PathPilot controlled lathe toolchanger

micknucam wrote: Hello IronMan

Sorry for late reply been ill with the corvid bug !

I will sort them out for you I don’t use the turret ! I will get the files off my mate george! There’s also a bit file that has a pwm output.

Hello micknucam !!

Hope you feel better.
Vit D3, Zinc and Selenium are the key.

Thanks,

Iron-Man

As far as I can work out...

Pathpilot sends pulse width for tool number and a "Go" digital output

Tool changer moves to desired position and gives back an "ok" signal
Easily replicated with an Arduino, just to respond correctly..i did it with a multimeter to measure the pwm and go signal and a wire link to say DONE..

Seemed to behave correctly.

It's all in the Hal file you just have to reverse engineer it

How you move the turret and establish actual position is another thing...i'll look into a Siemens s7-1200 cpu..it has analog in and stepper pulse and dir output.......

Project For another day!..

Hope this helps

way back when I mentioned the zbot code. this was incorrect. zbot is for the MILL tool changer.

for lathe it the lathe control board reads a PWM signal where
10% = Tool 1
20% = Tool 2
...
80% = Tool 8
90% = No Tool/Manual Tool

these are the 3 signals it uses from the hal file

# ChrgPump/Tool# 17 7 IOPort PWM 0 PWM (Out) # 500Hz 90 % duty cycle for charge pump / for tool #1 is 10%, 2 is 20%, 8 is 80%, 90% is non-ATC tool
# ATC Reference 7 10 IOPort None 0 Gpio (Out) hm2_[HOSTMOT2](BOARD).0.gpio.010.is_output
# ATC Forward 8 11 IOPort None 0 Gpio (Out) hm2_[HOSTMOT2](BOARD).0.gpio.011.out

on the ATC board its very simple
There is UVW going to the motor
24vdc in
and 9 Optically couple inputs/outputs
which enclude a Encoder, A+/A-.B+/B-,Z+/Z- this accounts for 6 of the 9
theres 2 relays for Forward/Reverse
I havent figured 3 of them out yet since I do not have a tormach tool changer

fyi the ZBOT is controlled via USB and is a HAL Component so you need the source code to see.

Wish I had found this thread sooner, i have been pondering if there are any prerequisites or special considerations to adding an atc hal component. Specifically as pathpilot utilises the pwm signal.

As an added precaution add a absolute encoder to the tool changer I just used a simple 3 bit binary code and an in position bit. I am busy finishing off my mx clone and ATC at the moment. If you need any info I will be glad to help.

Much appreciated, I'm converting an avm cnc lathe with a baruffaldi RH150 6 position electric turret. I have a hal toolchanger component for a similar turret that I can modify but I was wondering if it's as straight forward as with linuxcnc. Are there other hoops to jump through in software/configurations?

Might just start another thread for this, I'd prefer not to hijack this one.

PS. im working with JonnyDeen on his lathe conversion.
I have figured out the turret tool position and cn generate a pwm signal based on 10%, 20% etc up to 60% as jonnys turret is only a 6 tool changer - at some point a change will have to be made in PP to play with a 6 instead of an 8 changer. The plan is to build a breakout board to accept the ribbon cable from the mesa 7i95 and allow for machine wiring to be made to the board. The board will also house an Arduino Nano (not PIC) to control the turret, some steps have been made in that direction. it may have an issue with the PWM matching what PP expects 200ms ? typical pwm. a big issue is understanding the limit switches there is a frequency transmitted to mesa P3 pin 16 Door switch which represents the limit switch ie X limit, Y limit, door etc muxed on to a single pin.
does anyone know what the inputs 00 to 15 represent ie is 00 x, 01 y etc and is a single frequency transmitted when only 1 event is triggered or is it the same principle as BCD where an output is generated by an accumulation of events or is decremented from a fixed freq output. The plan would be to use a second Arduino nano to handle the limit switches and connect its output directly to mesa board P3-pin 16 via the constructed breakout board.

From hal file

what is the defaul frequency with zero triggers
and where are these inputs handled ie a python script/the application code

Much appreciated
J.

You don't need to use the second PWM i got rid of it and used an OR gate, this is my hal file but i don't have a tool changer attached !!

When you say second pwm, you mean the door/limit switches right?

micknucam wrote: You don't need to use the second PWM i got rid of it and used an OR gate, this is my hal file but i don't have a tool changer attached !!

micknucam thanks for your response

ahh so you used the 7i76
Is there a way to do it do it with an external Xor cct and not using a 7i76 daughter board.
current sittuation is to purchase the masa 7i76 daughter board from EU Surplus our local supplier, since Brexit and the EU sorting their lives out the £76 daughter board will cost us just under £300 with wto tarrif and import taxes.
Pin 16 is accessable so how can we connect to it with a muxed Xor with just a 7i92.
im reading through the file you sent but if you could highlight the right section it would help a lot.