I ordered the Cloudray Ruida RDC6445G controller and should be here by the end of the week. I will need some help from someone when I get ready to set it up to the spec's of this machine. Still waiting on pulleys for the Y axis drive and reduction box. The case as I had drawn up was only 49" long and I added 4" to it so I can use the RECI W2 tube I have, instead of the 60 watt. I printed up some leveling feet and this will also give me a little clearance I needed for the Z axis pulleys. I drilled and tapped a M5 hole on 4 corner braces for them.
A little more done Bed is ready And mounted Tube mounts are next and then start mounting the electrical stuff and wiring
One thing to pay attention to is the canopy edge gap. I wouldn't hurt to actually make the canopy frame slightly smaller than it's intended spot. You can always overlap the cover/skin/acrylic, but the canopy frame has to slide past the rest of the base frame.
In the next day or so, I'll be getting ready to wire limit switches. I'm going to have both home and max on both the X and Y. Can I run both home and max wires together in a 3 wire shielded cable (common ground) or do I need them to be separate cables???? Thanks
If its our Xtension switches, they do fine Daisy chained. Seperate is sometimes easier ti troubleshoot later on if you need to find a wire break after a couple years
Nope, not using them, but they do look nice. If I didn't have 50 or so laying around here, I would buy some though.
If they are NC, let them share a ground wire. The other two would be for either travel limit. Remember to only ground one end of the shield. EDIT: Actually it doesn't matter if they are NC or NO if they have their own signal wire. They do have to operate as NC is they are daisy chained though.
They can be either NO or NC. I need to get the shielded wire yet and will use 3 conductor 22 or 24 ga.
I have gotten some more done. The Z axis is working smoothly. I need to build the stand for the laser before I finish leveling the bed to the both axis. The bed has a little over 8" of travel. I picked up this stepper controller a few years ago and it works great for testing. Bed at the full raised position And at the lowest position.
After watching more of Russ's videos, (Sarbarmultimedia on youtube) I really like his idea of making a adjustable head mount. So I spent some time at my Bridgeport making one to fit my 12mm top mounted rail. The original way I had it mounted was the head mount was bolted to a converter block that I had made. I ended up with 3 plates. the middle plate goes on the bearing block. Bottom of the bearing block plate. I milled it so the bearing block has a tight slip fit. The other two plates bolted together And mounted to the rail At the highest level and closest to the rail Lowest level and farthest away from the rail.
I was digging through my stepper motor stash and found a small NEMA 23 (I think it's 175oz) that will replace the 17 that I was going to use on the X axis. Also I'll be making it into "rack drive" like Russ uses. The pulleys I ordered from China for the Y axis drive on March 8th just shipped Friday. So I hope to see them soon so I can start getting that finished.
Been working on the X axis rack drive. This is what I came up with. I made a extra just in case I ever build another laser. Plates With the motor mounted. I need the extra offset cause of the pulley. Mounted in place on the axis Well, crap, that won't work. Back to the drawing board (CAD). I could try it this way, but I think the slight rub will generate some heat and wear the belt.
So in CAD, I just basically turned the plate 90 degrees and made another set and lightened them as much as I could. Mounted in place But now I need to make another idler pulley bracket. The new one will be more of a traditional one with the bearings in the idler itself.
Hi Peter, First, thanks for the comment, but wrapping the belt around the pulley is what I'm trying to avoid. If you ever watch Russ's videos, the rack drive does away with the uneven engraving that the belt leaves as it goes over the pulley. As far as teeth engagement, I have enough for it is only driving the laser head. If you go to this video and start watching about 8 minutes in, he explains what this rack drives does.
I'm working on the wiring and need help setting the DM542T drivers. Do I set the amp side of the drivers to the "amp per phase" of the motors??? Now on to the steps. Z axis lead screws are 3/8" 10 pitch and geared 4 to 1. So I'm setting that driver at 400 steps Y axis is geared 2 to 1 and driven by a 20 tooth 3M pulley and starting out with 1600 steps X axis has a 20 tooth 3M pulley and starting out with it set at 3200 steps I'm using this motor on the X and Z axis P Series Nema 23 Bipolar 1.8deg 1.26Nm (178.4oz.in) 2.8A 2.5V 57x57x56mm 4 Wires and this motor on the Y axis wired Bipolar parallel High-Torque Stepper Motor, Stepper Motor, Driver, Stepper Motor kit, DC Servo Motor, DC Servo Motor kit, Stepper Motor Power Supply, CNC Router, Spindle, and other Components.
