jogging and MDI

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martyscncgarage
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Re: jogging and MDI

Post by martyscncgarage »

What are the dip switch settings on the drives?
I don't know why you bought a DC power supply if the drives take standard AC power?
Reminder, for support please follow this post: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=383
We can't "SEE" what you see...
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3rdscout
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Re: jogging and MDI

Post by 3rdscout »

disabled limit switch input. Same issue. z was the third axis attempting to move with mdi move of z-1.
then after the DRO moves without the motor to -1, Then jogging in x+ and y+ is disabled. Keep jogging around the finally it comes back online for -x, -y and z-. This seems like a parser error to me?

There is a MDI history file in this zip file. What kind of file is it? How is it read?
Attachments
report_0C1C57099B49-0514203263_2021-02-09_18-23-43.zip
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3rdscout
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Re: jogging and MDI

Post by 3rdscout »

24-80 volts. The idea was that I had the amperage to to drive all three of my nema 34's.
This is a 800w, 35volt, 22amp Toroidal. Electronics are not my overall strength.
What would have been a better option and why?

I am just getting this thing up and running for the first time.
The axis movements are pretty right on when I use calipers.
Attachments
dips.jpg
drive.jpg
martyscncgarage
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Re: jogging and MDI

Post by martyscncgarage »

Looks to me like the drive is set for 5000 steps per motor rev and you have 1600 set in Acorn?
Reminder, for support please follow this post: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=383
We can't "SEE" what you see...
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3rdscout
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Re: jogging and MDI

Post by 3rdscout »

The table starts on switch 3. Switch 1 and 2 function are stated below the table.
I think it's correct to 1600.
Although, I am thinking the direction axis and edge setting could be an issue?

So, If I make two axis moves via MDI the problem goes away. X 1 enter, y1 enter, y.5 enter, z-1 enter. Then the problem goes away. I can now do whatever? I believe this is a bug.

Now my errors are with first x,y move in a program. misses first move, DRO moves w/o motor movement. Motors kick in on subsequent Gcode, but now the axis are out of sync and limit switches get hit on return cuts.

Why am i missing steps?
ShawnM
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Re: jogging and MDI

Post by ShawnM »

I’ll bet many of his problems would go away if he’d just hook the drives to the DB25 connector. I’m confused by the limit switch to over ride the limit switches. This seems crazy to me. Why not wire it up per the schematics? The power supply is another story.
3rdscout
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Re: jogging and MDI

Post by 3rdscout »

So, I want to use the same switches for homing and limits. Something I've always done.
Acorn does not seem to allow for this in configuration. If you hit a switch that's being used for both while homing it errors out because it sees that a limit has been hit.
All Im doing is is using a another switch to keep the limit input pulled down while homing cycles through and sets my machine zero. That actually works pretty well. If there's another way use the same switch for home and limit on an axis let me know.
I am using DB connectors...
These are closed loop steppers which are new to me.
I just realized I do not having anything hooked up to either ENA +, ENA - or ALM+, ALM-. I am not sure which to use?
One of the first responses may have been correct, the axis is being enabled and disabled internally on change of direction. All my axis do not home in the negative direction.
martyscncgarage
Posts: 9912
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Location: Mesa, AZ

Re: jogging and MDI

Post by martyscncgarage »

3rdscout wrote: Tue Feb 09, 2021 11:13 pm The table starts on switch 3. Switch 1 and 2 function are stated below the table.
I think it's correct to 1600.
Although, I am thinking the direction axis and edge setting could be an issue?

So, If I make two axis moves via MDI the problem goes away. X 1 enter, y1 enter, y.5 enter, z-1 enter. Then the problem goes away. I can now do whatever? I believe this is a bug.

Now my errors are with first x,y move in a program. misses first move, DRO moves w/o motor movement. Motors kick in on subsequent Gcode, but now the axis are out of sync and limit switches get hit on return cuts.

Why am i missing steps?
You are correct. My apologies on the dipswitch settings.
You have closed loop steppers. You should not be missing steps. It could be your wiring.
Shawn makes a good point about you changing to the DB25. Buy a DB25 male breakout board from Amazon and connect them to it.
I use shielded cable from Acorn header to the drives. As these are signal wires they do not have to be heavy gauge wire. 20-24 gauge is fine.
I don't use wire nuts either.
You should have +5VDC going to:
+Pul
+Dir
+ENA (Leave disconnected until you get motors turning)

And then run
-Pul to Acorn header ST
-Dir to Acorn header DR
-Ena to Acorn header EN

As to you limit switch question
Take your 3 switches on each axis you use for homing, wire them in series, one wire to Acorn power supply COM and the other to Acorn Input 1 assigned HomeAll

IF you want to use LIMIT all, then you need 3 switches on the OPPOSITE end of the machine travels, series them together, one wire to Acorn power supply COM and the other to Acorn Input 2 assigned to LimitAll.

