It's begun....

[Washout]

Quick update and some questions someone maybe able to help with.

I have thrown an e-chain on for the x axis movement and wired up the 3 steppers with cables going back to my control box (shield connected at the control box end to my earth point and not at the machine end).

I figured I would get the stepper motors working first before moving to the spindle and VFD and to prepare for the first control box power up I have done the following:

- Manually moved the spindle to the centre of x, y and z travel so that if for some reason the machine decides to shoot to the extremes of my travel I have time to hit the estop.
- Loaded Mach3 and connected the PC I'm running that on to the ZP5A-INT controller board/BoB but not in the control box so I can set up the software according to this pdf manual without risk of the machine moving in an undesired fashion: http://www.zappautomation.co.uk/down...d%20manual.pdf

After running through that manual for setup I have loaded the Roadrunner.tap and run the GCode - the LEDs for the axis on the board are flickering nicely in sync with the movement on the Mach3 3D display, which is encouraging.

All good so far, but here comes the questions:

Having wired my steppers and drivers in bi-polar parallel mode (wiring diagram: http://www.zappautomation.co.uk/down...%20%281%29.pdf) I am now stuck with what dip switch settings to use on the drivers (PM752's - http://www.zappautomation.co.uk/down...vers/PM752.pdf) with the following Steppers: SY60STH88-3008B (Data sheet: http://www.zappautomation.co.uk/down...H86-3008BF.pdf)

My first guess is the following in order from SW1 to 8: OFF, ON, OFF, OFF, ON, ON, ON, ON which should translate to Peak Current 4.09A, RMS Current 3.32A, Standstill=Half Current, Microstep=4, Steps/rev=400 - I have no idea if this is correct although one of the manuals mentions setting the Amp rating to the closest for the motor and 4.09 seems to fit that bill.

Any help would be gratefully received before I wire the BoB back in and throw the switch just to see what happens :-)

Oh if it helps I have 1605 ballscrews on all axis.

Cheers


Chris

[Jonathan]

My first guess is the following in order from SW1 to 8: OFF, ON, OFF, OFF, ON, ON, ON, ON which should translate to Peak Current 4.09A, RMS Current 3.32A, Standstill=Half Current, Microstep=4, Steps/rev=400 - I have no idea if this is correct although one of the manuals mentions setting the Amp rating to the closest for the motor and 4.09 seems to fit that bill.

That is correct. Also depending on the feedrate you get and the kernel frequency your computer will support you may be able to use 800 or 1600 step/rev which will help the machine run more smoothly.

[Washout]

Quick update - powered up the control box and nothing has sparked or smoked, which is nice.

The steppers seem to have power to then as they are making a slight humming noise and the ballscrews are now solid (i.e. I can't hand turn them). However, I can't seem to get any movement from the jog control or up and down cursor keys in the motor tuning dialogue. Also I have green LEDs lit on the drivers, which I also consider a good sign.

I've probably missed something silly in Mach3 so will watch some more tutorials and see if anything jumps out at me.