First Build 5 x 12 Steel Frame CNC router

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Originally Posted by JAZZCNC

Boyan Your forgetting the Encoders are Quadrature so that's 2500 x 4 =10,000ppr.!

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I am always confused about that info. Why are they never more clear. When i bought my Samsung servos, it stated 2500ppr, then i thought like you say- that they are quadrature, but it went they really meant 2500 pulses per revolution. So i actually for my machine have them programmed in Mach3 at 2500/10=250x(30t:20t)=375steps

Thats why i said he must check in servo manual and every time i think about servos ppr i check in manual.



Scott,
they are talking about controlling the resonance frequency, so if you are near it will be ok.

The bst motor inertia could not be different than typical servo motor inertia. Just make sure you know the correct length of motor and shaft diameter and you could use data from comparable motor

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Originally Posted by JAZZCNC

The fact you even considered 5mm pitch screws and Steppers on such large machine shows you need to do much more research.

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Sometimes I forget about the speed of the screw also being an important factor. I put together a little table for resolution based on ballscrew, based on my calculations I need to go with a higher pitch or up the gear ratio to keep the speed ~80% max. Upping the ratio of course hurts resolution so Im looking for a 20 pitch screw. Higher pitch also helps keep the ballscrew speed down, but of course hurts resolution per mm.

Attachment 17903

Thoughts on this?

From my table above I am looking at a 2525 screw for the long axis. If I do a 2:3 ratio I get 37.5 mm travel per one motor revolution. 37.5/10,000 pulses = 0.00375 mm per pulse. This would be the best resolution. Or 0.0001476 inch resolution. This seems plenty good to me but thought I would ask

This reduces the speed of the screw considerably to reach the same machine speed and actually gives me some headroom on the motor max speed as well.

At the moment I am planning on rotating the screw and putting in multiple ballscrew supports. Something like...
https://youtu.be/NWB6FAJCPhA

If I choose to do rotating ballnut I will need to recalculate the inertia and just make sure everything still matches up. I am leaning the other way as my parts are coming back around $300 usd per side....

Does this sound like a reasonable solution?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scott Damman

From my table above I am looking at a 2525 screw for the long axis. If I do a 2:3 ratio I get 37.5 mm travel per one motor revolution. 37.5/10,000 pulses = 0.00375 mm per pulse. This would be the best resolution. Or 0.0001476 inch resolution. This seems plenty good to me but thought I would ask

This reduces the speed of the screw considerably to reach the same machine speed and actually gives me some headroom on the motor max speed as well.

At the moment I am planning on rotating the screw and putting in multiple ballscrew supports. Something like...
https://youtu.be/NWB6FAJCPhA

If I choose to do rotating ballnut I will need to recalculate the inertia and just make sure everything still matches up. I am leaning the other way as my parts are coming back around $300 usd per side....

Does this sound like a reasonable solution?

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Got my gear ratio backward. I need to redo my calculations...

Alright new table now that I got the gearing correct the ballscrew and motor speeds were correct but I took the ballnut travel per motor rev the wrong way.

Attachment 17904

So based on these numbers still looking at 25mm lead screw. With a ratio of 2:3

Ballnut travel per motor rev 25*0.66 = 16.5mm
Precision mm = 16.5/10,000 = 0.00165 (is this real? i.e. with a quadrature resolver will I truly get 10,000 counts per motor rev?)
1600 rpm ballscrew speed to get to 40,000mm/min (~1500ipm)
Motor speed of 2424rpm (67% of max motor speed)


So am I looking good here? The precision seems great and the speeds would be very acceptable with some headroom on the motor speed.

Thanks

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Originally Posted by JAZZCNC

BST will provide cables upto 7mtr long. This is Video I made showing there 1.8Kw set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW8knRAOr7s

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Hi Jazz,
I saw your video which made me curious: would it be possible to use this 1.8kW servo and controller for driving a spindle or could I hit trouble doing so?
BTW: Nice thread - and sorry for my little hijack!

