Tiddy CNC.

[TonyD]

I will try to consolidate these issues under my build log later but a seperate post allows me to appeal to those who know and love ProTune directly.

So for reference I have an EPLC3 SS and ZP5A-INT Zapp BOB and 4 AM882 drives. Following on from my adventures in racking yesterday I'm trying to tune the motors with ProTune and... it really is trying.

I have 'the cable' (DB9 to Rj12), also a USB to RS232 cable with seperate driver (CH41?) and so far 4 different PC's trying to get stable comms to the 882.
I ditched the USB to RS232 lead completely and cut off the DB9 connector from 'the cable' checking in the pinouts from RJ12 connector (using the data sheet from the Leadshine site) so as to re attach it from new, I didnt find any misaligned pins in the DB9. I've used 4 PC's to connect and generally I'm not getting anywhere.

I went to the Leadshine site and downloaded the correct version of the AM882 Protune (according to them) and found it didnt play nice with my legacy XP (up to date as of the April cut-off) and found myself re registering several ocx components at which point I thought, enough, ask for directions!

For what its worth I do get a read from the drives so I know that serial comms are working but every time I try something interesting in ProTune it says in effect comms dropped. I've tried all the dip switches on the 882 to off, and not (although not all on), the 882 is powered up and motor is connected to it, the BOB is not.

I'll send real chocolate Egg to whoever can help me out here. This is driving me nuts. Thanks. Tony.

[Clive S]

Tony. I have not used Protune as yet but have you set the com port up on the PC with the correct baud rate, stopbits and type of handshaking ie xon/xoff etc. Just a thought, I am not sure the usb to rs232 don't always work ..Clive

[m_c]

I've got no expereince of digital stepper drivers, but I've never had any issues with USB adapters setting up other drives. Could it be something like the USB/RS232 interface you're using not implementing the full RS232 standard?

Not all USB adapters connect or implement things like the DTR/DSR/RTS/CTS lines, which could be the problem.
I normally use FTDI based adapters, and any I've had implement the full pin set, however some do exist that don't.

[TonyD]

Well, I've spent hours rebuilding PC(s) to Windows 7, finding pinouts on the web (leadshine's site) and I'm still no better off. Added to which is the frustration that I feel that whenever I'm able to some quality time on the machine its a public holiday weekend and I cant just drive to a supplier to buy a new cable.

If anyone has used ProTune on a PC can I please confirm the following settings with them.

RJ12 to DB9 Cable (the oh so special one!)

RJ12 Pin # Cable Colour DB9 Pin
1 White none
2 Black none
3 Red 2
4 Green 5
5 Yellow 3
6 Blue none

PC Settings: Windows [7 fully patched. No 3rd party firewall.]

Control Panel>System>Device Manager>Ports>COM1>Properties

Bits per Second: 9600, Data Bits:8, Parity: None, Stop Bits: 1, Flow Control: None
>Advanced> Use FIFO buffers: Checked, Receive and Transmit Buffer: 1

Please let me know what you have used that has worked. Thanks.

[m_c]

Hmmm...only 3 wires would indicate it's only using RX/TX and GND.
What USB adapter are you using?


When I had a quick scan of the AM882 manual earlier, it said use a baudrate of 38400.
However whatever software is using the COM port should configure the port itself, ignoring any windows settings.

[EddyCurrent]

Tony,

http://www.leadshine.com/Download.aspx?Type=software

This is my cable, it's a USB to serial converter then a short length of cable cut from an old phone with the correct plug already fitted.
I used default settings for everything else.

Pinout details for cable http://www.leadshine.com/UploadFile/...munication.pdf





If you plug it all in then on your PC go to, Settings - System - Device Manager, you will see if it's connected and which COM port number it has. In my case it's showing the USB to serial converter on COM10


As you can see I get an error when trying to read from the drive, this has always been the case with my system ( Windows XP ) and I've never followed it up, but I might now.


To be honest I would just as soon use the DIP switch 4 method as described in the manual , where you quickly switch it twice and the drive will set itself up.

[JAZZCNC]

To be honest I would just as soon use the DIP switch 4 method as described in the manual , where you quickly switch it twice and the drive will set itself up.

Nah it's too hit n miss and you never know if you've done it fast enough, software is 100%. Also you can set the amp's for the motors exactly.

For what its worth I do get a read from the drives so I know that serial comms are working but every time I try something interesting in ProTune it says in effect comms dropped.

When you say try something interesting expalin what exactly your doing and what's happening.?

The fact your reading the drive means it's working. There is a quirk in protune Like eddy showed where trying to read or write to memory doesn't work, I'm not exactly usre which it is and I'm not at my setup laptop to check Protune but it gives a COM error.? . . . .I think if you click Write to Ram you get COM error but write to EEprom you don't.?

[EddyCurrent]

Nah it's too hit n miss and you never know if you've done it fast enough, software is 100%. Also you can set the amp's for the motors exactly.

Every time I use the 'switch 4 method' I can hear the stepper motor 'singing' while it goes through the routine.

I think if you click Write to Ram you get COM error but write to EEprom you don't.?

I always get a pop up message telling me to do a 'Read' before I can do a 'Write'

[JAZZCNC]

Every time I use the 'switch 4 method' I can hear the stepper motor 'singing' while it goes through the routine.

Yes maybe does energise stepper but doesn't mean it's tuned correctly and still it doesn't set the Amps. Software is much better and takes any doubt away.
Also with a little tweaking you can get motors running much smoother than the autotune does.

I always get a pop up message telling me to do a 'Read' before I can do a 'Write'

Well yes suppose that makes sense really because you would want to read the drive for it's current settings before changing them.
It's been a few weeks since I've used Protune as I've been using EM806 drives lately which have supaceeded the AM882 and the software is differant so can't remember if my Protune does this or not.

[firetrappe]

Eddy, I've been playing with Protune on my XP machine today. I kept getting the error that you show. After a bit of research it turns out that it is due to the file stored in RAM on the drive being generated in a different language (probably from a Chinese machine).

If you go to Control Panel - Regional and Language Options then click the Languages tab and tick 'Install files for East Asian Languages', once it is applied you won't get the error message anymore.

Si.