Breakout board to Telemechanique Altivar 18 wiring (Mach3)

[EddyCurrent]

Is this on the Picomax machine ?

[Agathon]

Is this on the Picomax machine ?

Indeed it is.

[EddyCurrent]

This is the manual for the bob, it shows which settings to make in Mach3
https://www.rockcliffmachine.com/wp-...ard-Manual.pdf

The attached picture shows how I would connect the bob to the inverter

1. assuming the bob relay contacts are N/O, use this on inverter LI1
this prevents the inverter giving output until the relay is energised
and LI1 is the default input for FORWARD.

2. You need an external power supply for the bob.
24v from the inverter can only supply 100ma
and is intended for logic I/O only.

3. connect the 0-10v output from the bob to AI1
the AI1 terminal is the default input for this speed
reference signal.

[Agathon]

This is the manual for the bob, it shows which settings to make in Mach3
https://www.rockcliffmachine.com/wp-...ard-Manual.pdf

The attached picture shows how I would connect the bob to the inverter

1. assuming the bob relay contacts are N/O, use this on inverter LI1
this prevents the inverter giving output until the relay is energised
and LI1 is the default input for FORWARD.

2. You need an external power supply for the bob.
24v from the inverter can only supply 100ma
and is intended for logic I/O only.

3. connect the 0-10v output from the bob to AI1
the AI1 terminal is the default input for this speed
reference signal.

That's a really great reply EddyCurrent. Where were you back in December!! I did manage to work out the connections in the end - as you can see from the vid on my build project. I have mine connected between COM and AI2 which is the 0-10v for the Altivar 18. However I don't have LO+ and +24 connected - it works ok but should I have them connected? I have a 12v SMPS (wall-wart) supplying the BOB.

Unfortunately, the BOB relay contacts are NC (doh) so if the computer isn't running the spindle runs when power is connected to the inverter. This seems to be a massive design flaw as there doesn't appear to be a means of altering this. I expect I'll use the spare relay on my 8-module board to turn the spindle on and off via one of the spare outputs on the BOB.

On the PWM/0-10v side of things, my BOB would only produce 9.85v when Mach3 was set to the PWM base frequency of 100hz as per the BOB manual. Consequently I couldn't get the inverter to quite run at my programmed maximum frequency (in my case 100hz) and all other frequency settings were some way out.

I've had a good fiddle about with the settings on Mach3 this afternoon and found that setting PWM to 50hz (see pic) gets maximum frequency from the inverter (I'm surmising that means 10v from the BOB, but have to admit that I've not put a meter across it). I've also gone through pulley settings too and have calibrated the spindle to within 50 or 60rpm - which seems good to me. I note however that ramping down the spindle in Mach3 from 100% in 10% steps that the frequency at the inverter was out by 1-1.5hz. So at 50hz I'm actually getting 49.2 or so, again well withing tolerance as far as I'm concerned.



I'm going to say more about spindle speeds on my build-project thread - http://www.mycncuk.com/threads/11067...version-refurb