Advice needed for controller box layout

[Bustercnc]

The parts, they produce most heat should be top. On the bottom side your box is open, you should close it with a dustfilter, similiar to the parts used in aquariums. And the heat must can flow out of the box, so you need another hole on the top or upper side of your box.

Hi Uli12us,
The case comes with a blanking plate for the hole in the bottom, I was going to fit the stepper connectors and power socket into that.
Agreed, some more work does need to be done to provide ventilation

[Bustercnc]

I would maybe swap the drives and the bob though and to try and keep the "clean" signal cables away from the "dirty" mains/drive power cables as much as possible?

I think most people would consider safety relays a step too far for smaller machines. They have features monitoring to detect if the contacts have welded shut but many don't worry about it. Really depend on your personal view of safety :)

Jim

Cheers Jim,

I am going to mark up and drill the holes tomorrw, I will orientate the drivers so the power connectors are closer to the PSU and route the stepper cables in the other direction.

Im glad you said that about the safety relays, I can see the importance of them but that will only complicate my build at this stage.

[JAZZCNC]

Im glad you said that about the safety relays, I can see the importance of them but that will only complicate my build at this stage.

Sorry but Jim is WRONG to say it's not needed it very much is and it's not complicated or expensive.!!

[Bustercnc]

Understood Jim, I thought the estop button was hard wired but now I think about it, its only configured as such in the software and can be over ridden. I will be sure to add this along with fuses.

I did consider getting the next case up from mine but just wanted to keep it compact and simple as its just for PCB work with a cutting area of 200x150

My head hurts now , think Im going to just put my feet up now and enjoy a beer and probably google the stuffing out of this.

I really appreciate all the comments so far.

Cheers Dave

[Gotty101]

Don't worry just take your time and it will come together. The estops circuit must work no matter what, it must work in a normally closed setup, so if for some reason the wiring fails on it, it will estops. Read other threads where they show schematics and you will see what they are doing, but if your not sure ask and people will help.

With mine I've made a pcb (for ease of wiring and space reasons) that handles the alarms from the drives, limits switches and controls the safety relay. The whole thing is wired very defensive, so if there is a faulty connection it estops for safety. The way to think is one day (hopefully not) you may need that estops button to work and you want to be 101% sure it's going to work when you really need it.

[cncJim]

If my previous post gave the impression that a hardware safety circuit is not needed and software is fine, then I apologise. That was not what I intended.

Trev - Your box looks great. Do you have any details of you custom PCB you made? I am interested as I am designing a fail safe circuit right now based on the sample one from the Mach3 manual and EddyCurrent's build thread (http://www.mycncuk.com/threads/6565-Ready-Steady-Eddy).

Cheers,
Jim