Jamie's PM-30 build. Clear Path. Acorn. Arizona. Enclosure.

[7milesup]

Yeah, that is quite the setup!! Surround sound and nearly surround vision! Love it.

 

[macardoso]

Hi Jamie,

I've done a G0704 conversion to AC servo (Allen Bradley), Mach 4, Smoothstepper and have offered engineering designs services to people looking to use Acorn + Clearpath on CNC routers, so I'm intimately familiar with them.

Happy to answer specific technical questions if you run into anything.

General thoughts:

• Mach 4 is likely the best system for low cost + highly customizable IMO. I built a custom drive interface through LUA and streaming serial to display drive diagnostics on the screen.
• Ethernet Smoothstepper is the best Mach 4 motion controller IMO. Lots are unstable or have poor IO performance
• Mach 4 is probably 98% stable. Some things, usually bleeding edge features, break if you test them to their limits. Not going to bother a casual user.
• Mach 4 is constantly being worked on - big plus.
• LUA scripting, painful learning curve but very capable. You're able to do almost anything other than edit the core motion controller.
• Acorn is pretty easy to setup and seems to work well. My customer seems happy with his choice.
• Acorn is all supplied by one company. Concise and easy to follow documentation and directions. Good technical support.
• Acorn control board is sensitive to electrical noise. This could be an issue if you want to put a VFD in the box with it. Hard to troubleshoot
• You're stuck with Centroid's ecosystem if you go Acorn. Adding IO is quite expensive. $400 per 16 inputs and 16 outputs.
• There is some limited scripting available with the Acorn.
• I used to preach DMM servos. I've had mixed feelings lately. They have some of the lowest cost systems that aren't import junk, but they still lack some features I consider to be important to a hobby guy (good GUI setup utility, autotuning , etc.)
• AutomationDirect has some reasonably priced AC servo packages now as well with A+ customer support.
• Stay away from eBay/China AC servos. Horrible documentation. Not worth it for any cost savings.
• Clearpath is more expensive than some lower cost servos thanks to the "on motor" servo drive. To me, this isn't really a huge benefit, but their product seams to work very well and is easy to set up.

 

[Jamie_Murray]

Hi Jamie,

I've done a G0704 conversion to AC servo (Allen Bradley), Mach 4, Smoothstepper and have offered engineering designs services to people looking to use Acorn + Clearpath on CNC routers, so I'm intimately familiar with them.

Happy to answer specific technical questions if you run into anything.

General thoughts:

• Mach 4 is likely the best system for low cost + highly customizable IMO. I built a custom drive interface through LUA and streaming serial to display drive diagnostics on the screen.
• Ethernet Smoothstepper is the best Mach 4 motion controller IMO. Lots are unstable or have poor IO performance
• Mach 4 is probably 98% stable. Some things, usually bleeding edge features, break if you test them to their limits. Not going to bother a casual user.
• Mach 4 is constantly being worked on - big plus.
• LUA scripting, painful learning curve but very capable. You're able to do almost anything other than edit the core motion controller.
• Acorn is pretty easy to setup and seems to work well. My customer seems happy with his choice.
• Acorn is all supplied by one company. Concise and easy to follow documentation and directions. Good technical support.
• Acorn control board is sensitive to electrical noise. This could be an issue if you want to put a VFD in the box with it. Hard to troubleshoot
• You're stuck with Centroid's ecosystem if you go Acorn. Adding IO is quite expensive. $400 per 16 inputs and 16 outputs.
• There is some limited scripting available with the Acorn.
• I used to preach DMM servos. I've had mixed feelings lately. They have some of the lowest cost systems that aren't import junk, but they still lack some features I consider to be important to a hobby guy (good GUI setup utility, autotuning , etc.)
• AutomationDirect has some reasonably priced AC servo packages now as well with A+ customer support.
• Stay away from eBay/China AC servos. Horrible documentation. Not worth it for any cost savings.
• Clearpath is more expensive than some lower cost servos thanks to the "on motor" servo drive. To me, this isn't really a huge benefit, but their product seams to work very well and is easy to set up.

Macardoso,

Thank you so much for the information and your offer for assistance. I really appreciate it.

I have been considering going Acorn thanks to James's video on YouTube (Clough42) which listed a pretty detailed electronics build along with power domain considerations to keep noise low. Link below. I've also watched some of Marty's videos, but still have a ton to learn.

While cost is always a factor, what I am most concerned with is ease of installation and reliability. I am very ignorant when it comes to VFD, so my plan was to simply get the mill up and running with the stock PM-30 3000RPM spindle motor, then use that motivation along with the frustration of slow detailed work with small cutters to begin the VFD portion of the build. I'm trying to consider as much as possible in the beginning while approaching the build in a tiered approach. I would most certainly mount the VFD in a separate enclosure on the opposite side of the mill.

I don't think I need additional IO? Flood coolant, power draw bar, E-stop, possibly an ATC setup at some point(probably an indexed carousel) and three motors is all I can think of. Is there any unknown unknown here?

Tom over at Teknic was very responsive to my emails and answered any questions I had. That, along with a three year warranty is hard to beat I would think?

Thank you for the recommendation, I will definitely check out AutomationDirect when the time comes for the VFD "phase" of the build. (see what I did there?)

 

[Jamie_Murray]

Also, thanks for the comments all. I took a quick video of the office since there seems to be some interest here.

 

[ptrotter]

On my PM-940V I used the Arizona CNC conversion kit, Acorn and Clearpath and I am very happy with it.

 

[Jamie_Murray]

On my PM-940V I used the Arizona CNC conversion kit, Acorn and Clearpath and I am very happy with it.

Thanks for the feedback. Seems like everyone is happy with it. I placed the order for the ballscrews from ArizonaCNC. Just going to do a little at a time!

 

[koenbro]

Acorn + ClearPath here. Ask me anything. Also have a Mach4 + stepper setup for a plasma table (Avid Pro).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Jamie_Murray]

Acorn + ClearPath here. Ask me anything. Also have a Mach4 + stepper setup for a plasma table (Avid Pro).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Thank you! I'm spending a few hours going through Marty's videos as well as others and building out my parts list. I'll post it before I start buying most things.

 

[Jamie_Murray]

Does anyone have a spindle recommendation for the PM-30MV?

Given the flex of the machine, I am considering going with the CNCDepot FM-30F with a Hitachi WJ200VFD; but I'm terribly ignorant in this regard. My thoughts are that a spindle with ATC built in would save me from having to use a power draw bar. Having a labyrinth seal with dry air solves both the issue of cooling as well as contamination ingress.

I don't mind spending the money....I just want to understand my options.

 

[macardoso]

Does anyone have a spindle recommendation for the PM-30MV?

Given the flex of the machine, I am considering going with the CNCDepot FM-30F with a Hitachi WJ200VFD; but I'm terribly ignorant in this regard. My thoughts are that a spindle with ATC built in would save me from having to use a power draw bar. Having a labyrinth seal with dry air solves both the issue of cooling as well as contamination ingress.

I don't mind spending the money....I just want to understand my options.

Design Discussion: High Performance CNC Spindle

I have been doing research on building a high performance spindle for a medium to large size benchtop CNC mill for a few months. I recently found out that @shooter123456 was also working on similar goals and I wanted to create this post to collect information and share ideas. I'm sure he and I...

www.hobby-machinist.com

I’m on vacation right now. Happy to share more thoughts later on, but this might get you started.