Controller box from PC case

[Smiler]

Hi Everyone,

This is the controller box I've put together from a Sun Micro tower server case, bought from fleabay for 20 quid.



As you can see there is a little battle damage at the bottom, combination of poor packing and brutal postman but as I am a sheetmetal worker by trade, that little dent will soon be gone :). I knew Sun Micro cases were nice but this thing is built like a Rolls Royce, I can't beleive I got it for 20 quid
Anyway, once you take off the side, just press two catches down and it pulls off, you have a perspex window covering the inside, this is lockable so you can display the gubbins of the control equipment but keep little and not so little fingers out :)



This too just slides off when you move the catches (everything is QD).



Another unexpected bonus were the three 120mm fans in a removable pod just where you need them most. The drivers are Motion Control Products MDS 542's, the PSU's are MCP PS407's. Should provide enough power for a 4th axis. The breakout board (bottom left) is by DIYCNC (Optoport). It's fully opto-isolated, has a charge pump and spindle and coolant/extractor relays built in. The charge pump is also gated into these so they cannot switch if the PC crashes or another error occurs, IMPORTANT!

Above the BOB is the Smoothstepper and yes I am in love with it :D



These are the connectors I am using for the steppers. They are military type bayonet fix. I bought them from fleabay from a Hong Kong seller. He does them up to 14 contacts on each connector. They are not quite as good as a true NATO Mil connector but at 2 quid a pair (socket and plug) I 'aint complaining. They are certainly more robust than the XLR types I was planning to use.



This is my laptop running Mach3 with the blue screenset modified for the touch probe I refered to in my router build log. The laptop is a DELL C640, Pentium 4 mobile @ 2.4 GHz, 1 gig ram and 150 quid from the bay.

Finally for now is my E-Stop Switch.



As you can see it not only contains the E-Stop which is connected to the BOB, it is also the main on/off switch for the electronics in the case. This means that when the router returns to 0,0,0 for a tool change, I can also turn off power to the case ensuring doubly that both no axis can move and neither can the spindle while I'm changing the bit.

<EDIT> Re: the above, the E-Stop is not wired to mach through the BOB. The E-stop is wired to a contactor which shuts off ALL POWER to the stepper drives and router. It also switches off a relay that is outputting 5v to the BOB's chargepump circuit. Mach only enters software E-Stop when it detects the chargepump circuit has gone dead (which should be the instant I push the E-stop). Just thought I'd make it clear as on second reading it is ambiguous

Hope these pics came out ok. I still have to wire up the spindle relay and I'll post more when I've done that.