H.E.S. 24NCS Lathe (24 X 60) conversion

canner wrote: I am working on this machine again and have a question about the stepper motor drivers. The current drivers are microkinetics dr8010. I have not been able to find the information on these drives that I will need for setting them up with linuxcnc (stepon time and such). I have called the company and emailed them as well without getting an answer. if someone know that the timing requirements are for these drives that would be great. If not should I look for replacements or is there another way to figure this information out..

You can just guess. The times just have to be "long enough" and 5uS (5000nS) is generally long enough.

However, the manual:
www.microkinetics.com/pdfmanuals/DR8010.pdf
Says 50uS for the LO level (which is space, but as the driver input circuit is shown as active-low this is a little confusing)
I suspect that the 50uS they quote is related to the max step rate of 16kHz. If you tell LinuxCNC that there is a 12.5uS step length and a 50uS space length then you should be pretty safe.

They say that the inputs need 30mA, so some parallel-ports might struggle. However, it is shown wired as a sink (you can get a handy 5V for the control inputs from the PC USB port) so should be OK.

As a suggestion for the drives, I would consider Granite Devices. They can handle the power you require and they can be used for steppers (not sure if one drive can handle 2 steppers, but they can handle 2 DC servo motors).

As a suggestion for the drives, I would consider Granite Devices. They can handle the power you require and they can be used for steppers (not sure if one drive can handle 2 steppers, but they can handle 2 DC servo motors).

As a suggestion for the drives, I would consider Granite Devices. They can handle the power you require and they can be used for steppers (not sure if one drive can handle 2 steppers, but they can handle 2 DC servo motors).

I am sorry for all the posts, but I received a error in the forum and I though the post was not placed

Thanks for the suggestions here, I will go ahead and try and make the drives I have work and then if not look for replacements.

Russell

Well I have both axis moving and am happy so far with with acceleration and velocity with one major exception. On the z axis only when the motor changes direction it move a few thousands and then throws a follow error. But after the first change of direction as long as you continue in that direction then it does not happen again until you change directions again and then it is exactly the same process. What is odd about this is that the x axis does not do this even though the drives and settings are exactly the same. The motors are not identical but they are close. I tried increasing the step space and on time without any luck so far but I need to experiment more with this. Does anyone have any suggestions of where to start? This is a stepper setup.

canner wrote: On the z axis only when the motor changes direction it move a few thousands and then throws a follow error.
…
This is a stepper setup.

You can only get an f-error with a stepper system when the _software_ doesn't think it has been able to make all the required steps in the available time.
I suspect in this case that the problem is with the stepgen.2.maxaccel value. You can see this in the .hal file and it is _probably_ set by a STEPGEN_MAXACCEL parameter in the .ini file (but it is worth checking).
This number needs to have some "headroom" on top of the axis max acceleration (in the same section of the INI file). 10% should be enough.

Andy,

You were right it was in the .hal file, the value set there was 5 and I played around with it and found that by doubling it to 10 the problem went away. Thanks for the help.

Hello again, it has been several years since I have been working on the configuration for this machine but have the time to work on it again. Were things stand now is that the machine works but is not done. I have been busy with work for the last couple of years and have been learning how to use a cnc lathe in addition.

I need to connect the VFD driver (an automation direct GS-2) into the computer, connect the spindle encoder into the computer, and connect the braking unit, also purchased from automation direct, into the driver. As a refresher I have a Mesa 5i25 card with this lathe that has been great so far.

I have done a few searches on integrating the GS-2 and talks of downloading a driver and the connecting a mod bus cable. Is that the correct way to go with this? I need to go back and read the documentation on the 5i25 again for a refresher, it might say in there. If you can steer me in the right direction on where to look it would be greatly appreciated.