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Originally Posted by AVF

Hi Jazz,
I saw your video which made me curious: would it be possible to use this 1.8kW servo and controller for driving a spindle or could I hit trouble doing so?
BTW: Nice thread - and sorry for my little hijack!

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Don't want to let this run on so please start another thread if you want to know more.!!. . . But yes large Servo's are often used for Lower RPM spindles. Better controllers like the Cslabs IP-A let you control the spindle using Servo. This means you can use the Encoder for spindle orientation for things like ATC or Ridged tapping etc and do things like this.!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xJuIeYgkr4

Got a little more done on the frame, havent had as much time as I would like in the last few days. My bed is 16 inch on center and I decided to brace in between each of the bed cross members only the first ones in so far.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/qX...Q=w547-h971-no.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/vc...=w1727-h971-no

Ballscrew
I need to finalize my plans for the X axis ballscrews so I can make mounts for them. Then motors mounts.
So a couple questions -
Do the numbers for the 2525 screw look good and make sense? On this long screw should I go with fixed:fixed mounts, I have read that this can stiffen things up a bit for a long screw.
Like some of the big guys do, can I get away with intermediate supports along the ballscrew and drive the screw? Or go the rotating ballnut route?
Do I even need the belt ratio on the X axis ballscrew? Would the motor speed be to slow without the gearing (~1600rpm at 1500ipm)? If I spin the screw, I could go direct drive with a 0 backlash coupling. Not that belting is all that difficult to implement it just takes some complexity out if I go direct coupled.

Motors
Ive run my inertia numbers multiple times with a few different numbers to try to account for some unknowns.
What I ended up with is, 2 of the 1.8kw motors for the x, the inertia ratios in my calculations worked out between 1.75 ---> 3.4 depending on the numbers. And the torque worked out between 4.25 -->5 Nm per motor, these motors are 6Nm so I feel like this is a pretty good choice.

Then for the Y I went with the 0.75kW motor 2.4Nm motor, inertia ratio calculations worked out between 2.25 --> 3.5 and the required torque was around 1.5Nm so a little headroom on torque.

I also picked that same 0.75kW motor for the Z, my inertia ratios get closer to 1.5 here and if I find issues I could change the gear ratio

If anyone has thoughts on these options for the motors Im all ears.

One thing, that I cant yet confirm, but it looks like the drives from Fred show a limit on the inertia ratio of 5. This was based on data I found online from who I think is the supplier of the drives.

Resonance
I think I will cross this bridge if/when I need to. In my day job I am a noise and vibe engineer (although automotive and nothing to do with machine design) so I may be able to figure out the correct countermeasures. I will say, as the frame sits it rings when hit, so I may borrow some accelerometers and do some impact testing (frequency response...) on the machine and just see where things are if I get ambitious.

Thanks for all the help this far!!!

Attachment 17960Attachment 17961Attachment 17962

I think this will be my final Z axis design. 20 inches of travel with the ballscrew inside a 3inch x 5inch x1/4 wall box tubing. I have added supports to the internal of the box tubing to add strength and support the tubing when I cut the large slot on the backside for the ballnut.

I think this will keep it pretty compact and also plenty strong. As always comments are appreciated.

Thanks
Scott

I got a bit done on the Z axis over the weekend. When I was laying everything out for the Z I decided that 4.5 inches between linear rails was not wide enough. So I welded on some 3/8inch plate in order to widen it to 8 inches center to center on the rails.

Starting the milled slot for the ballnut to travel
Attachment 17975

Slot cut through and now cleaning up the edges
Attachment 17976
Attachment 17977

Internal view showing 2 internal supports. I figured these were needed to help keep movement to a minimum when I cut the large slot in the tube. They had to be driven in with a sledge as they were a little tight but I got them in. They are welded in place by drilling 3/8inch holes in the box tubing and then spot welding through those holes.
Attachment 17978

Begining the face milling process. I milled a linear reference for one of the rails. The curves are just the tool paths I had to take to make it all work as my mills travel isnt enough to do the whole thing in 1 pass.
Attachment 17979 Attachment 17980

Here you can see the milled linear reference for the rail
Attachment 17981

And a blurry picture of one of the rails test fitted
Attachment 17982

Is that a manual mill or CNC controlled? Either way, good craftmanship!

