Convert from Anilam Crusader M to EMC 2

spangledboy wrote:

I'm going through almost exactly the same upgrade path myself - 0.01mm resolution linear scales, Anilam crusader II control, analogue drives with tach feedback.

I received my 7I77 / 5I25, and am now just waiting on some connectors to arrive. In the meantime I am trying to figure out how to hook up my A10 encoders.

Spangledboy: have you hooked up your encoders / scales yet?

Going into my original Anilam counter board (PCB 504) I have the following (from top to bottom): NC, white, black, red, NC, green, brown. the colors match the anilam A10 wiring diagram, but the voltages do not appear to. I have +5 measured from all of the pins compared to the black.

Any suggestions from the group on figuring out how to hook up this scale?

Ok, I have the encoders hooked up. I used the previously attached A10 pin-out...traced through the connectors and determined the original machine (plugged into PCB 504) used the following colors. I simply cut off the stock connectors, wired into screw terminals on TB3 of 7i77...and it works!

pin 1: A chan (white)
pin 2: NC
pin3: COM (black)
pin4: B chan (green)
pin5: NC
pin6: +5V (red)
pin7: marker pulse (brown)
pin8: NC

this is for X. The pattern repeats for Y and Z. I should note that All the encoder jumpers on the 7i77 are set to the left for single ended operation, and as of now I am not supplying AUX 5V to the 7i77 but rather powering from the 5i25.

since my scales are 10 uM, the scaling is real easy 25.4/.01 = 2540 counts/inch. That is one advantage to linear scales rather than shaft encoders. I verified travel using a 1" indicator, x and y match up real nice, Z appears to be a bit more sloppy but is close.

Before I get into wiring the drives up (since I am waiting on some standoffs to arrive for permanently mounting my 7i77, I would like to understand more about GUI customization.

John: it looks like you have done up some nice tutorials, and I will start there, but my question is: my first impression is that there is a missing link: If I am correct, your tutorials cover Glade/Python general programming, but now I have the specific requirement to tie into the HAL...are there tutorials for that too? Sorry if I overlooked them.


I would like to set up a "Manual DRO" that allows me to zero the axis at arbitrary locations. My machine has a manual / auto selector switch that I am planning to tie into. When in manual, linuxcnc will be "only" an manual DRO, and when in "auto" have the full functionality.

I believe this will be a good opportunity for me to learn the fundamentals since I will "only" need to link in the encoder counting and the ability to zero them into my GUI.

Come to think of it, this would be a good "hello world #2" opportunity for all newbies to start with since checking encoder counts is a necessary first step prior to tuning motors anyway...

Hi. Glad to hear that you got your encoders connected up without any serious problems. I was quite worried about wiring up mine the wrong way around but it turned out that the information found on the web was correct WRT the pinout of the scales.

The scales work fine and I'm in the process of tuning the movement of the axes now. It takes a deal of patience to get the movement smooth and to keep the following error within on or two counts of the encoders. Each of the axes requires completely different settings for PID, FF1 & FF2 so don't be tempted to copy a good set of settings from one onto another!! I just replaced the blown Anilam Z axis drive with an AMC one and that seems to be working nicely - still got to deal with the hunting at rest on that axis though. I've got some rotary encoders which I plan on adding to the end of my motors to take care of this pesky hunting between linear scale graduations - sometimes the horizontal axes don't do it at all (or it's so slow as to be imperceptible) and other times you can just see the shaft slowly turning one way then the other, but the Z axis buzzes when it's at the top of it's travel at the moment which is clearly wrong - hopefully the rotary encoder for velocity feedback will help.

Incidentally I had problems with my hand drilled holes for the standoffs wandering so I used the mill in "manual" mode with the encoders and LinuxCNC acting as a pure DRO to get the holes nice and accurately located.

Ben

John T...found them.

Here:

gnipsel.com/glade/index.html
gnipsel.com/linuxcnc/gladevcp/index.html
gnipsel.com/linuxcnc/gui/index.html

thanks.

Getting ready to hook up the 7i77 analog output into my servo drives. From the manual:

"The 7I77 provides six channels of +-10V analog servo interface on connector TB5.
Minimum load resistance is 2K Ohms."

if I measure resistance across the drive's analog input, I get resistance of about 260 ohms. Does this mean I need to add a resistor in series to bring the resistance up to greater than 2000 Ohms?

This sounds really wrong. Do you have the drive specifications or at least part number?

Also the input resistance may possibly read low when the drive is unpowered
(since the inputs may have clamp diodes to +-15V or something)

Connecting a 1.5V battery when the drive is enabled and measuring the current with a series mA meter may be a more realistic measurement of input impedance

Peter, thanks. I did as you suggested and input impedance is much higher than measured with my DMM measuring resistance.

For any future readers:
I needed to un-wire my drive enable connection to the 7i77 controlled by linux cnc since connecting the battery resulted in an immediate following error which disabled the drive. I measured about .07 mA or 20k Ohms with the drive powered. Interestingly this current reading measured spiked much higher when the 7i77 disabled the drive.

I was able to jog the z-axis satisfactorily last night with a P gain of 30 and I and D at zero. I need to dive more in depth on tuning now, but so far, so good!