another cnc mill questionaire

:-[
I wanted to use just one pin (8) for the enable so they are all enabled/disabled together
but while breadboarding it was more convenient to have 1 pin for each
never got round to changing it
"sb" means "should be"

Yipppppiiiiiieeeeeh!

i finished my machine today and it is running with cncdriver!

at the moment i "see the light in the tunnel" and i again want and have to send a big THAAAAAAAAANNNNK YOOOOOOUUUU for beeing so kind, patient and helpful to me. you are a great guy!

now i will have some fun with the machine while i wait for BOB. then i will start with emc2 and i guess, i will have the one or another question to you again.

thank you once more and have a nice evening!

Congratulations! It really is a thrill to see your creation come to life, isn't it? I would like to know more details about your machine. Do you have pictures?

glad to hear it's all working :slight_smile:

I'd be interested in seeing pictures/plans of your machine as I'm still fiddling with the design of mine...

what did you do about limit switches in the? (or did you just disable them!)

of course i will send you some pictures! i found out that i made a design fault on the z-axis which at the moment only can move about 10mm instead of 100. i will fix this the next week.

if you want pictures earlier, just let me know and i make them und upload them asap.

i have some questions about BOB (which will arrive next week):

(1) just to make sure: basically BOB replaces the arduino. so BOB will connect to the parallelport on the pc on one side and connect to the easydriver boards, and endswitches on the other side?

(2) do you know if BOB works with Mach3 also?

:slight_smile:
any pictures/info/drawings would be good

I don't know BoB!! :o, I only use my own software and hardware

i am working on the z-axis at the moment, so i will send you some pictures later this day. i don´t have plans, but i can give you details - just ask me.

regarding BOB: ha,ha, aaah - > i just found out that it was not you posting this, it was yankee :). some where on this thread he asked about why not using emc2. he then suggested using BOB (parallel breakout board).

basically, i don´t think that i will need it, as i am happy with your solution. there are just little things that i miss in cncdriver to make it perfect - one thing would be a button where the machine drives itself to the endswitches of each axis and resets the measurement, so that from there on it would be possible to use absolute axis-measurement. the other thing that would be great, would be some possibility to enter values directly in cncdriver. for example to move the x-axis 50mm to the left. so the machine could be manually driven without creating gcode before. and of course some kind of joystick, controller movement would be nice.

"see" you later!

Ok I will add those, not too difficult!
Cheers Mike

fantastico!

here are the first pix. the machine needs some more time to get finished. need to install endswitches, some kind of cableguidance and stabilize the z-axis.



It looks huge how big is it?
Is that a PC power unit?
Oh and what motors are you using?

its not that big :slight_smile: the machine is 700x850mm. working area is about 500mm x 500mm x 100mm.

the power supply it not a pc supply but a supply with 24V 7ampere.

the stepper motors are nema 17. a nice mixture of chinese ones and american ones.

i am drunk at the moment, happy and looking forward for your new and improved cncdriver.

have an extremly nice evening or, as i guess as you are in america, nice day ( and evening lateron of course).

Bloody cheek, I'm British and in the UK!

you did know that there is "jog" functionality?

the up (^), down(v), left(<) and right(>) as well as Z up (Z^) and Z down (Zv) each move 1 cm in the indicated direction, just by clicking the button!

meant to ask - where are you based?

i am austrian, directly in the mountains of tyrol and i must say that i love the uk. i travelled there several times.

yeah i found the jog functionality. but here it travels 1mm. i guess i did something wrong in the init.pde but i will find out.

sounds like you may have the steps per inch or steps per mm set wrong
It's meant to move by 1 cm in the direction indicated

i think so. i calculated that i have 4064 steps per inch, as my stepper makes 200 steps per turn and my threaded rod makes a movement of 1.25mm per turn. i put that into init.pde and uploaded it.

in the init.pde there is only a section of steps per inch and no section of steps per mm. is that correct?