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Originally Posted by sinnsvak

Is that a manual mill or CNC controlled? Either way, good craftmanship!

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It is a manual mill but it has a rotary head. Pretty cool machine, Kearney Trecker 2D rotary head die mill. I had never seen one before and just stumbled across this one when looking for a mill. It can cut circles up to 8 inches. The one I have was built in 1946 and was a little rough, very helpfuly with this cnc router build. Although the table only travels 18 inches X and 12 inches Y so for the Z axis its a bit limiting... but I find ways around that so not a big deal.

Thanks for the comment.

Quick update

Z axis machining is done. Now just need to start putting this together waiting on ballscrews to arrive. I hope to do the epoxy pours this coming week as the weather is starting to get warmer...

Attachment 18007Attachment 18008

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Originally Posted by Scott Damman

Quick update

Z axis machining is done. Now just need to start putting this together waiting on ballscrews to arrive. I hope to do the epoxy pours this coming week as the weather is starting to get warmer...

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Looks very nice1 You are a man of action Scott :applause:

Finally a little bit of progress, got the Z axis final machining done, painted the metal work, and installed the linear rails. I also made up the Z to Y plate and did initial checks for squareness.

Attachment 18098

Attachment 18099
Attachment 18100
Attachment 18101

I am waiting on my ballscrews to arrive so I can finish the build out of the major mechanical parts. Crazy how they can go from China to US and clear customs in 1 day and then take 4 days sitting 3 hrs from me... Still no guarantee they are coming tomorrow.

Once ballscrews are mounted and some initial adjustments are made I will do the epoxy pour.


So a question, I received my CSMIO - IP/A in the mail and did some initial hook up to it. Followed the instructions in the manual for setup and download of mach3 plugin. I however can not connect to it. I can ping its IP address but both the firmware uploader and Mach3 can not connect to it.

Any thoughts on what I am missing?
I made a new rule in my firewall settings to include/allow the IP address
Intially I can ping it and get flashing lights on the IP/A
after about 3 - 5 minutes the lights go solid and I can no longer ping it...

Thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scott Damman

So a question, I received my CSMIO - IP/A in the mail and did some initial hook up to it. Followed the instructions in the manual for setup and download of mach3 plugin. I however can not connect to it. I can ping its IP address but both the firmware uploader and Mach3 can not connect to it.

Any thoughts on what I am missing?
I made a new rule in my firewall settings to include/allow the IP address
Intially I can ping it and get flashing lights on the IP/A
after about 3 - 5 minutes the lights go solid and I can no longer ping it...

Thanks

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Strange because Usually very straight forward provided you set Network adapter manually it works.

So have you set internet protocol version4 (TCP/IPv4) address manually.?

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Originally Posted by JAZZCNC

Strange because Usually very straight forward provided you set Network adapter manually it works.

So have you set internet protocol version4 (TCP/IPv4) address manually.?

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Yeah 10.1.1.1 was entered manually into my computer. I pinged 10.1.1.2 when reaching the IP/A.

Couple other things I tried, I made 2 new rules for the CSMIO firmware software and Mach3 still no luck.

What I am assuming at the moment, I am using my work laptop as that is the only computer I currently have, I bet it is something with my IT policy on the machine that is blocking it (other than windows firewall). So time to pull my old desktop out of the rafters and get it back up and running...

Still on the search for a good enclosure for the electrical components. Anyone ever put the spindle motor vfd on the gantry rather than run long VFD motor cable to the spindle? I was thinking about do this to keep the 3 phase cabling (higher current to the spindle at least) as short as possible. I think some of the big CNC players do it this way where they have a control cabinet on the backside of the gantry. Thoughts on this?

Thanks
Scott

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scott Damman

Anyone ever put the spindle motor vfd on the gantry rather than run long VFD motor cable to the spindle? I was thinking about do this to keep the 3 phase cabling (higher current to the spindle at least) as short as possible. I think some of the big CNC players do it this way where they have a control cabinet on the backside of the gantry. Thoughts on this?

