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Nomenclature nitpick: Unless you've got encoders on there, those are stepper motors, not servos. And even steppers + encoders are typically referred to as "closed-loop steppers", not servos.


PSU: If you're going to use a switch-mode PSU, make sure you get a big (uF rating, voltage rating) capacitor to put on it. Motors dump energy into the PSU on deceleration, which can lead to voltage spikes and blown stepper drives and/or PSU. A toroidal/transformer based supply is often recommended instead for this reason.

This may also be useful: www.geckodrive.com/support/power-supply-basics/


Wire: You may want multi-conductor wire. If that's for the steppers, 4-conductor would be good. Running 4 separate wires to each motor seems unnecessarily obnoxious.


Missing from your list: buttons, switches, fans, terminal blocks, enclosure, mounting hardware, connectors. Specifically, you'll probably want to put your parts in a box of some kind, and at the very least an e-stop is a good idea. Generally you want that wired such that it hard-cuts power to the motors+spindle of the machine or otherwise renders it in a safe state.

Drawing out everything you'll use and the connections between them can help identify gaps- eg, making sure you have enough terminal blocks. It's shockingly easy to run out of those. Ditto for enclosure space- a little planning goes a long way there, and also getting a bigger enclosure than you think you need.


Finally: I'm not familiar with all the mesa offerings (I've got a 7i76e on my mill, IIRC), but try to think about what you might want in the future and then you can decide whether it's worth buying something with spare I/Os to support it now or accepting you may need to upgrade the card later to add things. Things you might consider:

-Coolant/air blast control
-MPG
-Spindle encoder
-Touch probe
-Toolsetter
-Hardware feed hold/single-step/pause/resume/etc. buttons
-Rotary axis

IIRC you've got a Taig, and IIRC those use ER collets or equivalent... my experience is re-zeroing tools with ER collets gets old fast. I more than once trashed a tool and/or workpiece forgetting to do so... a toolsetter IMO would be worth planning for.

Hi again, smart people! I was wondering if you could check over my shopping list and make sure I am purchasing everything I need and that everything I am purchasing will work with each other.

• Servos (SST57D3201) (came with the machine; they are quite old, but they should still work)
• Prox Sensors
• 7I96S
• Buck Converter for 7I96S
• PSU
• Stepper Drivers
• Shielded Wire

I have a question about my servos. From the data sheet, it says that each motor is 2 amps per phase. The data sheet doesn’t seem to mention whether or not this is 2A phase RMS or peak current. The stepper drivers I’ve picked out are 2.1 amps peak for the closest dip setting. Is this fine to drive these servos? I just want to make sure I’m not going to burn up my servos.

Yes. you need a separate supply.

You can often use a 12V supply and scale the PWM so that full RPM = 10V
 

Hello,

I've been using the 7i96s potentiometer function to control a DC driver board on my mill, 

I'm replacing that motor with a Chinese servo that requires a 0-10v signal to be driven in speed mode, 

The drive itself does not have a +10v that I can feed the digital pot on the Mesa card 

Would I require a separate 10v power supply to feed the Mesa card digital pot to output the proper signal for the servo drive?

Attached are the wiring diagrams form the servo drive, and the link to the servo kit:

www.omc-stepperonline.com/fr/kit-de-serv...p67-a6-rs750h2a1-m17 

Thanks for your help! 






 
 

"A big machine can kill you."

That's why we have licenses to drive automobiles, and a pretty steep barrier to entry for machine tools of this size

I don't want anyone to get hurt, but if someone does get hurt because they were being stupid, no amount of words or safety meetings will prevent it.

Truth does not depend on being proven.
The truth is the truth even when everyone shouts at you and laughs at you.
That's why I have no intention of proving anything.
But I will tell you something very important.
A CNC machine is not a toy.
Even a small desktop machine can waste your time, spoil expensive material, or injure you.
A big machine can kill you.

rodw wrote:

I don't know why this conversation got down to swap drives and building LinuxCNC from source. None of that is necessar. LinuxCNC only requires 4-8 gb RAM but I think I'd lean towards 8 gb today.
 

