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That machine uses servo motors not stepper motors. (Probably using analog commands between the control and the drives.)

Lukasz from Proma-Elektronika kindly sent us a unit to test, and we are quite happy with how it performs on our fiber laser machine. 





The height sensor is used to automatically set and/or maintain a fixed nozzle-to-material distance which has been determined appropriate according to the focal point of the laser beam, i.e. "autofocus".

Autofocus is enabled in the following clips, and the readout from the device shows it is maintaining the set height closely, including during/after indexing. The drilling speed was slowed down to make it easier to observe.

The C2V Laser Sense has not had issues with noise from operation or the sparks generated, which eventually became a problem with an optical height sensor used previously with this machine.

Drilling holes:

i.imgur.com/mOQMjpb.mp4
i.imgur.com/CB8KpLx.mp4

Entry holes: 


Exit holes:


Straight cuts. Note the visible autofocusing at the very beginning:

i.imgur.com/YGVQZon.mp4

Result:




The testing we did is so far largely qualitative but we can say it comfortably achieves its specified 10 um (0.01mm) resolution, which is important to us. At some point it would also be good to validate the stated sampling frequency (3.65 kHz) and response time (< 2 ms).

Aside from performance, one standout feature of this unit is the information feedback right on the unit. The LED and built-in display are tremendously helpful, both during calibration, and during operation. Really a very useful feature!

Setup was quite simple and the documentation of the device function, modes, wiring diagrams, and calibration routines were helpful. A cat6a cable (shielded, twisted pairs) was perfect for making the data/power cable. 

For integrating the C2V Laser Sense to our existing machine using an Aerotech A3200 controller, it was straightforward to just use the analog output from the device. It would be great to see others configure this device with LinuxCNC. Given the many modes of operation offered, it should be possible to get it set up with quite a variety of hardware.

Since precision is our priority, we went with Mode 0 which has a non-linear (exponential decay) relationship between voltage and distance.

Good grounding of the chassis was important to getting good calibration results, and luckily the calibration process is easy. Fast calibration for the reference position is just a button press. The precision calibration requires programming a small routine to get the motion speed and distance required. 

The best part is the colors of the LED indicator make it easy to see when calibration should begin, when it is in progress, and most importantly, whether it has failed or completed successfully. And the built-in display even shows the calibration curve; a very nice touch!

In one instance, upon powering up the machine, the device's reading was "frozen" at a fixed voltage regardless of distance, or even touching the nozzle tip. We never figured out what the cause was. Re-initializing the system and checking the grounding did not help. But resetting the unit and recalibrating it resolved the matter. We were not able to reproduce this issue, so I guess chalk it up to machine gremlins.

It goes to show how useful the readout from the built-in display is, as that was the first and most obvious clue that something was not as expected. 

Overall, very happy with the C2V Laser Sense. Thanks to Lukasz for sending us this unit. We'll be looking to purchase more units for future machines, hopefully running on LinuxCNC. If others have used this unit with LinuxCNC, please do post your results!

"I typed stepper motor when i ment servo motor, there are no stepper motors on the machine sorry for the confusion "

Im modernizing a Clausing Komdia fv-1 it has a dynapath cnc control. The dynapath computer is old and has issues, and the servo motor drivers/power supply are having issues as well. I wanna look into getting a modern driver for them that can work with a linuxcnc computer. The stepper motors are baldor motor big mho 4201990, its a 39amp peak 120v 40v/krpm 2500rpm and the encoder is 1000l im guessing thats 1000 ticks per revolution. Im also not sure what connection type i should go with i see the main 2 mesa baords have either ethernet or serial

OK that sounds.

Not sure why you are getting the watchdog bite

What is the host computer, and have all power saving option been disabled in the BIOS?
 

Hallo, da habe ich eine Null vergessen.