Thanks
Scott

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I was contemplating this many times or to integrate it in the machine somehow. First the dust will be a problem, but you could make a cover for it. Biggest issue for me is if cable disconnects and touches a metal while i am touching that metal too. though the machine must be grounded. I don't know. there must be a reason not to do it. It has some vibration requirements also.

Do-able but involved and costly.

Dust and Vibrations are the biggest issues. Cover the VFD and heat becomes an issue so Good Filterd cooling is required. Vabration over time can cause issues so it will need mounting on rubber standoffs.

I would not do it - if this is a single phase input/three phase output VFD then the supply cable will be carrying more current than the motor cable. As mentioned, vibration and muck are serious enemies of electronics.

Thanks for the thoughts on mounting the VFD to the gantry. I had kinda thought about those items as well, the main driver for me was actually 3 phase switching noise caused by the VFD. I use double shielded VFD cable but at these high frequencies (300 - 400Hz AC at 2.5khz switching) there can be alot of noise that causes interference elsewhere in the home. Anyway I have scrapped the idea in favor of wall mounted.

Finally some updates on the machine.

Attachment 18199
Attachment 18200
Attachment 18201

X axis motor mount plates (laser cut) and servo motor mocked up.
Attachment 18202
Attachment 18205
Attachment 18206

Long ballscrew mocked up for bracket design
Attachment 18204


Also made some good headway on the electrics. Still cant get CSMIO to connect so will have to contact them here soon but Im a bit of time away from needing it.
Attachment 18203

I fully agree, legs has to be revised.
I make another desktop router with fixed gantry this time and see how I made it:
Attachment 18946Attachment 18947Attachment 18948Attachment 18949
all made from rectangular profile 50x25x3
I weld everything with Tig this time will start new topic about my build
Good luck
Tom

I have been MIA for a long period, normal life and other projects got in the way over summer. Finally back to working on the CNC.

Attachment 19859
Leveling the Y to Z plate for gantry foot epoxy pour
Attachment 19860Attachment 19861Attachment 19862
Pouring the gantry feet
Attachment 19863Attachment 19864Attachment 19865Attachment 19866
Ballscrew to Z axis plate, made with steel I had on hand
Attachment 19867Attachment 19868Attachment 19869
Installing limit switches for Z
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Z home Prox Switch
Attachment 19874Attachment 19875Attachment 19876Attachment 19877Attachment 19878Attachment 19879
Finished underside of Z axis with dust shielding in place
Attachment 19880Attachment 19881Attachment 19882Attachment 19883Attachment 19884Attachment 19885
Z axis installed onto Y axis/gantry
Attachment 19886Attachment 19887Attachment 19888Attachment 19889Attachment 19890Attachment 19891
Lots more Z axis mockup
Attachment 19892Attachment 19893Attachment 19894Attachment 19895Attachment 19896Attachment 19897Attachment 19898Attachment 19899Attachment 19900
Building brackets for dust collection holding and pneumatic counter balance system
Attachment 19901Attachment 19902Attachment 19903Attachment 19904Attachment 19905Attachment 19906
Machining and installing guides for dust shroud, shroud/brush will be on pneumatic cylinders so it can be pulled up when needed and also when I add the tool changer.
Attachment 19907Attachment 19908Attachment 19909
As it sits today, my plan is to work backward from the Z axis finishing each axis as I go. Sorry for the dump with little text but I wanted to update this with where things are. I can give any specific information as needed

Made some progress forward... Z is moving although I cant get the video to download.

Also got Y going for initial tuning, here is a video jogging at ~1600 inch/min then I have a question for all the servo tuning experts out there.
https://youtu.be/SOFWMtNni1g

Ok, so trying to get that Y axis tuned through the CSMIO config it seems I can get either no overshoot and no oscillation but I never actually get to the number I requested. Or by changing the I value just 1 I get slight overshoot and oscillation. I am tuning at 2000 inch per min max rate and an acceleration set to 500inch/sec/sec.

