Mini wannabe datron build

well, it seems to be the X axis, and not the motor itself. i swapped x and z motors and the "x" still has an issue. with the motors off the machine i can see intermittent vibrating.

not im wondering if its a intermittent break in the cable. sigh.

in case anyone is reading my internal monologues, i refitted all the cables in the terminals on the motor and poof. works perfectly again.

Downsides to a motor with integrated drive and no industrial grade connectors. they vibrated themselves loose somehow.

At least i don't need to try to buy anything on a holiday weekend

I suppose i owe some videos

Control panel revision 214235346345

 

Now that the machine works i can actually make this thing.

The monitor is a touch screen. waveshare 7" tablet screen.
The keyboard is a just basic mechanical keyboard with a custom layout. low profile switches and corian buttons. some light up for indication, most dont.

That's the easy part. ha.

I'm curios what people would recommend for making the other items work.

1-  E stock is "normal". tied to mesa and to electrical.
2- likewise the coolant switch would override the output from the mesa. although i would like a way to make the system aware. i assume a 2 pole switch with one feeding back to a mesa input is the most logical.
3- the lower led bar is a spindle torque meter. I am guessing this should be independent, with a little mcu or the like reading from the drive and making a display. The downside is having the control be aware. I suppose it doesn't really need to be aware other than a signal to stop if the spindle overloads and stalls.
4- the mpg is just tied to the mesa, however it has no axis selection buttons. is it simple enough to map those to keyboard keys?
5- the spindle override dial. I really have no good ideas how to do this with both the led feedback and the dial control.
6- the last thing on there is a lock/key. i was thinking some rfid magnetised tag. you place it on the little key icon (under the mpg) and it enables the panel. I assume this is an input to the mesa, but i don't know if linuxcnc has any lock/operator id features.
7- led feedback to certain keys. if i press start, i want the start key to glow green. if the machine e stops, i want everything to flash red. etc etc. how do we feed that back to the panel?

Thoughts?



 

There are some people reading your not-entirely-internal monologue...

• Estop - concur.  I prefer to use estop relays to kill all the drive contactors, and use one of the relay contacts to signal LCNC via the Mesa card.
• A single pushbutton can achieve what you want with some HAL trickery.  Auto-Manual-Off.  See "multiswitch" in HAL components.
• Depends on your Mesa pins available.  If you've got an analog-out, you could send the drive 0-10v torque sig to LCNC, then out to a hardware LED/LCD dingus.
  • If not, you can get a LED/LCD and send the signal to that.  Some versions have an alarm output pin that could be sent to LCNC via a Mesa digital in.
  • Example: www.automationdirect.com/adc/shopping/ca...el_meters/adm100p-ln
• MPG axis & increment selectors: same-same as coolant.  Multiswitch can cycle through each axis or increment using two pushbuttons.
• Overrides - I'm a fan of the cheap 12-pose encoders with the built-in switch.  They run at 5v, so be aware that you'll need 5v-tolerant inputs for both the MPG A/B and the switch signal.
• Lock/key - define exactly what functions you want the lockout to accomplish (or not affect), then we can sort out how to do the wiring.
• LED indicators - easy-peasy.  Output from Mesa to LED, connected in hal to a suitable pin.  i.e. halui.program-is-running would do the cycle-start button for you.

Thanks. I only have a 7i96s, with only a couple available outputs.

The leds are rgb addressable. So its a bit more complicated than a single pin I think (or maybe not). In keyboard land, this is controlled by the keyboard itself but it is not usually dynamic. (you set a "mode" and it stays that way). I am not sure a single ended out put will do it here. Needs something serial or through the usb I expect. hmmm.

For the mpg, as I said, there are no physical buttons to change the axis etc. The only buttons available are through the usb keyboard.

The override dial does use a 24 count encoder with pushbutton. So I could have it swap between overriding the feed and spindle showing different colours on the leds. if there is room on the mesa i guess it could read that. I was assuming i needed to plug it into a separate mcu, but perhaps not.

For the lock, I think maybe it should control the linux login actually. Attach key, logs you in. Remove key, logs you out (although if the machine is cutting i'm not sure how that works... this is a lower priority idea for now.

Sorry, I guess I misunderstood you regarding some of the components and your intentions.

Couple of suggestions...

