This is purely speculation, having no experience with the Routy, but from a design standpoint the height of the raised bed and generally the design looks to be far less stable. I can imagine there is most likely a lot more instability/vibration and what have you. Using solid plate alloy for the side panels gives you a much stronger machine. The Routy design is simple and neat but looks susceptible to twisting and misalignment. The location of the motors being on the bottom makes the Routy top heavy, all of the torque from the motors generating from underneath had to have caused issues.

 

looks very nice i can tell you have lots of noleg on cnc machines

 

oky update on my ox build http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Ship-dis...069?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c9b50dd6d (they are on way)

 

So, fried my Planet CNC board, cause unknown at the moment. End of the Planet CNC era, time for Mach3 and some more proven hard and software. Too much work this way.

Anyone has a good suggestion for said setup?

 

Uc300 is an excellent board, has option of Mach 3 or uccnc software, which has the benefit of being cheaper at £30 and seems to run the motors smoother than Mach 3.

It also has 49 inputs. Downside it's not a breakout board only motion controller but it's functionality and performance outweighs any 2 in one I've seen. And you can pick up a descent non motion control parallel port 100khz bob for around £30.

 

Sorry to hear that Paul.

I'm successfully running http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-axis-CNC-...030?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item1c540bb286 with these DQ542MA drivers like these - http://www.ebay.com/itm/wonderful-d...354?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4add93b362
Trouble free with mach 3, but mach 4 IS a great choice and is available with a mach 3 and mach 4 for a super price.

One drawback of mach 4 is that it can only be installed in ONE computer and is linked to your cpu ident number.

 

$290 is as low as she would go 6 months ago but then one of the power supplies was dented and that netted me another $15 off. Total $275

Thurmond

 

i have seen this mach3 what is this mach3 stuff i no i.ll have to get it i thank

 

nice going!!. Its sayes aug 10th I.ll have them !

 

That Bob would work nicely with the uc300, having a motion controller with Mach 3 is essential imo

 

I had another fruitful day in the shop and finished the frame build of my Ox. And what tall tail would be complete without a picture. Here it is, all ready to start wiring.



Tomorrow is my 60th birthday and I'm not sure if the wife will let me hole up in the shop, but IF I can get away with it the wiring will be over by this time tomorrow. Have fun everybody.

 

Which Leadshines are that, Joe?

 

the ess is a 2 in one. ie motion controller and bob.

 

I looked at the UC300, but at 100 kHz it's a bit on the slow side (5 Usec pulses). I think there are better solutions like the Leadshine SMC6480 at 5 MHz or a SmoothStepper at 4 MHz. They might be a bit oversized for an OX, but they can be used for a next stronger CNC too.

I've read the article of the CNC Cook Book about Mach3 in combination with parallel output versus SmoothStepper. The SmoothStepper pays off if you use the CNC PC also for other tasks (like surfing the web, having Mp3 playing etc.) that could interfere with the operation of Mach3 sending pulses. In my case, I've a dedicated PC for the CNC and don't use it for anything else. So making sure it is completely stripped of any other applications and having only the minimum required OS tasks running, it might do the job. Mach3 also comes with a testing program that can tell you if your PC is up to the task or not. Running that one will show me if the PC is enough or that I need a SmoothStepper.

I used the Planet CNC MK2/4 until yesterday, and to be honest, it wasn't running smooth at all in 3D work and even after a lot of e-mails with support no satisfying answer was given, except for "buy a MK3 that runs much smoother". Maybe my expectations are unrealistic, but I've seen enough videos to know that CNC machines can run very smooth with constant velocity in all directions and that's where I'm going for. The MK2/4 can't deliver that and I have my doubts about the MK3.

