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Controlling Stepper Motors
- Thread starter gwarner
- Start date
It was the dang cable. All 3 axis are now working!! Now time to actually hook then up to the machine. Those videos helped me diagnose it.
One thing I re-learned from this. Do one thing test then try another. I tried another cable earlier and assumed it was bad but I had changed so many things before that there was no chance of it working.
One thing I re-learned from this. Do one thing test then try another. I tried another cable earlier and assumed it was bad but I had changed so many things before that there was no chance of it working.
It’s alive!!!
I have spent the last few evenings mounting the motors, wiring her up, tweaking the settings and had to rig up the small z motor to gear drive as it was under powered for direct drive. Jim had said he figured it would be.
I housed the BOB and drivers in an old Hayes 14000 baud modem(remember those). I wired it with disconnects so I could use this controller on other devices.
I did this project mainly as a learning exercise and let me say it certainly has been. Tweaking the settings was a challenge. It kept telling me axis exceeds the machine limits. Since I don’t have hard stops wired in I had set soft limits to the machine. I eventually just changed that to higher numbers and the problems went away.
I still plan on tweaking it some more with paint, welding end pieces on the frame ends and perhaps a motor upgrade or redesign on the Z axis. I may throw on some limit switches as well. I still need to master G code since I have decided my next project will be a delta robot.
My goal was to do this cheap. I figure it cost me $65 out of pocket. Here were my costs.
Frame materials =$ 0 scrapped treadmill
Linear rails for x and y= $18 for 10 foot ¾ schedule 40 and 10’ 3/8 all thread
BOB and 3 motor controllers = $29
Parallel cables $10 for 3 one was bad. Only used one of them
Misc screws and nuts, Welding rod, sand paper, hose clamps, propane for furnace <$15
Motors and Power supply= $0 would have been around $60 if bought on ebay
Laptop was one we bought for Daughter when she first went to college 12 years ago. Has been sitting on a shelf unused for at least 7 years. I think we paid around $1200 back then. Could probably find similar specs for <$100 today.
I made various mounts and bearing holders from recycled aluminum.
And I burned a whole lot of electricity between all the testing, internet research, welding and time in shop.
Anyway thanks for the initial advice it got me going in the correct direction
Controller and cut.
I have spent the last few evenings mounting the motors, wiring her up, tweaking the settings and had to rig up the small z motor to gear drive as it was under powered for direct drive. Jim had said he figured it would be.
I housed the BOB and drivers in an old Hayes 14000 baud modem(remember those). I wired it with disconnects so I could use this controller on other devices.
I did this project mainly as a learning exercise and let me say it certainly has been. Tweaking the settings was a challenge. It kept telling me axis exceeds the machine limits. Since I don’t have hard stops wired in I had set soft limits to the machine. I eventually just changed that to higher numbers and the problems went away.
I still plan on tweaking it some more with paint, welding end pieces on the frame ends and perhaps a motor upgrade or redesign on the Z axis. I may throw on some limit switches as well. I still need to master G code since I have decided my next project will be a delta robot.
My goal was to do this cheap. I figure it cost me $65 out of pocket. Here were my costs.
Frame materials =$ 0 scrapped treadmill
Linear rails for x and y= $18 for 10 foot ¾ schedule 40 and 10’ 3/8 all thread
BOB and 3 motor controllers = $29
Parallel cables $10 for 3 one was bad. Only used one of them
Misc screws and nuts, Welding rod, sand paper, hose clamps, propane for furnace <$15
Motors and Power supply= $0 would have been around $60 if bought on ebay
Laptop was one we bought for Daughter when she first went to college 12 years ago. Has been sitting on a shelf unused for at least 7 years. I think we paid around $1200 back then. Could probably find similar specs for <$100 today.
I made various mounts and bearing holders from recycled aluminum.
And I burned a whole lot of electricity between all the testing, internet research, welding and time in shop.
Anyway thanks for the initial advice it got me going in the correct direction
Controller and cut.
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2015
- Messages
- 400
I'm on the verge of going down the same path you're on, in terms of getting LinuxCNC running on a PC. I had wanted to cross the bridge of some sort of connection other than parallel port, so it has been very valuable to me to read this. Thanks!
I'm building my second CNC mill, a Grizzly G0704 conversion, and want to take advantage of the greater capabilities it has over my small Sherline/A2ZCNC mill. I thought I needed to get past the parallel port.
I see that the new release of LinuxCNC supports Ethernet to a motion control board of some type. The PC I have to run this on is a 12 year old P4 2.6 GHz that has the last update to XP on it - for now. It has an Ethernet connection on the motherboard. I'm going to try to build one of those Live CDs so I can try LinuxCNC from the CD without installing everything now, just to make sure everything works. If I need a more modern PC, it would be a good time to know. Your experience with a laptop that's the same age is a good sign I won't.
I've been running Mach3 since '07 on a nearly identical PC. It looks like my choice is either Mach3 or 4 to get away from the parallel port, or stick with the parallel port and go to LinuxCNC.
I'm building my second CNC mill, a Grizzly G0704 conversion, and want to take advantage of the greater capabilities it has over my small Sherline/A2ZCNC mill. I thought I needed to get past the parallel port.
I see that the new release of LinuxCNC supports Ethernet to a motion control board of some type. The PC I have to run this on is a 12 year old P4 2.6 GHz that has the last update to XP on it - for now. It has an Ethernet connection on the motherboard. I'm going to try to build one of those Live CDs so I can try LinuxCNC from the CD without installing everything now, just to make sure everything works. If I need a more modern PC, it would be a good time to know. Your experience with a laptop that's the same age is a good sign I won't.
I've been running Mach3 since '07 on a nearly identical PC. It looks like my choice is either Mach3 or 4 to get away from the parallel port, or stick with the parallel port and go to LinuxCNC.
I have only used the parallel port to control motors so far.
When I thought I may have a bad BOB I ordered a couple more of them. I have 3 breakout boards that all use the parallel.
I really like Linxcnc as the stepper configuration could not be simpler.
I have finished the cnc project and started on my Delta robot project. I have the arms made and tonight I was working on installing the code to control the kinematics. It was one of the reasons I went with Linuxcnc. My initial research showed that Mach3 wont support kinematics.
I am afraid I still have several hurdles before I will see a working model. But this exercise is about me learning. Robotics and 3d printing are our future. I feel like I am years behind and have a lot of catching up to do.
When I thought I may have a bad BOB I ordered a couple more of them. I have 3 breakout boards that all use the parallel.
I really like Linxcnc as the stepper configuration could not be simpler.
I have finished the cnc project and started on my Delta robot project. I have the arms made and tonight I was working on installing the code to control the kinematics. It was one of the reasons I went with Linuxcnc. My initial research showed that Mach3 wont support kinematics.
I am afraid I still have several hurdles before I will see a working model. But this exercise is about me learning. Robotics and 3d printing are our future. I feel like I am years behind and have a lot of catching up to do.