Right now my numbers are, with these numbers there is no overshoot and the movement is very crisp with no oscillation at 0 speed. But I am always 0.003 of an inch from the requested number. (i.e. if I ask it to go to 8 I get 7.997). Error in this setup ends up around 10 to 12 counts
P - 800
I - 4
D - 10

If I change the I to 5 leaving the P and D the same, I get slight overshoot, but also get oscillation around the number, around 100 counts + and - . Also at 0 speed I am getting oscillation around 30 counts + and -. The CSMIO config dialog wont let me put a decimal into the value otherwise I think 4.5 could be the magic number.

Any thoughts? I think not getting to the requested number wont work in real machining? Also overshoot or oscillation could have some pretty negative impact. Kinda got to the point of pulling my hair out yesterday after around 3 hours of messing with it so I decided to move on for now. Oh and a BTW, the autotuning feature did not work at all. The numbers it left me with gave oscillations around 1 full inch of movement. I am happy with the crispness of the response on how I have it tuned just very odd I cant get to the number I asked for.

Thanks

Now your ino the realms of Black Magic.!!

First thing first are you sure the Drive is tuned correctly to the motor.? If not then wasting you time tuning the controller.

However 500in/s/s is very high(12700mm/s/s) and could be the cause of your tiny overshoot. This is very abrupt stop and from high speed. You can see in the video how abrupty it stops. Try lowering the Accelration and see if the error disappears or reduces.

Also I notice you using kD value which often if required is much higher valule than 10. 100's even 1000's isn't unusual.
The kD value will fine tune the oscillation or any humming noice from motors.

You also don't mention the Kvff value. With such high acceleration then this value will come into play slightly as it trying to predict the next action and can help reduce errors if matched well to PID.

To be honest no one can truely help you with this unless in front of machine. Even then it's mostly trial and error. Also I wouldn't waste much time fine tuning untill the axis is fully finished and working as it will be when cutting. Just adding little more Mass or lowering resonance can change the Tuning when comes to fine detail.

Good luck and keep cool it will be worth the effort.

Yeah I figured the cart was ahead of the horse so to speak but it was fun to get something moving. I was planning on just doing a quick tune so that I could jogg the axis... 3 hrs later I was so frustrated I had to say stop.

I dont know that the motor is tuned correctly, these are the units from BST and I just made sure to set the drive to the correct number for the motor. I will need to do a little more learning on servo drive tuning before jumping into that can of worms... Should I need to dig into the servo driver setup? I was hopeful that just setting the number for the motor would get me where I needed to be.

The acceleration was set just trying to push the limits of the servos a bit, I ran all the way down to 50 inch/s/s and it is always 0.003 inch off the mark with the PID set the way I have it. Then if I changed the PID, the overshoot and hunting was always essentially the same, so with that I came to the conclusion that the acceleration may not be in play? But obviously more tuning needs to be done.

I do need to play more with the KD and Kvff, but I think I will take your advice and wait until the whole thing is together before performing the final tuning.

Have a Mach4 question as well, DRO readout with the CSMIO-IP/a, in Mach3 if I would turn a servo motor by hand the DRO would update. In Mach4 I am not getting that, hoping that its just a setting somewhere that I overlooked? Anyone have any thoughts? I was using the demo of Mach3 and decided to buy Mach4 so I dont need/want to upgrade as quickly.

So onto finishing the mechanicals. Thanks for the help

Here is the Z axis jogging, I didnt do much of any tuning here just got it running making it easier to work on.
https://youtu.be/NzzJ5Tek6u4

Are you sure about that acceleration? My machine is tuned at 3000mms2 and is much snappier at 10000mm min feed rate. And from servos is still on 50-60% of their ability. Frankly when working at around 16000mm/min it looks really dangerous and leaves you no time for any reaction.

I got my servos from BST too so likely the same, I think the thing with the drive number setting the drive up is that it has no idea what load the motor has - its just a ballpark setting. The downside is the manual is written Chinglish and unless you know exactly what parameter does what, then its all guesswork.