Also, Planet CNC states that Mach3 is not needed for use of their motion controllers, but was not crystal clear you need their software to run their boards. Only when repeatedly asked for, it turns out that you can't run it on anything else than their software. So Mach3 not needed means actually "Mach3 won't work with our boards". Personally I don't like that kind of misinformation. On top of that I noticed that a lot of people requested the functionality of squaring the gantry, which consequently was refused with a weak reason of "it also might break your machine if the end stops don't work". Mach3 has the function and I didn't hear much of people breaking/demolish crashing their CNC's with it. Another problem that kept coming back was accuracy. No matter what settings I used, running g-code from various types of post processors gave various results, although inspection of the g-code showed the instructions were accurate. Backlash compensation worked perfect while testing movements, but once running g-code it simply couldn't get the bit in the right spots. I managed to work around it with compensating in the design, hence getting inaccurate g-code but that should not be the way to work.

After using it for about 8 months and lots of tweaking and trying my verdict is; Nice for hobby CNC with not too much of demand, but don't expect even a little bit more than that.

 

I don't read that in their documentation. They say it is possible to connect your equipment directly to the ESS via a ribbon cable that has a 26-pin header at one end and no connector on the other. But the solution is not encouraged because you can't easily swap things out when something is wrong. BoBs are cheap, so why bother?

By the way, which motor drivers (brand and type) are you using at the moment?

 

yeah they quite possibly have the worst website and documentation. but they are motion controller, usually you can tell simply by looking at the board, if it hasa microprocessor then its likely to have motion control, if all you see are optocouplers then what you have is a basic bob. search warp9 ess motion controller on google.

I use cnc4you dsp mosfet ac driver for my nema 34 and dsp mosfet dc for my nema 23. Also have thier hexfet drivers on my ox which are also very good. both running uc300'S and hg08. the hg08 are excellent I think have high speed optocouplers and each channel is completely isolated so if one were to fry you have a spare.

 

Ah, those are actually the Wantai drivers. How long are you running them now and how intensive do you use them?

 

Yeah, the forum is strictly controlled by the owner (postings first have to be approved by him to appear on the forum) and some of the postings with questions I had, simply were not answered and don't show on the forum. I think the control of the forum works much better than the control of CNC machines.

But enough about Planet CNC, I don't want to talk them down. I'm simply not satisfied about the product and service and dismissed them for the future. I wouldn't recommend their hard-software for use other than simple hobby CNC work.

 

5- 8 hours a day/7 days a week most weeks, not had a single issue with them, have plenty of current, cant turn them right up without cooking the motors.

 

two of them with nema 23's move my 200kg gantry fine, and rip through ply at 3000mm/min at 22mm doc so id say pretty extensively

 

Video of that! Would be quite decisive proof of their working, wouldn't it?

 

yeah no problem. just moved machine into an industrial unit so need to set them up early next week but next available opportunity Ill get one up.

 

Not actually sure if they are wantai, they have received a fair amount of rebranding so may have been branded under wantai, the model numbers for the nema 23 versions are cw5045 for hexfet version and cwd556 for the dsp version

 

Wantai seems to be actually the manufacturer of these drivers, China. Of course they put any name on it that you order. It looks like it though, that they are trying to brand it more under their own name recently. Anyway, the Wantai stuff also gets good reviews. Some hick-ups in the past but they've seem to improved since then.

What voltage DC are you using? 36V or 48V?

 

That's with the Wantai motors and drivers?

 

Motors are cnc4you. 3nm with 20:1 planetary gearbox but then they are geared back up on the pinion so still around 3nm.

36v on the ox, 48v on non ox. Get a more stable voltage @ 48v though. But do work fine at 36v, You do have to note the amps your trying to draw, 12a will run 4 but it's not far off.

 

looks good i need one of them spindle holders o and my other parts should be in today will start posting pics of my build

 

Good to hear. I ordered the Wentai kit with 3nm motors and drivers for my ox with the idea that once I have some more spacei could build a bigger machine. I don't see myself going to a 200kg gantry buy it's nice to know I'll be able to use the parts on a larger machine. Kit comes with 2 36v 10 amp power supplies but I would probably go to 48v for a bigger machine