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This is my high power (3W) LED soldering machine. It holds the LED in place, displaces solder and heat the connection with a regular soldering iron.

It uses mostly ngcgui to handle the logic. It has some basic features like resoldering failed joints and a couple more.



It also displaces thermal greese with a interchangeble module. This video also shows how led's are placed in bulk.



It's unfortunate I can't open the source for this project because I did it for a company. But, anyway, it is quite simple to replicate. Nothing fancy. I hope it helps someone.

Hi everyone, I've managed so far after all these years to get all the info I need on these boards by being a lurker, so thank you everyone for all the knowledge on here. I'm at a crossroads with this one though as I'm still quite new with the mesa boards.

I have the following BoB below and can confirm I can get the PWM working using software stepping by setting it on Pin 1 in the Stepconf wizard.




When setting this up using the Mesa board (7i92TF), I followed the guide below which works perfectly fine for running my steppers.
forum.linuxcnc.org/49-basic-configuratio...rallel-port-bob-g540

What needs to be changed on my setup to get this working? Mind you the config on my mesa board is whatever came straight out of the box.

My intention is to use this PWM signal to control a laser since I mainly control my spindle manually (or RS485). I'm currently testing this potential laser setup right now with an LED. If this helps, one thing I also noticed differently between software stepping and the mesa board, is that during PC boot the LED is already lit versus when it is connected to parallel port it is not.

I've attached my INI and HAL file for the mesa config. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

There are many things that need to be setup to match
your hardware so no generic hal/ini file set will work
on an unknown machine without editing. Things needed:

Setting up inputs  for limit/home

Setting up the encoder scaling and direction

Making sure that the position feedback is negative
rather than positive (positive feedback=runaway)

Tuning the PID loop

Setting up spindle controls

Setting up generic outputs (coolant etc)

etc etc

Why the 7I84D does not work with your pncconf created
is unknown but there are some simple diagnostics

The precise error messages will help here also.

On easy way to capture these is to run LinuxCNC
from the command line. When this is done, the errors
will be printed in the terminal so can be copy pasted
to the forum.

 

so loading Lcnc with these files should at least work but my inputs and outputs are not connected to software pins correctly?

Editing the hal files is something that can be looked up and is documented well by many people so once I get to that stage I will probably get everything to run given enough time.

My initial problem of not seeing the 7i84d pins needs more info from the machine after posting "mesaflash --addr 10.10.10.10 --device=ETHER --sserial" to the terminal?
 

Hi all, I recently designed an open-source CNC router. My goal was to make a rigid, medium-format CNC router that can self-manufacture new machines and not require any specialized equipment for squaring the build.

All the design files, LinuxCNC configuration files, and build info are on my blog:  blog.nathantsoi.com/article/rigid-router-cnc


 

The design is based on 4590 aluminum extrusion and CNC machined parts that self-index on the frame, so no extra alignment tools are necessary:

 

I used closed-loop servo motors, but steppers should also work fine.

 

Here is the back of the X-Axis:

 

I also decided to use an old computer with an onboard parallel port, to save on cost. I built all the electronics into an old mac pro case, which looks pretty rad.

 

I also added a cheap PCIe parallel port and used it as an input-mode device for an MPG jog pendant that I also designed:

 

Finally, I added a button panel with physical buttons matching the GMocappy soft buttons and some potentiometers to control feed rates, which is really handy when I need to quickly change the feed rate or stop the running program.

 

I hope this is useful for folks who are interested in building their own machine from scratch.

Note that  7I97T and 7I97 hal files are interchangeable
with the exception that the 7I97T analog out resolution
is best with the PWM frequency set to 75 KHz and dither
enabled.

The zipped example files comprise a complete configuration
but of course there are many machine specific setup things
that need to be added/changed to match your specific machine.

 

I can download the file now, great.

I am completely new to LCNC and have never done a conversion so everything is a mystery to me. I haven't found an example of a retrofit with a 7i97t as it is a relatively new card.

I'm quite certain that I've omitted some crucial steps in setting my mesacards and the pc up. Perhaps I was a little too optimistic about the kind of configuration work i need to do.

Could you roughly break down everything I need to do from opening the box of mesa cards to having a completed hal file?

The zip file contains a basic 7I97 configuration file set (hal and ini files)

 

The 7I97T PWMgens need to be set in offset mode
(as shown in the example hal file)

It seems like you guys need to build a folder watcher,
The operating system has methods to do something if the contents of a folder changes. 
Python has an interface to this. There are a number of examples on the web. Here is one to get you going
thepythoncorner.com/posts/2019-01-13-how...-filesystem-changes/

The script just adds the Ethercat repositories/
Just folllw the steps in post 1 to install Ethercat.

Thanks for the reply, unfortunately it raises more questions than it answers. I won't get back to the machine before the morning but i will first try the command you suggested and post the result.

I can't seem to download your file, and even if I could I don't know what to do with it.

On which of hte cards do I need to set the pwmgen to offset mode and how would I do that?

 

You would need the stepspace defined as well
(I think the default times are quite long which may
prevent getting all the way to 25 KHz)

The direction timings don't matter

You can use maxaccel if you wish to change the spindle
accel and deccel times. Setting the stepgen Maxvel to 25000
will prevent it from ever generating more than a 25 KHz
frequency even if given a bogus spindle speed command.
 

try

mesaflash --addr 10.10.10.10 --device=ETHER --sserial

Note that you need to set the pwmgen to offset mode,
and for the 7I97T, use a 75 KHz PWM frequency with
dither enabled.

Here is an example config file that has the PWM setup

freeby.mesanet.com/basic7i97.zip
 

Yes, the servos have relative encoders. The previous owner of this unit had always planned to upgrade the control so that the encoders would be useful. It makes sense to me as well.

Since the 7I76e variants are not in stock right now, and my other machine that I will eventually build is a stepper motor machine, would it make more sense for me to buy one of the analog boards that are in stock right now? I suspect that some more snooping around the Mesa store might be in order...

Pardon my ignorance... Based on your comment I presume that the servo tuning is stored in the servo drives?

I have had the understanding that I DO want the LinuxCNC feedback loop in order to make a [more] closed loop system which is more better than having the control completely blind to the position (or loss of position) of the motors.