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Thread: Tiddy CNC.

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  1. #1
    Quote Originally Posted by Skysurfer View Post
    Cheers, Mike & TonyD, will take a look. I'm still playing with my Zen 7x7
    Pete
    I wish I had 7" to play with! G.

  2. #2
    Current Status:
    I'm nearly there as far as the initial build goes. I've tested the safety circuit & limits now but not powered on the drives and motors lately, although they were spinning many months ago. Learning a lot along the way, lots to try differently in version 2.0, more on that when its working. Right now am waiting for a PC from Ebay that I can dedicate to running the machine so should be able to run the smooth stepper and BOB up fully in a week or so and once the Home switches work I can start to join all the dots together and get some movement. Enjoy the photos (When I see a way to enter them).

  3. #3
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  4. #4
    A nice neat looking unit Tony. This site really does seem to have members that do some lovely work. Well done. G.

  5. #5
    Hello.

    This is with reference my build http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/gantry...tiddy-cnc.html

    I have slowly configured the components and tested at each step along the way. I have the e/stop circuitry killing the main PSU's (Thanks AudioAndy and Dean), the smoothstepper and BOB working, home switches trigger the Mach3 Diagnostics page and all of the AM882's have driven thier motors. So far so good..

    This morning as I was jogging the machine around (thankfully slowly) I noticed it start to rack on the X Axis, only a little, maybe 2-4mm then I killed the power & released the mechanical stress by uncoupling one of the X Axis connecting plate and looked closer.

    I couldnt reproduce the fault until a few mins ago when I noticed that one of the 882's went into an error state and stopped the motor with 4 blinks which per the manual is 'phase error protection' (short/break).

    So my plan is to replace the cabling between the 882 and the control box socket, I'm going to pay particular attention to the soldering and shrink wrap on the connector. The reason I suspect this the most is that I noticed that as I opened the door of the electrical cabinet a little wider the X Axis motor in question made a little noise like a non continous jog so I assumed the mechanical action of the wires moving are causing the short/break within the cabinet.

    My question really is, if this is intermittent how will I know when I've fixed it and what am I missing? oh.. and yes I'm now a fan of Wobblycogs alarm circuit and will look to impliment that sharpish! Thanks for any advice. Tony.

  6. #6
    m_c's Avatar
    Lives in East Lothian, United Kingdom. Last Activity: 6 Hours Ago Forum Superstar, has done so much to help others, they deserve a medal. Has a total post count of 2,969. Received thanks 368 times, giving thanks to others 9 times.
    Intermittent faults are a pain. Being a vehicle master tech, I've spent weeks (and occasionally several recovery trucks ) trying to find some faults.
    Only way to know for sure is to try it.

    Personally, I wouldn't solder wiring. Solder and wiring that moves/vibrates has a high risk of breaking causing intermittent problems. Connectiosn should ideally be crimp, or screw with suitable support to avoid movement at the join.
    Avoiding the rubbish customer service from AluminiumWarehouse since July '13.

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  8. #7
    Maybe this is worth reading too ? it#s AM882's and SmoothStepper http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/gantry...html#post56967
    although I didn't get an alarm on the AM882 so your problem is likely something different.
    Last edited by EddyCurrent; 18-04-2014 at 07:55 PM.
    Spelling mistakes are not intentional, I only seem to see them some time after I've posted

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  10. #8
    Thanks folks. I checked the wiring earlier and found a couple of loose terminal connections to the drivers, cant say for sure but one of them was quite suspect. In addition the driver alarm circuit is in and tested, I was quite motivated to put that in! :)

  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by TonyD View Post
    I couldnt reproduce the fault until a few mins ago when I noticed that one of the 882's went into an error state and stopped the motor with 4 blinks which per the manual is 'phase error protection' (short/break).
    Now arent you pleased you bought good quality drives because lesser drives would have let out the magic smoke when a phase wire falls out of bounces.!!

    Now the missed steps concern me because while a loose connection could cause loss of position it wouldn't loose 2-4mm just jogging around, which by the way isn't a small amount when your talking several hundred MS steps per mm.

    I would check that the SS frequency is same for Each Axis and it's not set to some silly high setting. 128Khz is more than enough.

    Also do you have a Cable to connect to AM882 drives and use the protune software.? If not then get one for the sake of £2 worth every penny.
    Check that each drive is set exactly the same with regards microstepping and Amp's. Protune as a Quirk in that it will some times default the Amp settings back to default which is around 2A, so check it hasn't done this on one of the drives.

    Makes sure the Motor tuning and steps Per in Mach is exactly the same for both slaved Axis. Don't set high feed or Acceleration until your sure machines mechanicly fine and no binding Etc. Even then be careful not to go daft with Accel which is the biggest cause of lost steps.
    What are your Motor tuning settings now.?

  12. #10
    Hello Dean. That would have been all I needed to see smoke! Its great building the thing but setting it up is nerve racking (no pun intended) :) I watched the youtube videos on Mach3 homing *a lot* before I finally hit the button, thankfully Z and Y homes nicely. X groaned too much so I stopped to investigate.

    I do have the RS232 cable, tired 3 pc's before I could get comms to the drives but I did get there, havent run the protune software yet, will add that to the list for tomorrow. I'm assuming that the racking was becuase one motor was running, the other wasnt.

    Currently, kernel speed (from ports and pins screen) is 35KHz, Motor Slaving & pins appears fine. 3 home switches fine, estop circuits pilz etc fine. I cant see where to check the SS frequency, in the plug in control screen I just get mach3 buffer time, 1000ms, PLCM buffer 500, accell overshoot 20%, plcm feedrate for DRO 1075.

    I'm using ballscrews with 5mm pitch. For X,Y,B motor settings are 320 steps, velocity 4000, acceleration 1000, step pulse 5, dir pulse 5
    For z its 320,3000,300,5,5.

    I'll definately run protune tomorrow, thanks for the advice. Before the gantry was bolted to the ballscrews it run quite well, there's a lot of mass there so it wasnt really easy to push but could move it about easy enough. That leads me to conclude that the linear rails are perpendicular. Now its bolted to the ball screws when I release the left hand side binding the right motors is really more stiff to rotate with no power to the drives than the left, so I'm looking at the bearing mounting for the ball screw on the left side of the machine, I may be able to shim it a little, I'll take more detailed measurements tomorrow and see if I can determine what the resistance/binding is... All advice, as always, appreciated :) thanks.

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