how to connect and configure this simple project?

Hello all,

This is my first posting here and i would like to say thanks to the people running this forum
and the users for sharing their knowledge.

I'm Jan from Holland, i'm truck-mecanic / metalworker with intrest in electronic stuff,
especially motion-control.Daily i use words like nut bolt hammer welding so With that in mind
i would ask you to "speak" to me in simple terms also because i am used to microsoft/vista.
So you will also understand why my english is poor, most time i speak dutch.

Now i will tell what brings me here;
A month ago i bought a flamecutting machine.The machine is automated by use of a template.
The flamecutter is in line with a motor-driven traction-axle wich is hold to the template by
a elektromagnetic force.I try to add a picture of such a machine.



I would be very pleased if i could manage to control the motion of the cutter by using EMC2
in combination with servomotors.I found a posting on the WWW wich is very easy to make for me.

emergent.unpythonic.net/projects/01142347802

I understand this is very basic and the disign misses a lot of features other boards come standard
with.But i have some reasons to follow this disign;

-i don't have much money to spend
-i would like to start very basic to "feel how everything is relating to each other"
-in my barn i collected lots of pieces i would like to recycle in my project

Right now i come to the point of my first posting;
The disigned board needs 2 input for direction which i tryed to setup in EMC2 (haven't tested yet)
EMC2 needs info about the position by a quadrature signal wich provides 2 channels to the computer's
paralel port.In the axis-configuration i cannot find options for setting port-pins to receive that
position-info.
The same for the neede PWM signal on the ENABLE port of the L298....

I would be very pleased if you would "stick to this disign" i know there are lots off drivers
doing a better job with much more features etc.The authur of the posting mentioned he succesfully
"drove"the etchingmachine with EMC2, unfortunatly the link in that posting to more info is dead.

Any input is very appriciated!

Register to the emc maillist and ask Jeff Epler about this. That is his web site.

lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users

OK, i will register in the next days and ask for it.
Thank you very much for responding!

Hello again,

My problem whith the connection is solved.
I did not notice there was a "servo etch" sample based on the discribed project.

But now the servo-motors are running well and i'm very happy with the first results!!
There's only one problem wich i can't solve yet;

When i load the "etch servo" from the configuration selector and load the sample program "plasmatest.ngc" i cannot run the program because of the limits.The software tells me that the program exeeds the limits.

So please can anyone tell me how to set the limits on both axis.
I would appriciate it very much!

Hello,

In the ini file for each AXIS there is a MIN_LIMIT and a MAX_LIMIT edit these to the proper size of your machine. EMC is telling you the dimensions of the work in the file you want to load is larger than the work area.

Rick G

Thank you very much for your quick response!
I will change the setting in the INI file as you discribed.
If the machine is running i'll post a movie here.

thanks again!

Looking forward to seeing it work!

Rick G

I think it's a good thing when people ask a question and get the answer ,that they tell how it's going when the solution is given.

So i would like to confirm that Rick's answer worked right for me.
I was suprised to see what possibilty's there are to change for the users.
Of course first of al i changed the limits on both axis and was able to run the program i couldn't before.

LINUX and EMC2 are awesome!!!!!

(i'm a 44 year-old truck-mechanic with no education for computers and electronic stuff and linux and emc2 work fine for me. To be honest; i study both computers and electronics at home myself in wintertime.The reason i tell this is to give hope to them who also want to reach a goal in building a machine.)

sorry for my poor english, i most time speak dutch during the day