Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

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DICKEYBIRD
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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by DICKEYBIRD »

Can somebody please go to viewtopic.php?f=60&t=1085&start=10 and plug in Doc's 3:1 reduction/5 TPI screw/1.2 deg motor & 1600 m/step numbers? That will solve his problem but Marty's got some kind of bad ju-ju on the .xls file & none of my Excel's will open it. Very frustrating! I gotta go let my BP settle.
Milton in Collierville, TN

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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by DocsMachine »

Fortunately I had and got very little experienced with Mach3, so there's almost nothing I need to 'relearn'.

The flip side to that is, there's now everything to learn with CNC12. :D

So let me ask you this: If I enter that short bit of G-code in the MDI, how do I go about repeating that? That is, if I wanted it to repeat a rotation, do I just retype it in the MDI window (or use the up arrow key as shown in Marty's videos) and press cycle start again?

If that's the way it's supposed to work, it's not in my case.

Doc.
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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by DICKEYBIRD »

Doc, your "Turns/in." should be set to 15 in the Wizard. (5 threads per inch screw x 3 (pulley reduction) = 15. That's cast in stone.

I think the 1st thing you need to type in the MDI is a G98 to set the feed in inch per minute, then your G1 Z-1 F10 should move to a spot that you can measure to get a rough idea. Remember the next move will have to be back to "0" or farther along like G1 Z-2 or whatever. Keep putzin' around, you'll get there!
Milton in Collierville, TN

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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by DocsMachine »

DICKEYBIRD wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 11:49 pm Doc, your "Turns/in." should be set to 15 in the Wizard. (5 threads per inch screw x 3 (pulley reduction) = 15. That's cast in stone.
-Thanks, DB, but I already had that part. :D
I think the 1st thing you need to type in the MDI is a G98 to set the feed in inch per minute, then your G1 Z-1 F10 should move to a spot that you can measure to get a rough idea. Remember the next move will have to be back to "0" or farther along like G1 Z-2 or whatever.
-Bingo. That's the part I was forgetting. Got stuck in the mental loop of just typing in "G01X+1" like in the two earlier suggestions. Gonna take me a while before this stuff is second-nature. :)

Okay, the Z is pretty well sorted. It's a 5TPI leadscrew with a 3:1 reduction, so I have the turns ratio set at 15 in the Wizard. I set the driver's DIP switches to 4000, and set the pulses-per-rev in the Wizard also to 4000. I put G98G01Z+1F2 in the MDI box, hit cycle start, and count fifteen turns exactly. (Well, by eye and Sharpie-mark anyway. :) )

The X isn't cooperating so well. That has an approximately 6.5 TPI leadscrew, plus the 3:1 reduction, and so should see 19.5 turns per inch.

I have the driver also set for 4000 pulses, and the Wizard at 4000 as well. Put G98G01X+1F2 in the MDI, hit cycle start, and count... 9.75 turns.

I can get 19.5 turns by either setting the driver for 2000 pulses, or the Wizard to 8000. Currently I have the Wizard set at 8K, and am getting a nice, exact 19.5 turns, but why is it different from the other one? They're identical motors, identical drivers, presumably identical encoders. When I had 'em both set to 4K pulses, the DIP switches were in identical order.

What would halve the number of pulses somewhere?

Doc.
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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by ScotY »

Hi Doc,

Strange stuff you’ve got going on. Open loop steppers will chatter and vibrate if you drive them too fast. I’d imagine closed loop would still do the same thing but am not positive about that.

Have you tried swapping drivers between the 2 axis to see if the “problem” follows the driver?

Not sure if you got it sorted where the motor will turn once but not a second time, perhaps you have your travel limit set and it’s at the end of the travel? I do that all the time...try an MDI when I’m near the limit and I actually needed to send a negative value.
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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by frijoli »

DocsMachine wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2017 2:50 am
I can get 19.5 turns by either setting the driver for 2000 pulses, or the Wizard to 8000. Currently I have the Wizard set at 8K, and am getting a nice, exact 19.5 turns, but why is it different from the other one? They're identical motors, identical drivers, presumably identical encoders. When I had 'em both set to 4K pulses, the DIP switches were in identical order.

What would halve the number of pulses somewhere?

Doc.
I would swap the drives and see what happens. Should clear up whether it is the drive or not.
Clay
near Winston-Salem, NC
unofficial ACORN fb group https://www.facebook.com/groups/897054597120437/
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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by cncman172 »

Doc,
Did you get all your issues resolved?

Russ
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Re: Setting up Auto/Tech hybrid steppers in the Wizard?

Post by DocsMachine »

cncman172 wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2018 4:11 pm Did you get all your issues resolved?
-Technically, yes, although technically, there were no issues to resolve. :D

The big one was just me overthinking the issue, in effect wondering why one wasn't setting the pulses-per-rev from the Acorn to a "multiple of three" setting to accommodate the 3-pole motors. In other words, if the motors required 300 pulses to make one revolution, why was the default setting of the driver (presumably) 400 pulses per rev? Why were no options on the possible settings any multiple of three? No 300, 900 or 1200, it was 400, 800 and 1600.

The solution, for want of a better phrase, is that it's irrelevant. You set the driver to accept X number of pulses per rev, to match whatever output from the Acorn you've selected, just like every other drive out there, and let it figure out whatever it needs to get the motor to spin the programmed distance. Who cares if that number is 300, 900 or 248,967?

It wasn't so much a "problem" as it was an issue of me knowing just enough to be dangerous. :)

The other "issue" was a similar case of me just being stupid. :D I'd wondered why I had to set the X axis to twice as many pulses from the controller to get the same amount of movement as the Y axis. The answer was "well, duh! It's a lathe!" The X axis always moves half the distance as the Y axis.

Caused me a week of frustration trying to figure out tool offsets too, since of course nothing was where the computer thought it was supposed to be. :)

Fortunately the only damage was to my ego, and thankfully, after years of similar sorts of abuse on a near-daily basis, it heals quickly and has a high tolerance for pain. :D

Doc.
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