Centroid Community CNC Support Forum

The announcement of the upcoming lathe software release has me jonesing to hook up the Acorn to my Denford ORAC lathe. I would like it be on a temporary basis using the quickest method possible until doing a permanent & complete retrofit later. It is working well with Mach3 using the parallel port, KB reversing speed control, opto homing switches, cutting oil pump, etc. using the C-11 BOB. I hope I can print out the various pin assignments, stepper motor ppr, velocity, accel, etc from the Mach setup screens & then use that info to configure the Acorn PLC to work through the existing C-11 DB-25 cable/Acorn. I need to do a minimum of wiring changes at this time since there's a possibility at any time of having to go back to Mach to make some parts from existing G-code for a neighbor/customer's company.

I haven't thought through the whole 24v/5v issue yet but I'm thinking a few dropping resistors or diodes may be needed so that the homing opto sensors don't fry...maybe a couple DC to DC converters? This should work as long as I get things setup properly shouldn't it? I'm not asking for detailed instructions, just a general assessment of the concept.

I'm also thinking that if this works OK I can almost guarantee a chorus of Hallelujah!'s from quite a few frustrated fellow Mach Turn users and some increasing Acorn sales numbers!

Please post photos and links to the C-11 BOB along with the technical documentation such as the installation manual and hookup schematics.

Thanks Keith; here's a link to the C11: https://cnc4pc.com/c11-multifunction-cnc-board.html I got mine in 2012 and it still looks the same although they've released a different version of the manual: http://cnc4pc.com/Tech_Docs/C11-R9_9_USER_MANUAL.pdf

I had the original 2012 manual .pdf saved:

what stepper drivers do you plan on using?

I hope to use the existing SmartStep/3 control that I have been running for years. http://www.baldor.com/Shared/manuals/1251-396.pdf Yes, I know it's an old design & only a 2 amp/25 volt unit. It has been very reliable & I have an extra one for a backup.

I removed the original plug-in serial board and plugged the step/direction outputs from the C11 directly into the 96-pin main board header. I found out how to do this from the nice guys on the UK Denford forum some years back and it has always worked well. If all this is deemed to be too dangerous for my Acorn, I will just wait until later when funds are available to do it up right. (I am jonesing for life after Mach with an encoder threading though! )

Milton,

The CNC4PC C-11 is not required, sell it on ebay. The Acorn board replaces the C-11 )
and with no easy step and direction input connections? on the smartstep/3 sell that too!
What size stepper motors are you running?
Pick up some inexpensive Stepper drives like the Leadshine or Leadshine knock offs that Beevo is using and wire them directly to the Acorn board and and to the stepper motors and you are done..easy peasy. see schematics attached.
Gecko drives are a high quality choice as well.

links to consider for drivers

https://www.automationtechnologiesinc.c ... -included/
http://www.geckodrive.com/featured-products.html

I knew that taking out all the old stuff & installing new would be by far be the best plan; I was just thinking about temporarily plugging in a DB-25 cable from the Acorn into the existing DB-25 socket on the side of the ORAC, hooking up the analog spindle output wires to my KB speed control/isolator & add an encoder to get it running with the least amount of fiddle. I saw Marty's video where he had done something similar with his Dyna Myte DM2400/G540 and got excited about trying it with the C11. He's smarter than me though.

Marty did that with a Geckodrive G540 see schematic attached.
so that is a good option for you as well.