Giant 20' x 3' x 2' router build

I have changed to a 2:1 gear ratio and made sure it is all running smooth however I still seam to be getting the problem. I am just trying the job at 50% feed rate to see if that stops it. We are wondering if it happening when there is a fast change in direction and feed rate because of the heavy z axis. We think it is sways happening during a similar movement but not at the same point in time through out the job. Wondering if possibly we need to put a gas strut on the z or go up further on the gearing at the moment I have a 20t and a 40t

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Originally Posted by charlieuk

then second is there a way to hock up a signal to go to e stop if this happens for any other reason. ( I have yet to look into this)

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This is how I did it for the similar (I think) AM882; http://www.mycncuk.com/threads/6565-...7622#post57622

Contacts of the K2 relay would go in series with your emergency stop buttons

just to add to thins the weight of the z axis is aprox 14kg and its on a 1605 screw and a 3nm nema 23. I ran it at 50% and it actually cut out sooner. I have got another set of pulleys coming which will give a 3.8:1 ratio so hoping that may help and in the mean time Im going to try taking of the spindle to reduce the weight and see what that does.

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Originally Posted by charlieuk

just to add to thins the weight of the z axis is aprox 14kg and its on a 1605 screw and a 3nm nema 23. I ran it at 50% and it actually cut out sooner. I have got another set of pulleys coming which will give a 3.8:1 ratio so hoping that may help and in the mean time Im going to try taking of the spindle to reduce the weight and see what that does.

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Charlie from what you told me regards velocity and Acc settings being so low and with 2:1 ratio then it should handle the weight without stalling or missing steps.
When my machine was vertical the gantry was much heavier than 14Kg and a single 6Nm nema34 which turned twin 5mm pitch screws via belts that where geared 1:2 to give speed so actually lowering torque by aprox half easily moved gantry. This means you actually have more torque than I do.!

If your absolutly sure there's no sticktion on the linear motion side then Things to check First is if the motor is wired correctly and performing properly.? Have you wired it in parallel or series.?

With 3.8:1 ratio you will be quite low on speed and Acc you'll reach which for 3D work you may want.? So I would try to find the cause.
Counter balance/Strut arrangement can't hurt if you have room to fit so I'd do this any way just to help take the the strain.

I'm prity sure all is sliding ok. The z axis would fall nearly the hole way under its own weight with the belt removed from the stepper and with the spindle removed it was still triggering. I have since got the screw a hair better by shiming it .10. We did adjust the speeds this morning with the gearing but we have backed the acceleration back again and running another test now

I forgot to say the steppers are in parallel

Ok so the final test we did this eve was to swap the drivers over for the y and z which are the same and also slowed the acceleration down further to 150 and this managed to run through the hole cut without stoping so tomorrow we will switch the drives back and keep the acceleration the same and see if that is still ok. What we did notice though is that the steppersare getting quite hot (45-50 deg) Im not sure if it is directly linked to the problem as it happened on the first test of the day but it spears that they need to be set to run cooler? Is it because they are set in parallel and not running very fast? Although I have a lot of travel the y and z only travel very small amounts at a time when cutting a board.

That's not hot for steppers so don't worry too much about it. Esp if they are moving slow rather than stood still as they will be using full torque to hold position
and not going into current saving mode.

Are you sure the drives are set correctly regards Amps and motor setting.?
What number or letter is the dial set to on the drives.?
Have you tuned the drives using protune or just using the dip switches.? If not try to use protune and make sure the amps are set correct for the motors. Wrong amps setting would cause this problem and the drives default to a low setting if I remember correctly. If you have the wheel set wrong on the drive it will think it's using differant motors and can default to low amps setting and wrong PID tuning in the drive.
Do the motors make any whistling or loud buzzing sounds.?

150 on acc is far too slow for any z axis and you should be able to go much higher without any trouble. So this must be either your set wrong in the drives or there's binding at some point.!

Ok that's good to know regarding temp, I will look at the settings tomorrow but we have them just set on the closest setting on the switches at the moment as I didn't really understand the pro tune. I will try and down load it again in to the new computer and see if it makes any more sense now I know a little more. The motors are quiet and don't seam un happy. I will be back with more info in the morning many thanks for the help

These are the settings I have for the z. I am struggling to load a driver for the USB to 232 cable for windows 8 that I got from zapp. The cd it came with says windows 8 but it's all in Chinese. We have just swapped the drivers back and re running the file to see if the problem comes back

We have been running tests all day. We have a ratio of 2.5:1 now. We have been playing with switching between the two drives. We just ran a test with the y and z swaped and without the spindle mounted up and it ran ok however we then ran the same test with the spindle mounted and it tripped the same driver however that driver is on the y axis so looks like it may bea setting in the driver? With a posable link to something else?

