AndyUK's Build - 1.2x1.0m Gantry

Heya All,

Promised an update, so here we go!

Wiring is in progress in the living room - oh my life there are a lot of wires on these things. Trying to keep it as neat as possible, but certainly not an easy task. Slightly concerned about how close the UC300eth is to the VFD; but it leaves room for a mini ITX sized PC in the future if I want to move in that direction, or a fifth motor driver for a forth axis.

Attachment 26641

I've also been designing my gland plate - the plan is to have it detachable from the inside (as well as the outside) so the plate can be taken out with the entire electronics panel for reworking in the future if required. To do that, my plan is to put a stainless steel plate on top of the current gland plate. Apparently I took the layout photo the opposite way around though!

Attachment 26642

Attachment 26643

In other news, my X Axis ballscrews are on and connected - the aluminium stand-offs for the ballscrew mounts are temporary, but they are the correct thickness. There's a certain aspect of 'I'll make that better later once its working' going on here... ;)

Attachment 26644

Attachment 26645

I've also ordered an aluminium block to try out water-cooling those motors inside the frame. Hopefully it should fit right in, and do the job nicely - but we shall see. My next job on the mechanicals is to make the X axis motor mounts, but that needs another day on the old bridgeport.

I can see why everyone posts a video when they get their E-Stop circuits working for the first time :) Its quite a nice amount of clicking and clunking going on.

Until you decide to leave the panel running for five minutes with the motor driver supplies latched in.

And then you smell smoke.

And realise that the 24V contactor you purchased has the confusing symbols "50/60Hz" following the 24V designation...

Oh well. Off to find myself a new 24VDC contactor... ;)

That video may have to wait - although I can attest to the fact that if the contactor short circuits, the PILZ will cut the power to it pretty sharpish.

Hi Andy
If it makes you feel any better I did exactly the same thing,
Whoops..

Haha it does! Thankyou :)

In all seriousness, hopefully by sharing the woopsie moments I can prevent someone else doing the same in the future. This is my first time purchasing and specing out these types of components, and on the rapid electronics page and datasheet there is only a single line which alludes to the fact it's an AC coil; "for AC switching" which I took as "for switching AC loads" - I've never seen 24VAC used for control circuitry before, but clearly it's the default.

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Originally Posted by AndyUK

Haha it does! Thankyou :)

In all seriousness, hopefully by sharing the woopsie moments I can prevent someone else doing the same in the future. This is my first time purchasing and specing out these types of components, and on the rapid electronics page and datasheet there is only a single line which alludes to the fact it's an AC coil; "for AC switching" which I took as "for switching AC loads" - I've never seen 24VAC used for control circuitry before, but clearly it's the default.

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+1 I did the exact same thing on my build too!! [emoji85]

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by AndyUK

I've never seen 24VAC used for control circuitry before, but clearly it's the default.

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Andy, you're showing your age (or lack of it:tennis:) 24v AC dates back to when control systems were relay based (eg the 1960's Marconi BD272 250kW radio transmitter). AC is better for 'wetting' relay contacts and obviously does away with the expense of a rectifier and smoothing.

Kit (aka Old Fart)

Haha - well, I'm glad I'm not the only one. It has prevented me smoking my other relays, which were also 24VAC... and I've managed to find a replacement 24VDC contactor at work which was for a machine we removed a long time ago and otherwise going to waste.

I was born before the Berlin wall fell, but not by much - so I'll have to take your word on the 60s! :)

Now that the contactor is working as expected I can share my E-Stop circuit video as promised! I appreciate its the same as everyone elses, but hey, its a progress milestone. I also couldn't resist playing with the LED switches - the Red is E-Stop reset, the Green is the motor drive power latch, and the Blue are auxiliary switches for water pump/air solenoid. There will also be a yellow momentary limit OVR, but I haven't gotten around to installing that one yet. The plan is to have a control panel on the front of the machine rather than at the electronics box - so at the moment everything is wired up to these terminals at the top of the plate, and then I'll take them to the panel with a couple of 7-core CY cables.

https://youtu.be/3QmBGxghq9s

I've also got the signals for the motor drivers wired in, and I've connected up the Z axis motor just to test the communication with UCCNC, so theres a video of that in the mix as well - enjoy! You'll see the Y and X drivers instantly fault out - the UC300 is reading those fault signals, however they're currently configured the wrong way around (I'm waiting for my RJ11 crimper to reprogram the drivers). The fault signal wiring has changed somewhat from my last published schematic; my plan is to use the OSSD on the UB1 to enable or disable the drives, so that a fault signal on one drive causes all of them to stop - but again I need to program the drives to listen to the enable line.

https://youtu.be/U-uzLlwuTG4

The proximity switch has also been tested, although my trial one was an NC 2mm NPN - 2mm is a bit small, so I'm planning to try a 4mm next. I'll probably use proximity switches for both limits and homing, but thats still up for debate.

Looking good. It's nice when things start to move.
I've just finished mine. Just running a few codes through it not cutting anything to see if it gets any false stops.
It doesn't look like you will be long before it starts moving it's self.


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Originally Posted by AndyUK

I was born before the Berlin wall fell, but not by much - so I'll have to take your word on the 60s! :)

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I was born before the Berlin wall was built, but not by much, so whilst I saw the 60's I didn't learn about their control systems until the 80's.

Nice work on the controller. Yours is much neater than mine!

Kit

Andy have you post a wiring somewhere for your control box?