Hacking a Roland CAMM3 PNC-3000

**Robin Hewitt** · 18-02-2011

It's been driving me spotty, but I think I am now convinced that it's the X,Y,Z position display that is wrong not the steppers. Time to give up on the displays and do some CNC type moving.

With my harum-scarum step sequence the counter stays 100% in synch with the steppers.

With my everyone moves together routine the displays are out one count per shift.

Makes not a lick of sense to me.

Pic is the encoder output. When you turn the dial one click you get a 1.25mS pulse. If direction changes you see the direction line (yellow) go 1.25mS before the pulse. This is surprisingly convenient when you are sampling at 1KHz to get 5mm/s at 200steps/mm. The motor will happily slam in to reverse at 5mm/s. Another clue that their 500Hz double step was a ghastly bodge to overcome a problem with the display :naughty:

**Robin Hewitt** · 20-02-2011

New motor and ER-16 chuck fitted. Used cheap bearings which are running noisy and a tadge warm, I'll give them a few hours and if they don't settle down and start behaving I'll have to shell out for something more up-market :whistling:

**cooliced** · 21-02-2011

I love this machine, just wish it was a little bigger. looks sturdy tho, what materials you gonna be cutting on it?

**Robin Hewitt** · 22-02-2011

Originally Posted by cooliced

I love this machine, just wish it was a little bigger. looks sturdy tho, what materials you gonna be cutting on it?

Aluminiglum

so it has to sprout splashguards and suds before I can try it out.

MSC/J&L are having a 35% off catalogue sale and I think I just bought 3-4-5 & 6mm super precision ER16 collets for £12.51 a pop plus tax. Apparently, as I just gleaned, ER16 collet precision is measured at a hypothetical tool tip 10mm in front of the collet. Standard ebay precision, DIN 6499, is .013mm (half a thou) but this ETM bunch do standard precision at .010mm and super precision at .005mm.

In the old days before resistors were laser trimmed, if you bought a 10k 5% then you knew it would never be exactly 10k because that would have dropped in the 1% tray on test.

Wonder if collets are the same :naughty:

**Robin Hewitt** · 16-03-2011

Lengthy pause while I took a crash course in C#/XAML programming so I could do the Roland controller.

So far I have read in a G code, smashed the arcs into a zillion straight lines so that the .005mm resolution is never compromised, saved it as 32bit relative and read it back to the screen to see if it looks right. Screen shot in the pic is Windows 7.

Next, talking to it... :naughty:

Robin

**Robin Hewitt** · 24-03-2011

Well it now seems to be cutting. I really like this WIndows programming malarky paticularly the practically unlimited memory. I'm going to have to change my Warco over to Windows next, I can see it coming, I could do wonderful things if I wasn't struggling not to timeout on a 4MHz Z80.

With a 1024 line buffer in the Roland I am immune to the odd Windows delay, I can shrink it down and do other stuff while it's cutting.

I added a little picture of a Roland drawn in 3 parts so I can move the bed and head around to reflect the actual machine positions. Windows sorts it all out, no flicker at all, it is strangely fascinating to watch.

Next the tool position cursors, I think perhaps a pointy tool image in ISO mode rather than recreating the actual tool. Make it easy to see exactly where it is on the tool path. In plan view something akin to a Moire point perhaps.

best

Robin

**Jadecad777** · 04-08-2017

Originally Posted by Robin Hewitt

New motor and ER-16 chuck fitted. Used cheap bearings which are running noisy and a tadge warm, I'll give them a few hours and if they don't settle down and start behaving I'll have to shell out for something more up-market :whistling:

Hi Robin Hewitt - Can you please tell me the actual manufactures part numbers for the DC Motor and the ER16 spindle you placed in your Roland CAMM3 PNC-3000. Additionally, can you please provide me both pulley part numbers along with the belt you used.