I spent hours and hours tuning, its made harder as you also need to test each tune at multiple speeds, I test at 3, 13,23,33,43 and so on as % of full speed - its easy to tune so that it runs great at say 60-100% but oscillates badly below 50%

In the end i tweaked in the order P - D - I until the following error was as low as possible, then added some kVff if needed.

I'm still not happy with it though but at least the mill is running now. No doubt an expert could tune it in minutes but I don't know any mobile servo experts ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Boyan Silyavski

Are you sure about that acceleration? My machine is tuned at 3000mms2 and is much snappier at 10000mm min feed rate. And from servos is still on 50-60% of their ability. Frankly when working at around 16000mm/min it looks really dangerous and leaves you no time for any reaction.

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No I am not sure, its very possible your machine is snappier I will have to take a look at your video, pretty hard to compare on video I suppose. Anyway, I was just going based on the settings in Mach that I had in at the time, quiet difficult to confirm at what speed its running. Also I was just jogging at a % of max (I am not sure if that % reduces both the feed rate and the acceleration) If both then what the video shows would be slower...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scott Damman

No I am not sure, its very possible your machine is snappier I will have to take a look at your video, pretty hard to compare on video I suppose. Anyway, I was just going based on the settings in Mach that I had in at the time, quiet difficult to confirm at what speed its running. Also I was just jogging at a % of max (I am not sure if that % reduces both the feed rate and the acceleration) If both then what the video shows would be slower...

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I agree, its difficult to guess from video. All I was saying that you have to check that acceleration in Mach3, the plugin you are using and the drives. If either one of the 3 is set differently then its the lowest value active in reality. Though i dont know CSMIO and if you have to set the acceleration in the plugin separately, so yo better check manual.

My motors are only 400w but i assure you when i raise the acceleration snappiness from the servos themselves, its like shooting a bullet. Thats the sound how machine starts and stops. In fact my problems when tuning were related to Undershooting, cause i was not brave enough at first. So problem was it goes to position fast and then you could see how the motors for a millisecond were further positioning it in place. So i thought i am Overshooting. Yes but No. When i raised the servo response this disappeared. So auto tuning did not work i my case. Also it would be better if there is a total gain adjustment which auto adjusts all details, instead of separately adjusting each parameter. Which by the way is well described on many places around the web, but i still fail to comprehend it entirely .

Made a tiny bit of progress last night. Got one of the Y axis limits and also the homing prox installed.

Attachment 19992Attachment 19993Attachment 19994Attachment 19995

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Davek0974

Chinglish and unless you know exactly what parameter does what, then its all guesswork.

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Dave, This is exactly what I was worried about when digging into the servo itself. I think if I get a bit more understanding of servo driver tuning I will have a better chance of understanding the Chinglish... I hope.

Boyan, that is a very good point, I never checked the max acc and decc in the servo drive. Likely that is the limiting factor. I didnt think about it until now but as I increased the acc I didnt notice an increase physically so probably the servo drive is limiting. I will have to take a look tonight.

Quote:

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Which by the way is well described on many places around the web, but i still fail to comprehend it entirely .

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I totally agree, seems like each spot that describes how to tune a servo does it slightly different, making it more confusing for those of us just getting into it... Like Jazz said Black Magic

Thanks for the help!

Let us know how you manage with the PID tuning.

I have done 3 machines with CS Labs and it's been hit and miss with all of them.

The first was my Denford. If the settings are 'weak' the machine is slow and cumbersome. If too aggressive I get PID errors although I have found a happy medium.

In all cases I have tried auto PID tuning (the controller, after tuning the drives themselves) but limited success.

Even the manual indicates its better to do manually in most cases.

For another machine I retrofitted, we managed to get a nice speed / rate on the machine but its small and doesnt carry a lot of weight.

With my Concrete machine (Thor), it will be interesting. The design is fixed gantry, Y moves a table of around 100kg and I am looking at speeds of >10m/min using a Panasonic 1.5 KW Servo and very beefy ballscrews.

The drives have an auto tune feature which tunes all the time. How this works in reality, I dont know. I will have the Y running again this weekend, just need to do some alignment and will see what I can get from the machine.