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Originally Posted by charlieuk

These are the settings I have for the z. I am struggling to load a driver for the USB to 232 cable for windows 8 that I got from zapp. The cd it came with says windows 8 but it's all in Chinese. We have just swapped the drivers back and re running the file to see if the problem comes back

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Charlie your all cocked up on the settings both on the drives and in Mach3.
You have the amps set wrong on drives because your using RMS settings not peak so they are getting too many amps. This will make them get hotter than should also you have the stand by current set to off so they will get hot when stood still.
So set up Dip switches like this and then try.
1=OFF 2=OFF 3=ON This will give 4.6A which is slightly higher than motors are rated and normally I'd say use next lowest but in your case it won't hurt for now. Thou I would set it correctly in protune at first chance.
4= ON
5 /6/7 Leave as set for now thou I would normally use higher than 400 micro steps for smoother motor movement. But you have the steps per set wrong in Mach3 which i'll come to next.
8=ON

With Mach you need the steps per setting to 200. This is because you have applied a ratio and now your affective pitch as gone from 5mm to 2mm per Rev.
So 400 / 2= 200 steps per millimeter.

Try these new settings and see how goes.

Dean I notice the arrow on the drive is pointing to the letter C is that correct? .. Clive

hi dean

sorry the picture I posted was when I still had it with the 2:1 ratio it is now set at 199.98 or something around that for the 2.5:1 ratio (this we done through the calibration function in setting on mach)

from my reading of the leadshine manual on page 14 from what we can tell it is saying switch 4 should be off for reducing the idel current?

since we re auto tuned the motor it has not yet stopped again but will adjust these setting once clear on them.

best regards

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Originally Posted by Clive S

Dean I notice the arrow on the drive is pointing to the letter C is that correct? .. Clive

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Yes it's the first custom motor setting. slightly differant to AM882 clive.

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Originally Posted by charlieuk

from my reading of the leadshine manual on page 14 from what we can tell it is saying switch 4 should be off for reducing the idel current?

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Not in my manual see pic.!
Attachment 14202

If you change the Amp setting which you really should then you'll need to re-tune the drive. Always re-tune with any changes made.

this is what we have been going by and what I got from there website. page 14

http://www.leadshine.com/UploadFile/Down/EMhm_P.pdf

Try this one.

hmm that's interesting that it seams to suggest the opposite very odd! will try switching the settings according to that!
Many thanks

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Originally Posted by charlieuk

hmm that's interesting that it seams to suggest the opposite very odd! will try switching the settings according to that!
Many thanks

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This is correct and it does work 100% tried tested many many times. .:loyal:

Great thes good news! Many thanks indeed I will change switch 123and 4 then re auto tune. I'm still trying to down load a driver (see other thread) and when I figure that I will ajust the Amps

Now I'm slowly starting to understand it a little more I'm Just wondering if I can improve the x axis as well with the kinco drive as we have noticed it is a bit notchy at the slower speed at ether end of the cuts so just wondering what I should have the micro steps set at for that? It is running a 4:1 ratio (yet to sort out the 6:1 box) I will take a look at what the other seting we have it set at tomorrow. Realy apresiate your patience!

So continuing with the above post the x axis is set switch 1 to zero which is only 2micro steps and switch 2 to three which I think is right which is the 6a peak setting for the 8nm nema 34 and like I say at slow movements at ether end of the boards I'm cutting is quite lumpy and at full speed it still looks like it is hardly working. Can I up the micro steps on the x and possibly the y and z too? How do you determine what they need to be at?

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Originally Posted by charlieuk

Now I'm slowly starting to understand it a little more I'm Just wondering if I can improve the x axis as well with the kinco drive as we have noticed it is a bit notchy at the slower speed at ether end of the cuts so just wondering what I should have the micro steps set at for that? It is running a 4:1 ratio (yet to sort out the 6:1 box) I will take a look at what the other seting we have it set at tomorrow. Realy apresiate your patience!

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Charlie setting the micro steps higher makes the motors run smoother, thou at a very slight expense of some torque but it really is nothing worth bothering about and the trade off is well worth it.
Problem with high micro steps is that you need much higher number of pulses(frequency or Kernal speed in Mach3) to get the same speed or move the same distance. Normally with the parallel port this becomes a problem because it's too much strain on it with higher MS and can't cope so you get missed steps etc.

You how ever listened to uncle Jazz and bought Motion control card and a very good one to boot. So you can crank up the MS and not worry to much.
So set the MS to at least 1600 (sw3 or 8 micro steps) or 3200(sw5) wouldn't hurt (thou 1600 is good enough.) and listen to the difference and you'll also see it when going very slow.

Edit: With the Csmio-IP-M card the Kernal speed in mach is ignored so leave it set at 25Khz.

Great many thanks uncle jazz haha I have now changed the ms and it sounds way better . Back to the em806 drives and we have just measures the idle current and it seams switch 4 half current needs to be set to off it went from 1v to 1/2 at standstill this also matches what it says on the side of the drive.

