Sweet dreams CNC - more than one step beyond...

[sweetdream]

I mentioned earlier about the 'boring soldering'! One of the things I anticipated happening when I started running a new untested machine, at least for the first few times, was that you needed eyes on a swivel! Even by phasing the testing to only specific circuits, there comes a point where you have more new bits running than you have eyes to watch them! The automation of voltage and temperature checking etc. meant that I could focus on stopping the spindle diving into the sacrificial bed or any other undesired behaviours.

The wiring shown is for 5 LCD screens mounted into a console at the front of the CNC. The screens show various information about the machine without have to go look for it or fret about it. This is in addition to the touch screen mounted onto the frame, but facing away form the swarf! :-)

The Blue LED section in the wiring pic (above) alerts you by turning red if anything goes outside the parameters you set. For the startup tests, this was set somewhat conservatively! :-) During the tuning phase these parameters were relaxed somewhat as the machine was dialled in.

The screens are augmented by override buttons, for instance, capable of turning fans on if they are off, or off if they are on. They are fed from 2 CaT5 cables, one from the Z one from the rear wiring.