Complete newby needing help.

The steppers are already prewired, they have a 5 wire cable, with 1 wire being a "limit". It might be 16 gauge wire, but I doubt it.

The terminal block with 3 reds and 1 yellow is 120v AC. The top red goes over to the board that the 201's are mounted on and connects to the top left corner? I had "assumed" that board would be DC? I did locate the bridge rectifier. It is just to the left of red/yellow terminal block, and mounted to the aluminum housing for "heat sink", I guess? The link to the 201 manual helped answer a lot of questions, also yesterday I was doing more research and saw where the 201's should be "star" wired, not "daisy chained" together on power wiring.

I'm wondering if the caps where the 201's are mounted and the large cap wired to the top right of the board are due to the transformer being "undersized"? The board that the 201's are mounted on has a single lead from the 120v AC (I would assume ground). The large capacitor is wired to the board on the top right, (no other wires to the cap). Other than that the only wires going to the 201 board is the printer cable, and the wires going to the stepper motors. How in the world do you power 3 stepper motors with a printer ribbon??? There were several post's that I found yesterday on CNCzone questioning the design on the cncmasters controller. I am sure that the sooner I dump this controller and build my own, with lots of HELP, the better off I will be. I did a "quick" search on the internet on cncmasters before buying this set up, unfortunately it was not as "refined" a search as it should have been. I've found a lot more "negative" comments since.

thanks,
Ken

PS. The other 3 wires on the red/yellow terminal go to a remote on/off switch for the controller.

Lots of good looking stuff there at Antek. I'll definetly keep them in mind if I can't get this one to work.

Ken

I was just back playing with the V/O meter and the "power card", and noticed something strange.



I was checking the AC voltages on the terminal block with the 3 red/1 yellow lead. With the switch turned off I had 118 volts between the yellow #2 terminal and the red #3 terminal below it. I turned the switch on and then had 118v between the yellow #2 and red #4 also.

I tried reading AC voltage between #2 yellow and #1 red(top), I noticed the meter went up to 160-170 range and then immediately went to 1volt?

I thought maybe it could be a DC voltage, so I switched to read DC voltage and got 67 volts between (top) red and yellow. I also read 67 volts between the top and bottom red terminals. Can "neutral" AC read as negative in DC circuit?

Still trying to locate 24v DC.

BTW, the bridge rectifier is just left of the terminal with the red and yellow wires. You can just see the top of a pan head screw holding it down onto the aluminum base. You are looking at it from the edge.

Ken

Decided it was finally time to quit researching the problem and get busy trying to solve it.

OK, 5i25-7i76 combo kit ordered and on the way 2nd day Fed ex, for +/- $10 extra over 5 day ground.

Ken

BigJohnT wrote:

You will like that package. Did you get the DIN rail mounts or are you planning on using standoffs for the 7i76 card? FYI it takes the M3 (smaller screw) standoffs that you find on some computer hardware.

John

John:

I "assumed" everything I needed would come as part of the kit. Do I need to call back in the AM and order something else. I'm hoping to mount this vertically to save room to put the 201's on their side.

thanks,
Ken

Where can I get DIN rail mounts or the M3 standoffs? Can I order from Mesa? Can I pick it up at Radio Shack?

I've got some Al plate .25X3X15 that I could cut into pieces and make vertical heat sinks for the 201's?

Ken