• First, consider getting a 7i84 ("D" or not) or a 7i73
  • These are inexpensive, easy to connect to the 7i96S, and significantly increase your IO
  • Both boards have multiple MPG inputs (can also act as general inputs).  Both have analog inputs available, although the 7i73 is limited to 0-3v.
  • Both boards (but not the 7i84D) can easily be set up to use a matrix keyboard/keypad and still have quite a few IO left over.  This would give you many options... including a roll-your-own keyboard without messing around with USB and serial commands to LEDs and similar.
  • In fact (if my math is right), the 7i84 can handle two instances of an 8x8 matrix keyboard by itself and still have 16 inputs left over.  That's 128 keys, all capable of connecting through HAL with essentially zero latency.
• Second... your operator panel is slick looking.  Forgive me for asking, but have you done much cnc machining?
  • If you know what you're doing and the panel you posted is what you want, disregard everything below.
  • Take a look at commercial control panels. Take note of what functions have dedicated hardware controls and how they're set up & where they're placed.
  • Other than Datron, I think no MTB uses on-screen touch controls to actually move the machine.  Most controls come with touchscreens these days, but the touch input is intentionally limited to data entry, menu selection/scrolling, and similar functions.  Jogging, starting/stopping a program, and other motion-initiating functions have hardware controls.
  • Overrides are dedicated - i.e. not a single encoder shared by multiple functions.  Haas is an exception, but they also have dedicated override buttons that have higher priority than the MPG when in RRO/SRO mode.  Think of how easy it'd be to mis-read the RRO/SRO LED light you mentioned and slow the spindle down when you intended to slow the feedrate.  Instant broken tool.
    • In fact, I have a multi-function MPG for my LCNC mill, and I rarely use the override functions on it.  It's too fiddly to select the right override when I need to tweak something in a hurry.
    • Even Datron have dedicated hardware controls on every model (other than the Neo).  Their MPG pendant has what appears to be FRO/SRO and some other functions.
  • If you get rid of the RFID key thing, you'd have plenty of room below the MPG for a couple of selector switches.  If you must have a key of some sort, a hardware key switch can be mounted on the side of the panel in an unobtrusive spot and tied to a relay or contactor coil to prohibit turning on the machine.  'Administrative' controls should not be placed right where the operator needs to be looking.
• The monitor.  7" seems really, really small.  Even my old Emco lathe had a 12" VGA 20 years ago.
  • Can you read the DRO from a few feet away with your intended GUI and screen resolution?
  • If you make the whole thing a bit taller, you can put the MPG below the monitor and get enough horizontal real estate to fit a 10" or maybe a 15.6" monitor in the same enclosure.
• Keyboard
  • Have you typed on a vertical keyboard?  It's miserable for more than single-finger pecking.  And if you angle the whole thing all your non-waterproof keys are going to collect chips, coolant, and junk.  Consider divorcing the keyboard from the main control and putting it on a hinged sub-panel so you can angle it for more comfortable typing.

Whew.  Sorry about the long-winded rant.

Thanks

As it turns out i HAVE a 7i84 although i do not know where it is right now. I did not realise it could "be" a keyboard. My keyboard is 71 keys. (your math is right i think, but it would take all the outputs) This could make things interesting. However, the downside is it costs $80usd, and a raspberry pi 2040 mcu is $6 which makes it less ideal for a future product beyond just my personal machine.

As for the layout, this is a very small panel for a very small machine, so it will naturally not have every single button you fond on a fanuc control. That said, my brother machines had almost nothing either. The DDCS has like 12 or 14 total keys. The touch screen is purely for navigation in linux when required in place of a mouse. The keyboard is a "full" 65% board but i will be rearranging various keys. It will be no worse than just using a pc keyboard as far as number of inputs. The overrides are primarily for feeds on this machine. the spindle almost always lives at full speed. A more idiot proof compromise might be a shift key to change it's function to spindle override. Much like the xyza controls have a middle "rapid" shift button.

7" is a pretty standard size on vmc's. Seimens 808d is 7", I think my brothers had 8". Larger screens are pretty but take too much space and cost way more. A lot of this is modeled on the basic features of the 808d actually.

Vertical keyboard is standard on most machines. Almost all. It sucks if you want to write a novel sure, but it is a necessary evil because there is literally no where else to put it. I drew one up with an angle and it was more trouble than it is worth finding a place for it, wiring, pivots and hinges etc. Simple is best here.

Most of the keys labeled so it should be a little more clear how it gets used. It really is just a "regular" pc keyboard with some rearranging and some key labels that show the linuxcnc function (cursor/page up down for example, and the right shift key is rapid). I will likely have sub labeling for the shift functions. Some pc keys i have eliminated as well, like capslock and the windows key as i don't think they are necessary here.(if you really did need full key functions you just plug in a real keybaord).

 

Sounds like you're all set with the basic layout and components then.

As I mentioned, multiswitch.comp is pretty clever way to cycle through values with a single input.  I've also found multiclick.comp and knob2float.comp to be helpful.

As to the 7i84, matrix.comp doesn't require an 8x8 array.  The 7i73 is limited to 4x8 or 8x8 if the built-in matrix is used, but the 7i84 could be set up with a different array pattern to save IO if you only needed a few buttons.

I'd imagine the rpi might also be programmed with a similar matrix function.  I think I read somewhere here that keystroke values can be mapped to HAL pins?

Thanks

The pi has an off the shelf "make an HID keyboard" project, so it is near zero work in that regard. Also, it fits inside the panel. The mesa card would need 20-30 wires running to it to the cabinet. I will likely use the mesa on my machine for more general IO, mpg, etc, but the keyboard portion I think will just be a usb keyboard.

A number of things in linuxcnc had hotkeys (R to start program for example). I imagine I would tie keystrokes to other functions the same way. Just need to be context aware (if I need to type the letter R for example in a box, it cant go starting a program).

The biggest open "hardware" questions are back to led interaction.

I'm not sure what the multiswitch does for me. I have no switches on the mesa.