Warco Major CNC build log

[Robin Hewitt]

I added the belt covers on the X, Y and Z motors.

The factory fitted screws holding the z axis motor together stopped 3mm short of the base. Not much but enough to hold a flexi conduit fixing so I could tidy the wiring up.

If I'm doing pretties I must be nearly there. The ultimate aim is to cut injection tooling, so thought I'd try the fast spindle and instantly found I needed yet another belt cover :heehee:

I cut a 3mm slot 0.5mm deep across a piece of aluminium at 6100rpm. A fairly good mirror finish resulted except the centre of the cut where the tool proved a mere approximation to centre cutting

Extreme close up of the cut below. I measured the width at 3.00 to 3.01mm so runout is around 5um, not bad considering the ER11 collet was only finger tight.

Next the electronics...

I currrently run DOS because it leaves the PC timer interrupt free which is nice. OTOH, new computers do better graphics, are much faster and prettier, even if serial and paralel ports have now both been consigned to the dustbin of history.

Obviously I need a processor on t' mill end of the wire. I am opting for a Freescale 8 bit micro running C. It comes in a dinky little 48MHz, 64 pin, square package with buckets of I/O pins, 32k of flash, 2k of RAM, timers, serial port for the phase converter and a full speed USB 2 connection for the PC link. (Real reason for this choice is that our tech bod is looking at it for another product so we already have all the dev kit, programmer and free samples) :naughty:

[Robin Hewitt]

I do like making things difficult for myself, but when it comes to the firmware I become a control freak. If it doesn't do what I want it to do then I want to reprogram it down the USB rather than fudge it. Nothing quite so reassuring as having all the source code :whistling:

Stepper drivers, phase controller and pendant connect with RJ45 patch cords to keep everything neat and tidy, lots of buttons and well buffered I/O for everything I could think of.

The limit switch and tool touch inputs are designed so I can short them to ground via an LED and get a visual check at the far end of the wire. Three FET's to drive the suds pump, quill lock and something I haven't thought of yet. A socket for one of Gary's jog encoder do-berries, a main motor kill switch to keep me safe while setting up, fuses on board and an input to tell me if 12V goes away. If the 5 volt fuse goes then it's goodnight Vienna so no way to monitor that.

[Robin Hewitt]

There's my Christmas entertainment arrived in the nick of time, not bad for 35 Euro's

I've only found one blooper so far, a 6 pin opto isolator with the wrong pinout. Luckily RS had a 4 pin part that fixed it

Think I'll put everything down before I mount the processor, that way I can check it's connections, make sure I'm not overloading it anywhere.

The three little boards on the right convert Kinco stepper drivers to RJ45 with all the wiring neatly out of sight, should look great if I got the measurements right :whistling:

[Tom]

Nice!

I hadn't thought of using RJ45s for signals - neat idea, and shielding already built in... What current and voltage are they good up to?

I was planning to use Dsub connectors, but that would look a bit 1980s... RJ45's are much more "naugties"! I suppose the only tricky bit (if you're panel mounting rather than PCB mounting) is the crimping....

Anyway, good idea.... Food for thought... :)

[ptjw7uk]

I hope the rj45 are not being used for current carrying as they are not propper connections just insulation displacement connection for signal etc.
Even the punch down connectors are not that good for current much better to get solder or screw types.

peter

[bambuko]

...they are not propper connections just insulation displacement connection...

As an ex(retired) AMP guy ...
Perhaps you would like to re-phrase this statement :nope:
They are perfectly "proper" for the job they are designed for :clap:

[ptjw7uk]

Possible but I have spent hours trying to find the one that wasn't done proper, even had trouble with the puch down ones.
There again in the past I have known screw down terminals to cut through the wire.
Best ones I remember were the old round plessy ones as long as you had all the tools they were easy!

peter

[Robin Hewitt]

I hadn't thought of using RJ45s for signals - neat idea, and shielding already built in... What current and voltage are they good up to?

Not a lot, I do occasionally take liberties and they haven't let me down yet :naughty:

With this board I do feed 5 volts out on an RJ45 to drive the pendant. A bunch of pull ups and a GAL22V10. It was either a logic array or only 7 buttons. I want a lot of buttons.

One component is worth a mention, a lucky find, RS part number 249-050

The board was getting cluttered with clamp diodes, the DALC208 has 8 low capacitance diodes in a dinky 6 pin smt pack. You feed it power, ground and 4 inputs that may need clamping. A real space saver, I used 6 of them