Denford Novamill 1996 Conversion, Hints & Tips Appreciated

[andy_con]

this is everything you need for a good conversaion

Ethernet smoothstepper

http://www.amadeal.co.uk/acatalog/Sm...ernet-794.html

3x drivers

https://www.cnc4you.co.uk/Stepper-Mo...tepping-CW5045


Breakout board

http://diycnc.co.uk/cnc-boards-uniport-v3/

48v psu

https://www.cnc4you.co.uk/Breakout-B...U-48Volt-12Amp

total £450

oh forgot and you will need a spindle v4 or v5 board

[m_c]

One of the major benefits of a KStep, is it combines controller, stepper drives, and 0-10V on the one board. My only complaint is all the IO and 0-10V is on IDC header, so you do need a small BoB to make life easier(about £10 upwards on ebay - search for "16pin IDC breakout board")
As this is a Novamill conversion, space in the cabinet is limited, unless you're willing to alter the cabinet layout. I'd need to measure to check, but I think you should be able to squeeze a KStep into the existing controller space.

Power supply wise, a bridge rectifier and capacitor is all that's needed to get a supply for stepper drivers. I just checked the wiring diagram, and the transformer outputs 28VAC, which should give about 40VDC. I also noticed the diagram shows a 24VDC supply for the control electrics. Not sure why I thought it was 12V...

If you don't want to rely on USB for 5V, you'll need to add in a 5V power supply. I personally use switched mode DIN rail mount ones, as they do the job in a nice compact format. Not the cheapest option, but easy to install.

To give you an idea of how compact the KStep setup is, here's a photo of my prober/CMM control cabinet -

I made my own BoB with what I had lying around, but then I only needed two inputs (EStop and Probe). If I wasn't in a rush to get the machine running at the time, I would of ordered a ready made BoB.
The build thread can be found at http://www.machsupport.com/forum/ind...c,27732.0.html with some info about running it closed loop at the bottom of the first page.

[John S]

Or Pokeys 57CNCdb25 for 79 Euro

https://www.poscope.com/PoKeys57CNCdb25

Cheap breakout board from China for £5

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5-Axis-CNC...-/272041782661

This does spindle control and speed.

Then add the power supply and 3 drivers.

[jasonvquick]

I picked a novamill up this summer and have not gotten it going yet any help getting it going would be greatly appreciated.

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[JohnHaine]

Hi Jason, did yours come with all the electronics? I got just the machine a few years back and built the electronics (mainly via eBay). The machine itself only needed a bit of cleaning and hasn't given any trouble. I have no experience with the Denford electronics so couldn't help there. Lots of help available at http://www.denfordata.com/bb/

If you need to build some electronics I'm happy to help.

[jasonvquick]

Yes mine came with the denford controller

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[leadinglights]

I was a bit undecided whether I should butt in on this thread or open a near identical one - A coin toss anmd the fact that two others have done the same convinced me to join the thread - I hope the OP forgives me.

The situation is that I acquired a Denford Novamill some 5 years ago and begun the process of converting it to run Mach3 on a PC over a parallel port. When it was almost ready for commissioning I was seduced by 3D printers and spent the time until now building a string of ever more complicated printers. Now I find myself yearning for my old love but having to accept that parallel ports are a thing of the past and that the hard won knowledge of how to rework a CNC mill is now irrelevant. I hope that somebody can answer a few questions

The present status is that I had replaced the Denford Surestep controller with electoronics which were pretty standard then. The principal box shown below has an Optoport V2 board, a Spindle V3 board and three 4.2A Chinese stepper drivers along with a rectifier and filters for the power supply and a DB25 connector for the PC printer port.



Looking at recent conversions there seem to be several options but I would like to keep the costs down - at least until I have it up and running.

1) Mach3 and Smoothstepper. The problem here is purely cost - genuine Smoothstepper boards seem to be from £129 to £325. My question here is: Would a Chinese board such as https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MACH3-4-A...frcectupt=true work in the same way

2) LinuxCNC on a BeagleBoard Black as in https://www.rs-online.com/designspar...machine-part-1 etseq. Again down to cost, will an optoisolator board such as the Optoport V2 perform the same fuunction as Probotix PBX-BB board specified in the above article.

3) Any other pitfalls that you see that I may fall into.

Thanks for any help you can give,

Mike

[m_c]

If you already have a Mach 3 license, then I'd suggest a UC100 as the easiest option given you already have a parallel port connection.
Off course, there is no real reason not to use an old PC and parallel port if you want to keep cost to an absolute minimum. Plus you could even use LinuxCNC with that same setup.

It all depends on how much money you'd like spend, how much you want to modify things, and how much time you want to spend getting the setup working (I'm generally wary of things like that beaglebone setup, as I've often found key details are missing, so unless you know the system well, it can take a good bit of reading up/experimentation to get things working).

[leadinglights]

Hi m_c,

Thanks for the info. I have about £100 to spend in the first instance but I will be able to commit more once I have got it up and running. The UC100 looked interesting but I think in the end that I have decided to go with the parallel BoB and spindle board and LinuxCNC with either a Beaglebone Black or Raspberry Pi - the BBB seems to be most often recommended but I have a couple of Pis hanging around. I have a Mach3 license but am failing to find the email with the license number (the machine that hosted it suffered from terminal disk disaster) so may have to ask Artsoft for a copy.

Mike

[Clive S]

Mike
"I have decided to go with the parallel BoB and spindle board and LinuxCNC"

If you go with 2 PP boards in a PC you would also be able to change the two pots (feed rate & spindle speed) to encoder pots and have them control the sliders on the gui in linuxcnc.

I have done this but using a mesa 7i92 (if I was doing it again i would use a 7I96). These get rid of the PP cards so are connected to the pc via cat5

Good luck with the build.