PING 10.10.10.10 (10.10.10.10) 56(84) bytes of data
--- 10.10.10.10 ping statistics ---
60000 packets transmitted, 60000 received, 0% packet loss, time 60110ms
rtt min/arg/max/mdev = 0.055/0.071/0.181/0.004ms

That looks OK, but I  would go longer, that's why I suggested 60000 (= 1 minute)

Ich habe den Befehl eingegeben, es macht aber nur einen Durchlauf. Es kommt diese Meldung:
PING 10.10.10.10 (10.10.10.10) 56(84) bytes of data
--- 10.10.10.10 ping statistics ---
6000 packets transmitted, 6000 received, 0% packet loss, time 6010ms
rtt min/arg/max/mdev = 0.059/0.069/0.174/0.004ms

Looks like a latency issue on the host PC

What does a latency test show?

latency-histogram --nobase --sbins 500

Bonjour a tous,
j 'ai un probleme depuis quelques temps ,ma machine s'arrete avec ces erreurs , cela est aleatoire ,ca peux prendre 15 min a plusieurs heures avant d'avoir les alarmes.
j'utilise la version 2.8.1.
 je n 'ai rien changer depuis 2 ans , elle tournai tres bien jusque il y a quelque semaines.
pour redemarrer , j 'arrete linuxcnc  ,pas le pc, juste le programme ,  et ca fonctionne.
merci pour votre aide
 

Yes, 000000 Indicates the likely U3 has been damaged and is shorting out
the shared 4V supply so U20 and P2 will not work either.

I'm surprised that there is no SMT repair facility available there. We routinely repair
minor faults like this for a nominal fee ($35.00), but of course shipping is s killer.
(the part is about $1.00)
 
EDIT:
Its likely that if you simply removed U3, that the other port would work allowing
you to connect the 7I85 to P2.

The 0x1004 is simply the register address of the GPIO port that's connected  to P1.
It should be all ones = 0x0001FFFF when unconnected because the expansion
GPIO ports on a 7I76E have pullup resistors and all GPIO is set to input mode
at power up or watchdog fault. All 7I76E firmware is open source and the low level register
addresses/functions are provided in the regmap file in the source directory of the 7I76E
software support zip file.


The 7I76EU is a one-to-one replacement of the 7I76E, no hal file changes are needed,
unless you want to use one of the new features.

If linuxcnc.stat call_level is 1, the preview in flexgui is disabled, and i try to find a way to solve that, but i have no idea what to change in stdglue.py.
 

Maybe that is actually a bug in flexgui?
If I start the example program in

`/configs/sim/axis/remap/rack-toolchange/racktoolchange.ini `

I can see the call_level staying at '1' until the whole program has executed but the preview works just fine:


 

cool

1: you mean a mbus_device template ? yes i will check it

2: Do you mean the Modbus outputs? Yes, there is something there, but I’ll need to check it again as I’ve rewritten the Modbus plugins. (Error values)
Basically, it’s just the Modbus message but without the address and without the CSUM.
This is then sent when the FPGA detects an error (disconnect / timeout).

I'd like to share some latest information regarding current status of the project.
Support of serial port (with almost the same principle as pktuart) has been added in last pull request. Yet not approved by Peter. github.com/Peter-van-Tol/LiteX-CNC/pull/155

Thanks @meister , now works! 
Two more things:
-1: would be grateful if we could make a preconfig for that kind of board.

-2: In case of host disconnection...Can I force a value?. For example, if some of the signals are high, if I close the Linuxcnc, I want to force all signals low.

 Thank you.

In my setup is a problem with stdglue.py, the version provided with linuxcnc. In my case, it's a remaped M6 (REMAP=M6  modalgroup=6 prolog=change_prolog ngc=change epilog=change_epilog), in terminal is printed 'emcTaskPlanLevel() returned 1' , linuxcnc.stat call_level returns 1 as well. It returns 1, until the final toolchange is done and then the returned value is 0.
If linuxcnc.stat call_level is 1, the preview in flexgui is disabled, and i try to find a way to solve that, but i have no idea what to change in stdglue.py.
If M6 is done without remap, everything works as expected.