Nope, that is the MAX rating of the motor. Ie, the "do not exceed" value, not the "ideal value". Start with about half current and work your way up until you feel good. Decent acceration, no stalls. Go too far and motor will get very hot (burning your hand). Warm is OK and expected, Hot is not. 1/2 step? Rather go 1/8th. 1600 per the label. Much smoother.
I turned 3 smooth idler pulleys, one for the X axis and the other two for the Y. The X axis has great alignment now. I'm in the process of making the brackets for the Y idlers. One step forward and two steps back. Using my 10" machinist square, I squared my "Y" rails to the common beam on the back that will also hold the tube. When I did this, it threw the bed all out of wack and now have to go back and readjust the Z axis leadscrews. In the process, I think the NEMA 17 I had on it was missing steps, so I put a 175oz NEMA 23 like I have on the X axis. Mounted the driver and have the motor wired to it.
Wasting some time figuring when it comes time to start entering stuff into the controller X axis is driven by a 20 tooth, 3mm pitch pulley. So that means the head will move 60mm per rev. Driver set at 3200 steps. So divide 60 by 3200 and comes out with .01875 mm per step. Y is driven 2 turns on the motor for 1 on the driven shaft with a 20 tooth, 3mm pitch pulley. So with the driver set at 1600 steps, I should have the same .01875mm per step. The Z is driven by 3/8", 10 pitch leadscrews with 40 tooth GT2 pulleys. Motor has a 20 tooth, so the screws move 1/2 per motor rev. That equals to 1.27mm per rev of the motor. Driver set at 1600 so I get .00079375 movement per step.
All the 110 volt wiring is done except for a SSR that will turn the CW 5000 chiller on when the laser tube power supply is on. All steppers are wired as is the power to the stepper drivers. Need to do the limit switches and control card to stepper drivers. Control panel is made of .062 aluminum Upper left is the water temp then emergency stop and amp gauge The lower left switch is main power. Above it is the laser power and chiller The lower right is the exaust blower power supply and the other is extra. And the U-Disk is in the middle. Incoming panel Bottom is main laser power. Top is chiller. The others are computer connections. Canopy struts are on and adjusted. Kind of stiff till I get the skin and glass installed.
Compressors are hectic inductive loads (startup, gas under compression) so a SSR may not be ideal. They don't like inductive loads.
Took my Starret level and leveled both Y axis rails and the X axis rail both for and aft. With everything all level, I leveled the tube and then took it out and added some disks I printed to do the preliminary mirror alignment using a laser pointer that I made.
Wow Peter, Didn't know that. Thanks for saving me on this. I will use the extra switch for the chiller then.
I really want to keep the laser power supply and chiller together to keep the chance of tube failure caused by no water at a minimum. So after some thinking, I'm going to put the chiller on the switch and the power supply on the SSR.
All I have left to do is the Z axis limit switches, and the water and air pluming needs to be done. I'm waiting on parts that will be here Friday. When I turn it on, it homes to the front right. Here is where I need some help configuring the controller. I've got it to "English" and I can move all axis's. I need to know how to get to the screen to input the steps per mm, change home from the right front to left rear. I have not downloaded RDWorks or the drivers yet as I'm too computer dumb to get that done and put on the right harddrive (my computer has 3 of them). My son should be over sometime in the next couple of days to get that done for me. I hope I'll be cutting with it by this weekend.
I got the X and Y pretty close as far as size and movement, but it homes to the lower right and I want it to home upper left. Also the arrows are backwards on the X and Y, so I probably have the motors wired backwards as well as the limit switches. The limit switches are working so if I have the motors backwards, I also have the limit switches backwards too. I need to find out what wires on the motors to switch and then switch the limit switch wires too. The Z works as the arrows shows. I'm getting there. Where's @Peter Van Der Walt He know what wires I need to switch
