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Forum Index : Other Stuff : Out of Action For a couple of Weeks
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Bryan1 Guru  Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1344 |
G'day Guy's, 10 weeks ago at work I broke my right ring finger and it hasn't healed at all, so today I went and saw a specialist who put me under the knife a couple of hours later. Now I got a plate and some screws holding the bone together, a cast on the finger and the hand in a splint. I've got my cnc 99.9% finished and just need to debug why the z-axis board isn't working and I bet it will be the oatley board is the one with the fault and the centre pin on the fets needs a jumper soldered in. Anyway time to brush up on my G-code and next week when this splint comes off I'll be able to get the cnc up and running. I'll make a new thread for the cnc with plenty of pic's as this project has been on going for near 4 years and it will be great to finally get it going. Cheers Bryan |
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Hi Bryan Sorry to hear about the finger. Hope your left handed 
I swear by the microsteppers sold by Ocean Controls. When I first put my CNC together I too used the Oatley controllers, but soon learned they are not much more than a toy, good to get you started, but you'll soon want a better controller. The Ocean controllers include microstepping, up to 1600 steps per revolution on a 200 step motor, current limiting and can even be programmed to impenance match the stepper motor. $75 each, but a investment in my opinion. One trick I learned recently when I had problems with one axis. Dont rely on the PC's parallel port to have enough current capacity to drive the controllers input if it's using opto couplers. I added a 4050 hex buffer IC to buffer all inputs to the microsteppers, and it made a big improvement! Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1344 |
Hi Glenn, Yea mate I do know the oatley axis controllers are the basic controller but they will be good to get me started. I do have a heap of bi polar stepper chips so once I get things going to the point I can make my own boards on the cnc I'll have a go at milling the new micro stepper boards. I reckon I'll be leaning towards the A3977 chips as I do have 6 of the here and as all the steppers on the cnc are 6 wire ones I can run them in bi polar mode. For powering the steppers I'm using the 3 amp CC circuit my mates at the Adelaide uni designed for me. The power supply is coming directly off my shed 24 volt bank too with a 15 amp fuse inline for protection. I'll see how I go tomorrow and hopefully I can work the digi camera so I can take a heap of pic's and finally show you guys this project. I made an interface board which doesn't use any opto's and the z-axis was counting on the K-cam screen, also I had 25 volts going to the board but no activity on the stepper outputs. This is where I reckon I need to solder that bridge in to the short centre pin on the fets on the controller board. For now I'm just going to use my dremmel as the cutting tool to get me going and this week I'll design the new cutter head to work on the 24 volt rail. As the head will be small I'm going to make my own collets so I can fit upto 6mm tools in. I do have a suitable DC motor to use so it will be a fun exercise to make my own cutter head. Cheers Bryan ( learning the art of typonese using my right thumb as the finger/thumb method) |
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vasi Guru Joined: 23/03/2007 Location: RomaniaPosts: 1697 |
Hi Bryan, I wish you fast recovery! And I can't wait the pics. Vasi Hobbit name: Togo Toadfoot of Frogmorton Elvish name: Mablung Miriel Beyound Arduino Lang |
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