On Monday, November 14, 2011 11:11:37 PM Chris Reynolds did opine: > So I've been running my mini-mill with EMC2 now for almost 2 years, and > I've gotten to where I'm interested in having the spindle controlled by > EMC2, as well as possibly a tool changer. So I started reading the wiki > about spindle control, and I've been reading through the HAL manual, > and quite honestly I feel dumb. > > > There are so many things that I don't get, like do I need to ditch the > motor controller that's in the mini-mill and replace it with an > H-Bridge? Or do I somehow tie EMC2 into the existing motor controller > circuit board? etc etc.
There are, as has been said, more than one way to skin a cat. In my case, I looked around for a device that could replace the speed potentiometer in my micro-mills controller, bearing in mind that this pot is electrically hot, so this "electronic" pot has to be isolated, opto or however, in order that you won't let the magic smoke it runs on, out. I chose a PMDX-106 interface, moved the mill heads PCB out of the flying oil from the gears and into a big R. Shack project box, along with the PMDX-106 which is powered by a big wall wart, followed the instructions to hook it up, adding direction & dead man relays controlled by the micro- relays on the PMDX-106, which in combination with the mode switches and manual pot on the PMDX-106, gave me full manual control just like the OEM kit did, then a few lines of code in the .hal file and it works exactly as expected from gcode. The only problem I have had is I blew the power hexfet on the micro-mills pcb, scouted around and found I had an endless supply of suitable replacements in the assortment of old sick pc psu's one tends to collect over the years. But they were rated for 3x the amps and 3x the voltage of the OEM part, which gave me some concern about the drive needed since the junction capacity in pf scales up with the rest of the ratings putting more load on the driver transistor. But the driver isn't making enough heat for my finger to detect it, nor is the replacement hexfet even when it gets a 36 hour job. For me, it Just Works(TM). Humm, sounds like a PMDX commercial, but them is the facts, mam. :) > I don't get why I'm having so much trouble > getting my head around this stuff. And I haven't even begun to look > into what it would take to control an automatic tool changer. The more > I read the more confused I get. hahaha > > > Chris > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > ------ RSA(R) Conference 2012 > Save $700 by Nov 18 > Register now > http://p.sf.net/sfu/rsa-sfdev2dev1 > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users Cheers, Gene -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene> Self Test for Paranoia: You know you have it when you can't think of anything that's your own fault. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ RSA(R) Conference 2012 Save $700 by Nov 18 Register now http://p.sf.net/sfu/rsa-sfdev2dev1 _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
