188 replies to this topic

[John Cutburth]

I have built my Drivers and have my motors. Now I am just waiting for my breadboards and wires to come in. I was going to share some pics but it looks like I have to upload them to someplace first.

[Darrin]

I have built my Drivers and have my motors. Now I am just waiting for my breadboards and wires to come in.

I was going to share some pics but it looks like I have to upload them to someplace first.

That's great!

You should be able to upload your photos right here, I do it all the time. Just use the Attachments feature below the area where you type in your message.

[John Cutburth]

ok i figured i out.

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[Chris Walker]

That's some intracite hand soldering, John. Thanks for sharing these! I'm excited to see these machines in motion... Chris

[Darrin]

That's some intracite hand soldering, John. Thanks for sharing these! I'm excited to see these machines in motion...

Chris

Hi Chris,

You can see my machine in motion here:

[Darrin]

ok i figured i out.

Nice job with the Drivers John, I love them they are a real treat to work with!

[Chris Walker]

Hi Darrin, Wow, that's impressive. Are you going to write a how-to and/or provide the source for your CNC machine? Good work! Chris

[Darrin]

Hi Darrin,

Wow, that's impressive.

Are you going to write a how-to and/or provide the source for your CNC machine?

Good work!

Chris

Hey thanks Chris!

I have posted the source for the machine (both Netduino and windows code) - it was a few pages back. TGIPhil has been kind enough to share it on his github account until I get one setup. It's easily lost in all of these replies though, so I'll link to it again here:

https://github.com/tgiphil/DazCAM

As far as a how-to, I may do that one day. I can certainly write-up and diagram the electronics, but the mechanics I have just been winging on-the-fly so I'm not sure where I would start with a write-up on that. Maybe just a lot of pictures of the details, and the CAD files I made might be useful?

[John Cutburth]

I am wanting to test my drivers and motors is there some simple code I can use to test them.

[Darrin]

Hey John, its not too tough to fire it up with my code. Download the 2 apps from the github link a few posts back, then load the dazcam app into visual studio and build it into the netduino. Assuming you are using the same pins as me, you shouldn't have to change anything. You can verify your pin configuration in the top lines of code in the program.cs class. The important ones are the stepper driver pins (direction, step, ms0, ms1 and enable). Next, fire up the dazcamui solution in visual studio and run it. Go to settings (under the machine menu) and enter the ip address for your netduino, and close the window. At this point, turn on the netduino and wait for it to boot. Then turn on your 12v power source for the motors. Then ping the netduino (again from the machine menu) to make sure they are communicating. If that works, clear e-stop and start to issue movement commands with the controls in the ui. My email address is planetdaz@gmail.com if you need more specific help.

[John Cutburth]

thanks I will give this a try as soon as my breadboards come in.

[Dan Morphis]

Yes I'm using a computer power supply and it works great. If you need more power you may want to consider something bigger.

You can buy an HP DPS-600PB server power supply off ebay for around $15 which will supply almost 50 amps. It will require some modding to add the terminal posts though. I use it to drive the spindle for my CNC.

If your looking for a fully assembled solution that will provide just shy of a 100 amps, a very good friend of mine sells a fully converted HP DPS-600PB (x2) for $47. His target market is R/C where they use them to drive their battery chargers. I've seen the kits in person, and he uses really high quality components, no 16 AWG wire :-)

If your not interested in buy his kit, get some *good* 30 amp binding posts. You can use the kit details for a parts list if need be.

BTW, I don't get a cut of the proceeds, just recommending them because they are HQ!

-dan

[John Cutburth]

So I have a few question after doing some reading.


You have you motors plugged into the 12v on a PC power supply, do you know how many amps are being drawn for all 3 motors?
Curious because I have a PC power supply I can borrow from my media center but it would be short term. I have an abundance or 12v and higher power bricks from dead devices and was thinking about trying one if them.


Also I read that you need to have 24v to 36v to drive Nema 17 at full speed, have you seen any issues driving them at lower voltage?
You said the 5v is coming from the Netduino, are you plugging it into a computer or a separate wall plug?
Why not just power it from the 5v on the PC power supply?




Sorry for all the question but I will be trying to run some test tonight and would like to make sure I don't mess things up.

[Darrin]

I haven't measured the current drain, but I would budget 2 amps per motor (since that is the limit of the drivers) Yes you probably could use the same power supply to drive the netduino. However I found that I was plugged into the usb much of the time for development and debugging, so I power mine through that cable (plugged into a wall-wart). One day I would like to upgrade to a higher voltage supply, but 12v has done great so far. I'm able to get 60 inches per minute for rapid traverse and I cut at 40 IPM with plenty of authority. When I upsize to a 4'x8' bed (oh boy, can't wait!!) I'll be wanting faster speeds and more V's!

[John Cutburth]

Hmm so I have a power brick that is 24v and 2.2amp so I could use it to test one motor / driver at a time but for all 3 I would need something like a PC Power supply

[Darrin]

Hmm so I have a power brick that is 24v and 2.2amp so I could use it to test one motor / driver at a time but for all 3 I would need something like a PC Power supply

For a test, you would be fine with that. You won't be driving any loads, so it won't draw much. On the driver boards, you can just turn down the maximum amps.

[John Cutburth]

I just ordered my CNC kit from http://www.shapeoko.com/ last week so once it comes in I will be up and running. Things have been quit around this topic for a while, has there been any updates or improvements this last month.

[Darrin]

I just ordered my CNC kit from http://www.shapeoko.com/ last week so once it comes in I will be up and running. Things have been quit around this topic for a while, has there been any updates or improvements this last month.

Send us pictures when you get your kit put together!

I've been using my machine every week, just haven't done any improvements to it lately. I've been focused on my wooden clock design and making gears and experimenting with various hardwoods. I'll post more pics and vids soon!

[netduinonube]

Hey Darrin, Just moved my CNC machine over to your Neduino code and I am loving the GUI I'm still having a problem setting the steppers speed above a slow crawl Any help would be much appreciated. Cheers

[Darrin]

Hey Darrin,
Just moved my CNC machine over to your Neduino code and I am loving the GUI
I'm still having a problem setting the steppers speed above a slow crawl
Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Hi James,

Glad to hear you're liking the program. I'm happy to help figure out the problems you're having. Instead of consuming a lot of bandwidth in this thread, perhaps we should switch to email to coordinate times and arrange to then be in the chat room (on this site) to work on it together. Or perhaps Skype even?

Working this out might require some cooperative fidgeting and tinkering (which is a very scientific process you know).

You can contact me at planetdaz@gmail.com and we can go from there!

Cheers,
Darrin