MA drivers. Those are very good and reliable. You can buy the drivers from some eBay seller and will not pay any tax if you select delivery from Germany or UK or other EU countries. UCCNC and the UCx00ETH motion controllers can be bought directly form Hungary, so it is also from EU.

Alright, when it's talking about all the inputs it's talking about signals being generated going into the controller ie) limit switches, e-stop etc. Is this incorrect? Just because I don't really have a good understanding of the input capabilities, what should I be expecting in comparing the uc300eth, and the uc400eth. I see the uc300eth 5lpt has 36 outputs, 49 inputs, and the uc400eth doesn't.

Rephrase I don't know much about inputs, I personally don't think there's a need for so many. Therefore I'd probably go for the uc400eth but can someone maybe list off some other inputs (other than the 2 examples I mentioned) that people use?

Thanks
-Justin

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

[Ger21]

Limit Switches
Home Switches
Probes
Pushbuttons
Sensors
E Stop
MPG
Pendants
Encoders

[JAZZCNC]

Limit Switches
Home Switches
Probes
Pushbuttons
Sensors
E Stop
MPG
Pendants
Encoders

Let me expand this a little for you with rough some numbers. Many of these options you won't require but will be found on many CNC routers.
You'll also be surprised as you go along how many things you might like to add to the machine which require I/O and if you havent got them to start with it can be expensive or difficult adding them later. The little extra cost could be worth it long term.

INPUTS:
Home Switches = 4 (4 axis independant homing )
Limit Switches = 4 ( Independant axis sensing can be series wired to share 1 IN )
Probes = 1
Pushbuttons = 1 for each button required. ie: Feed hold, Cycle start, Step mode, Spindle on/off, Vac On/off, Coolant on/off, Air On/off
Sensors = 1 for each sensor. ie: ATC could easily use 6-12+ I/O dependant on style.
Rpm Sensor = 1
E Stop = 1
Servo Ready = 1
Servo fault = 1
Servo motor Stopped =1
Servo brake on/off = 1
MPG = 4 per axis for Simple hand wheel encoder plus 1 IN per function ie: Jog Mode, Step selection, E-stop
Encoders = 4 per axis (6 with Index)

Outputs:
Spindle on/off = 1
Spindle RPM = 1
Tool release = 1 (ATC)
ATC = 1 per action ie: Arm in/out, Arm up/down, Rotate, Clamp/release etc
Servo On/0ff = 1
Servo brake release = 1
Servo Reset = 1
Coolant on/off = 1
Vac on/off =1
Air on/off = 1
Pop up pins = 1
Dust hood retract = 1
Signal lights = 1 per Light ie: E-stop, Cycle start led, feed hold, Jog Mode etc