[Noisebridge-discuss] getting that goddamned mill to work

Fri Oct 2 03:12:55 UTC 2009

Wow Michael,
That's awesome progress!

--S

On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Michael Wright <mike at smallip.com> wrote:

> 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
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> > Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
> _______________________________________________
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>

-- 
Shannon Lee
(503) 539-3700

"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/attachments/20091001/5ac7dffc/attachment-0003.html>