The author of topic asked for the latest version of LinuxCNC.
The latest version of LinuxCNC is compiled from latest sources...
Compilation of LinuxCNC is easy, easier than many things you have to do after.
Where see you problem?  

I agree, many things are not neccessary, for example PC computer is not neccessary, and LinuxCNC is not neccessary, you could use GRBL  controolled from smartphone, but this is not the subject of the topic.

Modern Linux needs 2 (two) gigabytes of RAM.
Some programs needs more, but LinuxCNC not belongs to them.
My computer I use to write this post (Ryzen 5 with 16 GB of RAM running Firefox on Debian 13.6 with xfce4) uses now 2 GB of RAM, and believe me, this may be less if less memory is installed.

I see, we are on different levels of using Linux...
For me copying whole partition to other disk is normal and often used procedure. I don't need unwanted dependiences, like system not starts without swap partion leaved on old disk. I not need any swap partition, because Linux can use for swap file placed on any mounted partition, and you can turn on/off swap when you need (swapon/swapoff).
Swap file is correct solution, swap partition is a prayer for troubles...

You may use defaults installation settings, and it should works, but why you deny talk about how do it better?


 

Try using the working 5V power supply with the non working Mesa.

' IF I unplug all of the ports on my lathe board and move it over to my mill, the mill does work and linuxcnc connects'

I assume you are using the same known working Ethernet cable in all cases so you can rule that out. Assuming you have the problematic 7i96s on your bench with only it's ethernet and good 5v power connected, I would probably cycle the power and the IP related jumpers (W4 and W5?) and see if you can get it to ping on any address. Beyond this, you can try using mesaflash with the card type and AUTO to try and scan to locate the card. I've had the EEPROM corrupt on my card once and needed to reflash with 'mesaflash --device 7I96s --write <path_to_firmware>.bit' to get communication working again.

I have been tinkering withit and managed to get the touch probe to work, 
what I think its happening is that QTplasmaC doesent want to run any Gcode or any of the user buttons, because the borders of the windows just turn white I click a button or hit cycle start

is it possible for the machine to jog correctly but not run Gcode?
what could be causing this?

All are for plasma machines, all tandem Y axis, all have home switches, and one is for parallel port.

I am using a single ethernet port on my computer where only one board is attached at any one given time (so I unplug one board and replug the second board)

Are you using seperate NIC's for each Mesa board?

I am really struggling to figure out what the issue is here and am looking for some help. Prior to moving states, I set up linuxcnc with my mill and it was working fine, I then purchased a lathe and another mesa board (both are 7i96s) and attempted to set it up and I was unable to do so, it took a lot of debugging with AI but eventually I found a way for both boards to work even though both were set at 10.10.10.10. However, now after moving, I have set everything back up, and my mill board does not communicate with my computer at all and I don't remember how to solve the issue. Here is what I know so far:

1. Originally, both boards were using EEPROM jumpers and 10.10.10.10 (and my HAL files reflect those IP addresses)
2. The default IP address has never worked for me for either board
3. Currently, my lathe board works correctly, when I plug it into my computer everything connects up right away and works as expected, it is also the last board I used prior to the move (meaning my lathe was the last machine I was using)
4. I am unable to ping the mill board, mesa flash does not recognize any 7i96s connected when the mill is plugged in, because of this, I cant change the IP address
5. the LED lights / sequences are identical in both boards on powering up
6. I tried upgrading linuxcnc and updating my packages and that did not help
7. IF I unplug all of the ports on my lathe board and move it over to my mill, the mill does work and linuxcnc connects


It feels like there is an IP address conflict or something else going on where it's expecting the lathe board because that's what was last used. I recall having this exact same issue when I first purchased the lathe but for the life of me I cant remember how I actually fixed it. I do not think the actual mesa board is broken in any way.

Does anyone have any big picture suggestions on what I can do for further debugging in terminal?

Yes, can Post it this afternoon. But Keeper ik mind it currently is configured for my bench test setup, and homes without homing Switches.