So you need a total of 6 switches.
With closed loop steppers, and a properly wired and configured control, you shouldn't "need" the LimitAll switches.

I never saw your answer. When your axis stop moving and your Acorn DROs continue, do you have a fault on the stepper drive?
You don't have the Alarm inputs wired? Usually they are normally open. You can connect all three drives to one input. ALM+ to the input and ALM- to Acorn Power supply COM. Assign the input to DriveFault. Assign the input to NO (click on the green dot next to the input definition and it will turn from green (NC) to red (NO)

Marty
Reminder, for support please follow this post: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=383
We can't "SEE" what you see...
Mesa, AZ
ShawnM
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Re: jogging and MDI

Post by ShawnM »

3rdscout wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 1:38 am So, I want to use the same switches for homing and limits. Something I've always done.
Acorn does not seem to allow for this in configuration. If you hit a switch that's being used for both while homing it errors out because it sees that a limit has been hit.
All Im doing is is using a another switch to keep the limit input pulled down while homing cycles through and sets my machine zero. That actually works pretty well. If there's another way use the same switch for home and limit on an axis let me know.
I am using DB connectors...
These are closed loop steppers which are new to me.
I just realized I do not having anything hooked up to either ENA +, ENA - or ALM+, ALM-. I am not sure which to use?
One of the first responses may have been correct, the axis is being enabled and disabled internally on change of direction. All my axis do not home in the negative direction.
There's a reason Acorn doesn't allow for the same switches to be used for homing and limits, it's simply not needed. When your machine homes to a switch the Acorn knows that's also a limit and it can't go past it. You can home the machine in any direction you want to a switch and the software knows that's a limit. You setup homing direction in the wizard. Then you can actually set soft limits on the other end of travel. You only really need 3 switches on your system for homing and the software will take care of the travel limits once you tell it how much travel you have. This makes everything MUCH simpler with a lot less wiring and mounting of switches. This works and works perfectly. I've been doing it this way for over a year now and have never crashed my machine. Until you understand exactly what it is you are doing please don't try to hack something together thinking it'll work better. Centroid has been doing this for decades, I'm sure they know what they are doing by now.

Save yourself a bunch of headaches and hardware and wire it they way they have it on any of the dozens of schematics they provide. Don't try to reinvent the wheel until you understand it a little better. Then you can customize things if you want. Start with the basics.

As for the DB connector, I'm not talking about the one on your encoder cable. You have the drives wired to the headers on the Acorn board. These stepper drives need to be wired to the 25 pin DB connector on the side of the board. You need to order a 25 pin breakout board from Amazon or eBay and wired those drives to that connector. It's been said a thousand times on this forum, "wire steppers to the DB25 and servos to the header pins". Again, this is in the wiring diagrams. What diagram did you follow to get where you are now? There isn't one for your exact drive but one that is very close.

Order one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/Connector-D-sub ... 434&sr=8-5

and follow this diagram: (your drive is basically a Leadshine knockoff)
https://www.centroidcncforum.com/downlo ... p?id=14087

Do not hook up the PEND, ALM or Z wires on the drives, they are not needed until you understand what it is they do. Do not even hook up the ENA terminals like in my photo. I installed this exact same drive in a retrofit I did last year and they work great. Here's a pic of it during my bench test.
drive wiring 2 (Small).jpg
3rdscout
Posts: 10
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Re: jogging and MDI :Solved

Post by 3rdscout »

Before I start:
I did do a bench test before hooking motors up to my mill. When I jogged in xyz they all worked. I never had issues until I was using MDI to jog into place for initial Gcode test. This is when an axis would fail to move in one direction and the DRO would continue to the desired location. Then all jogging on other axis in the same direction would not work until multiple jogs in all directions were attempted.

Did I test direction and MDI on the bench?... "no" : Hindsight.
How I solved this issue:
I hooked up multimeter to the pulse signal to see if when an axis failed on an MDI move if I was still getting signal from Acorn. The answer was "yes" Acorn was still putting out a signal. So my motors drivers were not happy with the signal. I attempted to change the edge direction dip switch, unsuccessfully.
I attempted change delay in microseconds in the Acorn Wizard. Still no success.
I was going to mess with enable feature of Advanced Axis Configuration Screen, however, decided to use the change direction dip switch on the drivers first.
Initially upon my first ever use of Acorn on my mill, when jogging in X or Y, the axis's movement was in the wrong direction.
To fix this, I changed the direction in Acorn.

How I solved the isssue:
I changed axis direction in Acorn back to default direction and changed the direction dip switches on X and Y axis drives.
This solved the issue.

I appreciate the help everyone offered.
As of now I like having all my manual limits switches in place; especially after seeing the DRO move while the motor did not. I will experiment with seeing if Acorn sees the home switch as limit, if so, then I will wire 3 in series to home and 3 in series to max limit.
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