Taking the CNC Plunge

[TomS]

We have the same Z motor and driver. What are your dip switch settings on the Z driver?

My motor settings in Mach3 are: Steps = 16253.xxxx, Velocity = 49.998, Acceleration = 10, step pulse = 5, dir pulse = 5

My gut feeling is you may have a wiring issue.

My dip switch settings.

View attachment 100244

Here's a picture of my dip switch settings. They're different than yours. I'll need to look at the driver manual to see how these different settings affect motor performance. My steps are set the same, or nearly the same as yours. Mine are 16K plus but at the moment I don't have access to my computer with Mach 3 on it to verify the exact number. Velocity is the same but acceleration is set at 15. Step pulse and dir pulse are both set at 5. I did test the motors on the bench and all three turned in both directions. Obviously that's with no load. What should I be looking at in the wiring that might be causing this? I truly appreciate everyone's help. Thanks.

Tom S

 

[jbolt]

Your dip switch settings are the same as mine so you should be okay with that.

Check all your wire termination points at the motor, drive, power supply, BOB and panel connectors if you are using them. It's possible a wire does not have a solid connection at one of these points.

The 4200 oz stepper moves my mill head likes its not there.

Jay

 

[JimDawson]

I don't understand why the SSR doesn't work either, you have it wired correctly. As jbolt suggested, I would wire up a lamp and see it it will turn that on. The other thing I would do is put a 10mF capacitor across the 5 volt as a filter and see if that has any effect on the operation.

 

[jbolt]

I could use the contactors and that would solve the problem. But it bugs the hell out of me that it doesn't work and I don't know why.

Tom S

It may be that the power supply is not drawing enough current to turn the SSR on. It's my understanding if the SSR does not see a minimum current from the load they won't turn on.

Jay

 

[TomS]

Got to help a neighbor with a landscape project today. Won't get to testing the SSR or checking wiring until tomorrow. Thanks to all for your input.

Tom S

 

[TomS]

I checked all of the Z axis wiring to make sure I had good connections. Removed all of the control and power wires and ran continuity checks. All were good including the aviation plugs. So I fired it back up and when I reset the E-stop an error dialogue box popped up that said UC100 did not respond. I checked the connections and restarted Mach 3. Made sure the green and blue UC100 lights were lit and hit the E-stop button. Again I got the same error dialogue box. Restarted Mach 3 and selected the Plugin Control button, then clicked on UC100. Got another error dialogue box that said "UC100 not found. Please check the connection and restart Mach 3!" Restarted again and was able to open the UC100 I/O monitor. I noticed that the Max step rate was set at 100k Hz. This setting was different than the kernel speed setting in the Motor Tuning section, which was 25k Hz. I changed the kernel speed setting in the UC100 to match the motor tuning setting and closed the UC100 I/O monitor. Restarted Mach 3 again and now the E-stop will not reset. So I guess I will go back into the UC100 I/O Monitor and change the kernel speed back to 100k Hz even though the UC100 instructions are clear that the motor tuning and UC100 settings need to match. Sheesh! This is frustrating.

By the way I tested all four of my SSR's by using a lamp. Same for all four, no power to the lamp. So if the SSR needs to see current draw from the power supplies how is that done? Do you configure the motors to be in a braking mode at startup?

I did reset the Z axis motor tuning to about 25 velocity and 7 on acceleration. Haven't been able to test it yet because of the E-stop issues.

Tom S

 

[jbolt]

By the way I tested all four of my SSR's by using a lamp. Same for all four, no power to the lamp. So if the SSR needs to see current draw from the power supplies how is that done? Do you configure the motors to be in a braking mode at startup?

Tom S

Sorry you are having so much trouble. I know how frustrating it is.

Are you saying the SSR's worked with the lamp or not?

On the UC100, are you powering up all 3 axis at the same time or only one axis at a time for testing? I had a similar issue when one of the power supplies did not power on and the UC100 would fault. If you are testing one axis at a time with the power off to the other axis be sure to disable the other axis in Mach3.

Jay

 

[jbolt]

Also, change Mach3 to 100k on the port setup page.

Jay

 

[JimDawson]

I suspect that the kernel setting has nothing to do with the E-stop unless the UC100 is sending some kind of an error to Mach. I would look at the E-stop setting in Mach

I assume you are trying to turn on a known good, 60 Watt or so, 120V lamp with the SSRs. If they won't turn that on then I would say there is a major problem with the SSRs. The power supplies draw more than enough start up current to turn on the SSRs

 

[TomS]

Sorry you are having so much trouble. I know how frustrating it is.

Are you saying the SSR's worked with the lamp or not?

On the UC100, are you powering up all 3 axis at the same time or only one axis at a time for testing? I had a similar issue when one of the power supplies did not power on and the UC100 would fault. If you are testing one axis at a time with the power off to the other axis be sure to disable the other axis in Mach3.

Jay

The SSR's did not work with the lamp.

I'm powering up all three axis at the same time. But I do have good news. The two screws on the ends of the Z axis power supply/driver terminal block were loose. I turned them down about 4 turns to get them tight. After doing this the Z axis moves up and down and the UC100 error code doesn't come up. Evidently the terminal block wasn't making a good connection and tightening the screws cured it. We'll see.