today i will add the switches to the machine.

have a nice day, me needs one or two more espressi :wink:

hmm
I must admit I did hide it
at the very top of the code
with comments!!!!!
have another coffee
cheers
Mike

//=====================================
// define the parameters of our machine
//=====================================
#define X_STEPS_PER_INCH 6400
#define X_STEPS_PER_MM   252

#define Y_STEPS_PER_INCH 20000
#define Y_STEPS_PER_MM   2362.2

#define Z_STEPS_PER_INCH 6400
#define Z_STEPS_PER_MM   252.0

hej, thanx. funny - after having some more coffee and double checking - only the steps per inch are in my init.pde.

now i add the milimeter ones :wink: so that´s what my ini.pde looks like now. is this ok?

// constant for mm conversions
//============================
#define MM_PER_INCH 25.4

//=====================================
// define the parameters of our machine
//=====================================
#define X_STEPS_PER_INCH 4064
#define X_STEPS_PER_MM   160

#define Y_STEPS_PER_INCH 4064
#define Y_STEPS_PER_MM   160

#define Z_STEPS_PER_INCH 4064
#define Z_STEPS_PER_MM   160

//==================================
//our maximum feedrates units/minute
//==================================
#define FAST_XY_FEEDRATE_INCH 20.0
#define FAST_Z_FEEDRATE_INCH  20.0

//=======================
// Units in curve section
//=======================
#define CURVE_SECTION_MM 0.5

//=========================================
// Set to one if sensor outputs inverting 
// (ie: 1 means open, 0 means closed)
// RepRap opto endstops are *not* inverting
//=========================================
#define SENSORS_INVERTING 0

//===============================================
// digital i/o pin assignment
// odd choices are for convenience to connectors
// NB Arduino pins 14-19 correspond to analog 0-5
//===============================================

//============================
// pin 0 used for serial comms
// pin 1 used for serial comms
//============================
#define SERIAL_RX_PIN 0
#define SERIAL_TX_PIN 1

//=======================================================
// shared enable pin (for rapid shutdown off all motors!)
//=======================================================
#define X_ENABLE_PIN 8
#define Y_ENABLE_PIN 18  // sb8
#define Z_ENABLE_PIN 19  // sb8

//===========================
// cartesian bot pins X-plane
// 6 7 A0 A1
//===========================
#define X_STEP_PIN 7
#define X_DIR_PIN 6
#define X_MIN_PIN 14
#define X_MAX_PIN 15

//===========================
// cartesian bot pins Y-plane
// 2 3 4 5
//===========================
#define Y_STEP_PIN 2
#define Y_DIR_PIN 3
#define Y_MIN_PIN 5
#define Y_MAX_PIN 4

//==================================================
// pin 13 used for heartbeat as it already has a LED
//==================================================
# define HEARTBEAT_PIN 13

//===========================
// cartesian bot pins Z-plane
// 9 10 11 12
//===========================
#define Z_STEP_PIN 9
#define Z_DIR_PIN 10
#define Z_MIN_PIN 5  // sb 11
#define Z_MAX_PIN 4  // sb 12

//==============
// motor control
// A4
//==============
#define MOTOR_ON_PIN 18           // HIGH = ON, LOW = OFF

//========================================
// motor direction doesn't have a pin yet!
//========================================
// #define MOTOR_DIRECTION_PIN 20    // HIGH = Clockwise, LOW = Anti-clockwise

//======================
// panic stop/reset
// A2 A3
//======================
#define PANIC_STOP_PIN 16
#define PANIC_OVER_PIN 17

//==================================================
// pin 19 (A5) is used for serial output to display
//==================================================
# define LCD_SERIAL_PIN 19

call me stupid but when i press the jog y button, the stepper motor makes exactly one turn what is 1.25 mm in the direction of the axis. what am i doing wrong?

if i send the following code:

G21
G1Y500.000

the machine moves 62.5mm