[Noisebridge-discuss] getting that goddamned mill to work

[Michael Wright]

Hi,

So in playing with it Tuesday night, it looks like we actually have a  
MaxNC 10 CL (closed loop).  Each stepper motor has an external  
sensor.  From what I can tell this means it does accept Step and  
Direction inputs, if it fails to make the requested move it turns on  
one of the other pins so the computer knows.

After running the Jitter-Test program on the computer I have the  
sinking suspicion that the machine we're trying to use isn't good  
enough to send step and direction commands.  Basically the results I  
got from the jitter test were about 10X the highest value the EMC2 UI  
will let you set as allowable.  I did get PWM output on the Spindle  
Drive to work, though it was way way way more surgy than I'd ever want  
to use for actual machining.  This does fit with that particular  
computer just not being sufficient for the task.

It's important to note that whereas everything else we use with a  
computer has buffering built in, the CNC mill is controlled by the CPU  
turning individual IO pins in the parallel port on and off.

My current thinking is to test this evening with one or two loaner  
boxes and if that can be made to work sort out getting something  
usable surplus or donated.

In terms of online research, it looks like Mach 3 claims to support  
our mill. It's windows, but the free version supports like 500 gcode  
lines.
http://www.machsupport.com/


I found a copy of the XML config file they use with Mach 3 for the  
MaxNC 15 CL, here's the part that seems most useful.  It looks like  
this file assumes no A axis, and from reading other posts from their  
site it looks like pin or port 0 means about the same as /dev/null.   
I'm not sure what they mean by DirNeg, but I suspect that means  
inverted logic.

<YStepPin>4</YStepPin>
<YDirPin>5</YDirPin>
<XStepPin>6</XStepPin>
<XDirPin>7</XDirPin>
<ZStepPin>8</ZStepPin>
<ZDirPin>9</ZDirPin>

<XDirNeg>1</XDirNeg>
<XStepNeg>1</XStepNeg>
<YDirNeg>1</YDirNeg>
<YStepNeg>1</YStepNeg>
<ZDirNeg>1</ZDirNeg>
<ZStepNeg>1</ZStepNeg>



more verbose list:

<AAxisOn>0</AAxisOn>
<PWM>1</PWM>
<BAxisOn>0</BAxisOn>
<CAxisOn>0</CAxisOn>
<XAxisOn>1</XAxisOn>
<YAxisOn>1</YAxisOn>
<ZAxisOn>1</ZAxisOn>
<SpindleControl>1</SpindleControl>
<Port2On>0</Port2On>
<Port1On>1</Port1On>
<Port1Add>888</Port1Add>
<Port2Add>632</Port2Add>
<Activate1In>1</Activate1In>

<XDirPort>1</XDirPort>
<XDirPin>7</XDirPin>
<XStepPort>1</XStepPort>
<XStepPin>6</XStepPin>
<XDirNeg>1</XDirNeg>
<XStepNeg>1</XStepNeg>
<YDirPort>1</YDirPort>
<YDirPin>5</YDirPin>
<YStepPort>1</YStepPort>
<YStepPin>4</YStepPin>
<YDirNeg>1</YDirNeg>
<YStepNeg>1</YStepNeg>
<ZDirPort>1</ZDirPort>
<ZDirPin>9</ZDirPin>
<ZStepPort>1</ZStepPort>
<ZStepPin>8</ZStepPin>
<ZDirNeg>1</ZDirNeg>
<ZStepNeg>1</ZStepNeg>
<ADirPort>1</ADirPort>
<ADirPin>8</ADirPin>
<AStepPort>1</AStepPort>
<AStepPin>9</AStepPin>
<ADirNeg>0</ADirNeg>
<AStepNeg>0</AStepNeg>

Useful URLs
ftp://www.artsoftcontrols.com/XMLs/

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=69477&d=1226511572





On Oct 1, 2009, at 1:30 PM, Jonathan Foote wrote:

> Thanks seph, that's excellent info. I confirmed the pinout (there were
> a couple different ones floating around the net) and Ani said they got
> the tool motor working with EMC2 (yay!) -- albeit from the CD-ROM and
> not a native disk install.
>
> I'll be there this afternoon with some free cycles and would like to
> poke at it some more. Any advice on getting the native install going?
> Is that just a matter of finding a disk that works?
>
> Cheers,
>
> -J
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 7:35 PM, seph <seph at directionless.org> wrote:
>> Hi all, I'm a boston person. I've been lurking, and love the idea.  
>> If I
>> ever make it back to SF, I'll visit. Meanwhile:
>>
>> Ani Niow <v at oneletterwonder.com> writes:
>>
>>> In the shop we have a small blue CNC only mill that would be  
>>> wonderful for
>>> making custom circuit boards and machining small metal parts. No  
>>> one has
>>> been able to figure out how to run it however. A group of us tried  
>>> getting
>>> LinuxCNC (http://linuxcnc.org/) to connect to it but the trouble  
>>> is it
>>> doesn't support the controller used in the mill.
>>
>> I assume this is a MaxNC OL mill? I just dealt with this.
>>
>> They work okay, the mill itself isn't great, but hey they work.
>>
>> I don't know what controller you have, but the one I have is pretty
>> cheap. It's a kinda cruddy board, with a bunch of transistors on
>> it. It's got a parallel port on it, and a pretty straightforward  
>> wiring
>> setup.
>>
>> You can get emc2 to work with it. It's just that all the emc2  
>> examples
>> are for step+direction controllers, where this is a
>> wavedrive/phasedrive/whatever you want to call it. Totally works, but
>> took me forever to figure out. HAL is powerful, but baroque.
>>
>> I suspect it's fastest to use emc2, though if your motivated, there  
>> are
>> lots of interesting upgrade paths. (Replacing the spindle motor, the
>> steppers, the controller...)
>>
>> Anyhow, since I don't have a blog, I've dumped a gif with the pinout,
>> and my emc2 configs up at
>> http://www.directionless.org/tmp/maxnc/maxnc10ol/
>>
>> have fun
>>
>> seph
>> _______________________________________________
>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>>
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