I have a video of the machine doing slow movements of I think 4000mm/min. I have had one servo run away (my own fault, made a mistake in config) and I can confirm that the table can move a metric fuckton faster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sMb4XmzuXc

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chaz

I have a video of the machine doing slow movements of I think 4000mm/min. I have had one servo run away (my own fault, made a mistake in config) and I can confirm that the table can move a metric fuckton faster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sMb4XmzuXc

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LOL ;) nice unit of measure :)

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Originally Posted by Davek0974

LOL ;) nice unit of measure :)

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Ye, fairly standard UOM.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Davek0974

LOL ;) nice unit of measure :)

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Sorry, I know see what you were referring to (not the mm/min). Yep, very fast indeed.

Made a bit more progress over the weekend,

Got one of the X axis screws mocked up
Attachment 20043
Here I am machining the spring loaded brackets that will act as X ballscrew mid supports. These will support the screw and when the gantry goes by will move out of the way on the pivot. I need to get some shoulder bolts still for these and do a bit more machining for clearance of the ballnut as it passes (to ensure that it cant get hung up on a change of direction).
Attachment 20039
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I also got a air valve block installed on the gantry for all the air that the Z axis needs, also put a terminal block on the gantry in order to reduce the number of wires that needs to make its way back to the control. I ordered some 20 conductor shielded communication cable to go from the control to the gantry terminal block. Gives me a few extra wires incase I need any future expansions or additions.

Im getting excited as its closer and closer to cutting. I am waiting on new toothed pulleys for the Y and X as I made a mistake when ordering, once those are in it will be time for truing and squaring then cutting.

More to come....

Some more progress made, I got the ballnut mount made and installed and also finished one of the ballscrew mid supports. I made a video of one of the ballscrew supports in action, I am just pushing the gantry back and forth. I pushed the gantry from one end to the other as fast as I could and this one support seemed to damp the ballscrew frequency. Im hoping to finish up this side tonight and then do it all over again on the other side.

https://youtu.be/0gP4IUO0QKg

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I need to do some learning on tuning 2 X axis servos at the same time, if anyone has any suggestions im all ears.

Made some good progress on the machine, I am to the point of wanting to run a gcode program, although there is alot to do before I can actually cut.

I loaded a sample Gcode program just to see all 3 axes move together

I moved the machine 12 inches away from X and Y and put my Z in the middle of travel and zeroed the DRO's for work start. When I hit cycle start (with my hand firmly on the e-stop...) I get a message "Move off limits before cycle start". I then checked the I/O window in CSMIO config and no limit switches are tripped. I tried a few other things within mach with no luck. I then turned off all limits (except e-stop) and I get the same message. Did some searching/reading on forums and didnt come across anything.

Anyone have any thoughts on what this could be? I hope its something simple that I just havent turned on/off?

I plan to a write up on the progress, just this issue has me frustrated so thought I would ask.

Thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scott Damman

Made some good progress on the machine, I am to the point of wanting to run a gcode program, although there is alot to do before I can actually cut.

I loaded a sample Gcode program just to see all 3 axes move together

I moved the machine 12 inches away from X and Y and put my Z in the middle of travel and zeroed the DRO's for work start. When I hit cycle start (with my hand firmly on the e-stop...) I get a message "Move off limits before cycle start". I then checked the I/O window in CSMIO config and no limit switches are tripped. I tried a few other things within mach with no luck. I then turned off all limits (except e-stop) and I get the same message. Did some searching/reading on forums and didnt come across anything.

Anyone have any thoughts on what this could be? I hope its something simple that I just havent turned on/off?

I plan to a write up on the progress, just this issue has me frustrated so thought I would ask.

Thanks

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Are you certain they are wired correctly (you should manually trigger them and check that they match the input on the Mach 3 screen).

Also, do you have any soft limits enabled?

Does it Jog Ok.? . . . . If so Post the G-code.

Try doing some MDI Commands. Like G0 x6 y6 (assuming inch units) or G1 x6 y6 f30.
If these work ok then I'd be suspect of the G-code.