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Originally Posted by charlieuk

Great many thanks uncle jazz haha I have now changed the ms and it sounds way better . Back to the em806 drives and we have just measures the idle current and it seams switch 4 half current needs to be set to off it went from 1v to 1/2 at standstill this also matches what it says on the side of the drive.

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Erm interesting those markings are different to last few sets I've used. I've got some drives in stock waiting to fit to a machine and just checked and they are same as those you have so looks like they have changed.? Colour is slightly different as well, much paler colour.!

well glad I could help you out with that :friendly_wink: all seams to be running smother now especially on the x. it has just cut out right towards the end of the test but I had upped the speeds a bit so will try backing them off again.

I finally got the driver installed on the pc to use pro tune so I can now set things up a bit better hopefully. I have to set the switches to on so guess I will have to re set the amps micro steps and idle current in there and then do the manual calibration? there seams to be quite a lot of other stuff that you can set that I don't have a clue about, is it anything I need to worry about? any tips ?

many thank

Yes set everyhting up in System Config screen first but then you tune the drives thru software using the current loop tuning screen.
In here you can play with the settings or just use Auto which is same as flicking dip switch 4.
99% of time auto works fine so I'd just use that.

In the System Config screen don't worry about the sliders etc they are for tuning resonance and unless you have any problems the default settings will work fine.
The main settings your interested in are at the top. Peak Cur(A) and micro steps. The others you can leave at defaults.
One other setting you may need to change when your setting up the Fault signal to activate the E-stop is the Alarm Signal Low - High option. This will depend on how you do it but often you have to toggle this so it activates when state goes High.

Dip switch 4 is a good option as jazz says, I use it mainly because it's a pain trying to plug into the drivers, if only they'd put that socket on the front :sorrow:

I think some how I had done something wrong the first time around trying to set it up so tried again. setting the micro step to 1600 and the amps to 4.2 and doing the auto tune.

am I right in thinking if I have a 2.5:1 and 1600 ms the steps per should be at 640?

oops ok realized I have gone wrong again im getting my steps per rev and micro steps mixed up. can any one clarify the difference?

Steps per is how many steps required to move 1 unit. So if your working in MM then how many steps to move 1mm.

Micro steps is how many micro steps to turn 1 revolution of the screw.

So the calcution for STEPS PER MM is first Divide screw pitch by ratio then divide Micro steps by calculated Pitch. IE 5 / 2.5=2 so 1600/2=800 Steps per MM

ok so is the 1600 we were setting using the switches witch on the side of the driver refers to as step/rev is the same as in pro tune when you set the micro step?

many thanks

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Originally Posted by charlieuk

ok so is the 1600 we were setting using the switches witch on the side of the driver refers to as step/rev is the same as in pro tune when you set the micro step?

many thanks

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Ok I think I see your confussion Charlie.? There's 2 ways to describe the same thing.!
Some will say 4X 8X 16X etc which is technicly more accurate and this relates to the amount of degree's the stepper motor gives per revolution multiplied by the number.
Other way just assumes typical 200 steps per rev and gives total micro steps per rev.

IE typical stepper uses 1.8 degree or 360/1.8=200 steps per revolution. So 4 x 200 = 800 micro steps per revolution
If you used 1.2 degree steppers then it would be 360/1.2=300 so 4 x 300=1200 MicroSteps Per Rev

The Drives show typical 200 steps per rev on the front but the protune uses the more correct multiplication factor. so if you want 1600 micro steps you'd use 8 in protune.

I Yes much confusion but it makes sence now, was wondering why when I put 1600 in pro tune it went rather slow! Super smooth though lol many thanks

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Originally Posted by charlieuk

I Yes much confusion but it makes sence now, was wondering why when I put 1600 in pro tune it went rather slow! Super smooth though lol many thanks

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Yes 320,000 micro steps per revolution does tend to have that affect . . LOL

Hi all hope every one is doing well, its been a while since I have been on here mainly due to the fact the cnc has made me super busy with what I made it for ( cutting stand up paddle boards)

Any way last week I made my biggest mistake and killed my super expensive router bit by hitting something and bending it a fraction, I nearly cried!

I have a new bit now although of a different type and this one requires spinning the opposite direction. Tbh I have kinda forgotten a lot about how I built it and set it up but just wondering if any one could prompt me with the best way I would go about changing from ccw to cw rotation on the china 2.2kw spindle/vfd.



any for those that are interested this is what I have been cutting the last year.

Many thanks

Attachment 17255

If you don't want to change any software or vfd settings then just swapping any two of the three wires over going to the spindle will reverse it.

Charlie do you control on/off thru software.? If so then just swap wire going to "For" to "Rev".

Or if you want both forward and reverse options then setup another wire coming from Spindle control relay to the "Rev" and use M4 in your G-code.