PM-940m CNC - VS Motion Controller Conversion to Centroid Acorn

[pburgh]

PZ, Sam has the price listed at the top of his video. Here's what he has listed:

Published on Aug 5, 2017

In this video I am excited to show you the Hallmark Design Ltd. Impact Tolerant Touch Probe. This Touch probe is made specifically to provide precision and accuracy while being Tolerant of impacts in all directions. ( NO MORE BROKEN STYLUS) I was selected as a Mach 3 user to do some beta testing, The probe was originally designed for the Tormach PCNC machines. As you know Mach3 does not come standard with Auto probing routines and the few I found on the Zone were not what I was looking for so I have modified these extensively to work well with the I.T.T.P. Some testing is still needed but as shown in the video they work quite well. If you would like more information you can contact me. Please comment and let me know if the content is spot on or you would like more information and details.Thanks for watching , please subscribe, thumbs up if you like the video, and most importantly , Be Safe!

Pricing: $695 $20 shipping to USA
Contact info: https://www.youtube.com/user/Threadex...

 

[phazertwo]

Wow, that's about half cost of the Centroid DP-4... But still way more than the cheapo Tormach unit. Hopefully you get what you pay for and judging by Sams review, you do.

It would seem that your panel layout is quite a bit different than mine. Can you snap an overall shot of the cabinet layout, I would like to see how yours is done. If I ever get my internet situation figured out I'll post some pics of how I mounted mine.

PZ

 

[pburgh]

Hey Guys,
Did you have to do anything to switch input voltage on the meanwell power supply? I don't see a selector switch, and there is notihing on the online doc, so i'm assuming it's auto-ranging.
Regards,
Doug

 

[phazertwo]

Hey Guys,
Did you have to do anything to switch input voltage on the meanwell power supply? I don't see a selector switch, and there is notihing on the online doc, so i'm assuming it's auto-ranging.
Regards,
Doug

Is the voltage out of range? I checked mine before I bench tested and it was 24v on the nose. Also, looks like it might be too late for you, but I just used the 940's factory 24VDC power supply... made things a little easier and cleaner.

Anyway, I finally have real internetz at my house again! So here are some pics of how I mounted the Acorn, should leave me plenty of room for a 4th driver in the future... (let me know if you cannot see the pics, I've never posted pics like this...)




The system is powered up, for some reason I don't have motion, though I suspect it has something to do with the enable circuit ,hopefully I will get that figured out tomorrow. Also it turns out that you don't need to re-wire the switches, replace the e-stop, or anything, you can just select NO instead of NC in the wizard. NC is still a much better/safer way to go, so I'm still going to swap out the e-stop.

Cabinet still needs it's final clean up, but will happen after she's tested out and I'm 100% sure i'm not going to change wiring again.

Here is a link to the 5v power supply I used. I wanted something small and DIN mounted.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HTH3LSE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Also, here is the E-Stop that I'm going to use. Should be a drop in replacement
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0094GM004/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

[pburgh]

Wow PZ, your cabinet is wired a little different than mine. I asked about the power supply because I didn't want it to be damaged if I had to manually set the input voltage. I didn't see anything that would indicate that on the new meanwell dual output voltage power supply, but I wanted to be sure that the input voltage was auto-ranging. The 24v power supply that came with the mill has a warning tag of setting the input voltage switch on the power supply, but I can't see a selector switch. I swapped out the e-stop with one with a NC contact and added a jog switch for the series limits. In the process now of switching the limits to NC and tracing out the commons so I hook them up right. Luckily there was a spare wire going to the control arm, so I was able to wire the jog switch easily. I was going to pull some extra wire to the control arm box, but it's not as easy as I suspected it would be. They used a spiral wrap on the wires and it's acting like a Chinese finger. I don't want to remove all of the wiring and pull it all back in again. So for now I'll just leave it as it is. Hopefully, i'll get some time tomorrow to work on it in the morning. it's getting cold here again, and it makes it uncomfortable to work in the garage. I'm losing my northern blood. Been in Florida too long.
Regards,
Doug

 

[phazertwo]

You should snap a picture of your cabinet. I'm interested to see what the layout looks like.

PZ

 

[pburgh]

Sorry I thought I posted pics. Here they are.

 

[qualitymachinetools]

Looks GREAT!

 

[phazertwo]

Well I got mine running last night. I spent a about an hour pulling my hair out trying to figure out why the X-axis just would not go. It was making crazy noises even when it wasn't be actuated. Turns out that that A+ and B+ wires were loose in their ferrules, so it had intermittent connection. Got those re-ferruled and BOOM! SHE'S ROCKIN'!

I got the X-axis tuned, and I'm running 125 IPM on X and Y which is 25IPM faster than with the nMotion and it seems way smoother! The high today is 25°F so I'm not going to be making it out to the garage tonight. But there is light at the end of the tunnel!

PZ

 

[pburgh]

That's great to hear PZ. I'm hoping to get mine running tonight. Still have to be sure that the VFD is connected correctly. My wiring was different than Jake's, so I have to take a closer look.
Regards,
Doug