Special Machine four axis

[Ron B.]

I have purchased an Acorn four axis board and have that up an running, bench tested and read to go.

I am using three 17E1K-05 closed loop steppers and one 17E1K-07 closed stepper.
The four steppers are being driven by four stepper online CL42T controllers they have their 24V power supply.

Questions:

The best practice to control these? (DB25 breakout board)
I have installed the "MILL" software by default. I want to control each axis, X,Y,Z,A by using angler movements in my G code.

Were do I begin?

I am toolmaker/ machinist by trade. I trying to learn something new. Thank you

[ShawnM]

Stepper drives wire to the DB25 via breakout board.

CL42T drives will take up to 48 volt power supplies. Using a 24 volt power supply will leave half of the available speed and torque of those motors on the table. It's "best practice" to use the max rated voltage for the drives to get max speed and torque from the motors.

There are schematics on Centroids schematic page for Stepper online drives. Find the one that closely matches your drives and start there.
https://www.centroidcnc.com/centroid_di ... .php?term=

[Ron B.]

Thank you for the reply. I have a DB25 breakout board on order.
I found a schematic with three drives that will get me going in the right direction.

I'll get that all hooked up and then figure out how to name axis's and change them to angular (degrees)

[centroid467]

You can do that very easily from the Wizard. With a mill installation, you can access it from the main CNC12 screen by pressing F7 Utility Menu -> F10 Acorn Wizard. Then, click on Axis Configuration in the left sidebar.

Please refer to page 76 of the Acorn Install Manual for an overview of the Axis Configuration page: https://www.centroidcnc.com/centroid_di ... df#page=77

[ShawnM]

Thank you for the reply. I have a DB25 breakout board on order.
I found a schematic with three drives that will get me going in the right direction.

I'll get that all hooked up and then figure out how to name axis's and change them to angular (degrees)

When you start wiring up the drives wire ONE DRIVE AT A TIME. Get one drive working properly and then duplicate that wiring and programming 3 more times.

Don't worry about the enable line wiring as the drive is probably enabled by default when you power it up. Also, don't worry about the alarm signal at first either. Get the motor moving and then add in the alarm or DRIVE OK wiring after you get it moving. Just wire up the PUL and DIR along with power and motor/encoder connections. Set the pulse per rev DIP switches on the drives and in the Acorn wizard to 3200 as a starting point.

[tblough]

If you are using angular units, then these are rotary axis and not linear. Therefore they would not be labeled x, y, and z. See https://centroidcncforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=3638

[Ron B.]

I have all four axises moving in both directions so that a victory for me.
Since I have all axises moving now I'm try to get the relationship from the 3200 step per rev to show up as degrees on the readout.

Example: One rev of and motor should show as 360.000 on readout.

I have tried for a few hours with different combinations inside the wizard without any luck.
I think I must be missing another variable.

The next step is seeing what G code is required to make and axis move the way I need it to.
Example:
x60.G2
x-60.G3
Any hints would be most helpful.

[cnckeith]

got photos? would really help in understanding what you are trying to accomplish.

how many turns of the motor results in one revolution?

[Ron B.]

Sorry for the confusion on my part.
I am up and running. I used a ratio value of 1 in the axis configuration on the closed loop steppers.
So what that means for me when a make a move ,for example x1.00, I get one full turn on my stepper.
Any partial rotation is something less than 1.00 all my moves are very small. I left it at 3200 steps as suggested in this post.
In my special case, all my steppers are only making partial rotations for my application. Working great! Thanks for all your help.
Now I am working on a custom VCP. Again, I don't know what I am doing but that's the fun of it.......

I am running a sub program in my G code code and having it run multiple times then stop. example :25,50,100.
Anyone know how to put counters in the program to display progress?

Thank you!

[Nigelo]

Once you have loaded your job but before starting, press F4 Job Options and enter 25 or 50 etc into "Part Count" ensuring that the "Job Repeat" is toggled ON.