Another Elumatec SBZ130

tommylight wrote: It sure looks like it is the same, but where are the other parts ? Mine was over 7 meters long and 5000KG heavy!

It is disconnected in the middle. The main part is standing on the other with some pallets between.

tommylight wrote: you have a full working config for it

Without your great preparatory work, it would not have occurred to me to repair this machine. I would have suggested my friend take them apart and sell them. But that's still plan 2.
Once again, thank you very much for your hard work and all other people which helped you.

You are welcomed, always.
That is a magnificent machine with a 300x300x300x6450mm work envelope! To many numbers ?
That is literally a full 3 axis machine mounted on another 6450mm long X axis, with a 8 position tool changer.
It is made for work on aluminium, but the one i retrofitted has been working with 4 and 5mm metal profiles only since the day i fixed it, making slots and drilling holes. That is a testament to the quality of the machine, despite being misused for several years it is still working properly!

Hello Tom,
I got the Mesa cards, the guys in Portugal are very quick.
I wired them on my desk (only the boards), changed the hal files to make the 7i66 work, installed emcochanger and linuxcnc started without problems. Happy!!

Now I wanted to ask you about the encoder wiring. Is it correct to supply the encoder with 24v and to connect the clock and data lines directly to the 7i74?
I read something in the data sheet of the 7i74 about +/- 12V and the output is 5V on the RJ45. I became a little cautious because I did not set the jumpers of the Mesa cards correctly and they almost went up in smoke but luckily the power supply switched off due to the overload and the cards survived.

Furthermore, it would be interesting how you solved the long x axis? Are you using a modified trivkins Kinematic or is it controlled by the Cam System's post processor?
I took a quick look at the Sheetcam postprocessor, I'm not sure if it makes sense but as andypugh suggested adding up the two axes. Perhaps using the post processor to divide the axis into several sections?
True to the motto:
if ((x> area1) && (x <area2) {
G0 U Position1
...
} ??
I hope that doesn't all sound completely stupid!

When I saw Linuxcnc (EMC2) for the first time at a friend's house about 15 years ago (hot wire cutter) I didn't think that I was so intensively involved with it. Normally I use Estlcam, it's just plug and play and an Arduino isn't that expensive when it burns down :laugh: .
Thank you for your help.
If I don't get to write anymore: Merry Christmas to everyone.

The encoders will work with 5V, just do not power them from mesa boards, they draw quite some current. I used a separate power supply with 5V/2A.
For the data wires you will have to experiment as i do recall something about having to reverse some wires for it to work, and they do connect to 7i74 directly. BTW, do not forget to wire the ground to the 7i74 also, so use a good quality power supply for the encoders.
No CAM, luckily they use it for production, drilling holes and milling slots for parts of other machines, so i trained 2 of them to do gcode programming, canned cycles, peck drilling, and such. After a lot of effort to make it work as a "wsum" of both X axis as advised by members of this forum, had to revert back to a simple axis and labelled it as A axis, set to to linear and left it at that. This has proven very versatile for them as they always have repeated patterns of holes/slots, same parts over and over again, and new parts about once or twice a year.
BTW, all parts made on that machine go to Austria.

Hello thank you for your reply, I'm sorry for my late feedback. Happy New Year.
The last weeks I changed the air tubes, the electronics and I tried to calibrate the short x-axis. With the calibrating I have some troubles. I have found your note of calibrating. The encoders start working at approximately 8V, I power them now with 11V.
Sometimes the raw data jumps some hundred counts up and back. The 22 Bit should be ok, I have checked it with my oscilloscope (Data+, CLK+). I always get a joint following error, sometimes strait after enabling the machine.
What do you think (and other people), is the encoder broken or a connection problem?
On the x and z axis there is a 1024x64 encoder on the y-axis a 4096x4096 (I think it is not original). For testing I changed the frequency to 100kHz.

Did you download my config from the original retrofit for comparison ?
And stick to that tutorial, it was written on that machine!
If you suspect the encoder, try tuning the other axis and see how they behave.
As for encoders, pretty sure the + from encoder goes to - on Mesa 7i74, the signal wires i mean, and vice versa and i vaguely recal that causing me quite some headache with jumping counts.