Centroid Community CNC Support Forum

This is the start of my Build Thread for my Shariff DMC2 benchtop CNC mill that originally shipped with an Arduino board but I'm now going to upgrade it to an Acorn board. I'm a very inexperienced operator with limited knowledge so please be patient with my dumb questions.

I've placed the order for my Acorn board and will be starting the retrofit when it arrives. In the meantime here are the current pictures for the existing machine; more to come as I start working on it.

This should be easy going since there are schematics for the components as far as I can tell from the pics.

Uwe

thanks for starting a build thread and posting a photo album, this helps us lot so we can help you!

I received this from the original designer / builder of the machine:

If you are going with another controller, what you need to know is that machine operates with:
5v step/direction signals
10v analog spindle speed control (or PWM)
5v coolant on for relay
normally open estop button
Most hobby level controllers should support these signals,

great, no problem.

So I'm a bit confused now that I've started to get my machine setup as to how I connect the wires. I have CL57T stepper drives that I was told are compatible with the Acorn so now I'm trying to determine what wire goes to what. The diagram I got (attached) shows there are 8 positions in the signal block but mine has 9 positions so that's one point of confusion, the next is where I get power from for the motors if I removed my old board. Sorry to be so novice at this, I've never used a CNC machine let alone rebuild one and although I'm pretty good with electronics and circuits, this is a whole new world for me so I'm starting a bit from scratch as far as understanding what is required for what etc. I've included a few pictures and any help to move forward would be so appreciated!!!

Diagrams provided to me:

hi,
do you have the manual that came with the drive?
line up the pul + and pul - and the dir + and the dir - from the manual to the actual connector on the drive and wire up likt the s15265 schmatic shows.

leave disconnected the ENA and the ALM wires (tape them off)

only connect ONE drive to the Acorn and test. once you get motion then connect the next drive, test, and the next drive test..

after that then you can do hook up the ENA wires, test

after that then you connect up the ALM wires and configure wizard to match and test.

don't hook up everything at once!

are you sure you have CL57T? can't see the model number in any of the photos.

It's because of the way they were mounted, I can't see the wiring layout or model info. I guess I'll have to remove one and flip it around to look. I'm not sure what you mean "line up the pul + and pul - and the dir + and the dir - from the manual to the actual connector on the drive and wire up likt the s15265 schmatic shows" but maybe once I flip the driver I'll be able to see the descriptions for each. Where do the power wires for the drivers connect to?