[Novakon]

Since there has been a lot of comments already on the Ethernet Smooth Stepper (ESS), this is a great time to make the announcement for the ESS a little more formal. We have already been providing mounting hardware for the ESS for installation into the Torus PRO and Pulsar mills. Roughly for the last 6 months, the electronic chassis have been pre-drilled, tapped with standoffs mounted for the ESS kit. We have completed the initial beta testing and everything has been working quite well.

The ESS is now shipped standard with the PC and will replace the older parallel option. The added advantages are already well known for the ESS, namely very stable output signals for the axes drivers and spindle speed stability. No more jitter. As Ray had indicated, stepper motor rapids will increase and also the top end of the servo rapids should go up while retaining the finer .0001" resolution.

Also of special note...we now have a Pulsar located at the Newfangled Solutions facility for demonstration purposes and integration with MACH4 software. Anyone living close to their location can see the Pulsar in action using rigid tapping. There will be videos available soon from Newfangled Solutions utilizing the Pulsar. This should be a good show!

Here is a look into the crystal ball for those following the Pulsar. The PDB and ATC will be adapted soon to the the Pulsar after the completion of the Torus PRO integration. The same hardware will be used with some minor changes for the electronics integration. What we would like to bring to light is the capability that will be only available with the Pulsar. Because of the ATC/PDB capability coupled with the rigid tapping...the Pulsar will be the ONLY stand alone mill in this class that can be FULLY automatic while performing a wide variety of drilling, milling and tapping operations all from the ATC tool carosel. This simply can not be done with the tapping head systems commonly in use now. Here is another added Pulsar exclusive advantage... less expensive ER20 tool holders can be used for your total array of different taps you will want at your disposal. You can load up your taps with the QTC ER20 holders at a fraction of the cost of the tapping heads. Now you will have a fully automatic milling system second to none. Speed is the name of the game.

Just a heads up insight!

Regards,
Novakon Team

[FineLineAuto]

Will there be a retrofit kit available if we want to fit an ESS on our machine?


Nate
Fine Line Automation
Home - Fine Line Automation

[Novakon]

Definitely! Your machine is already prepped for the ESS to be added. The installation manual is available as a Beta draft version so it should be a simple process to install.

Regards,
Novakon Team

[Hirudin]

Being able to increase the resolution was one of the differences I noticed when I installed my SmoothStepper. A very worthwhile upgrade, IMO.

[bill south]

Morning Folks.
I just found this thread while searching for something else so a quick question for Novakon. You mentioned a beta manual for the ESS for a PRO. Is it available to the public yet. I have ESS's installed in two other home built machines and would like to review the process for the PRO to help in my considerations for a potential upgrade.
On another note, I received and installed the arduino based BOB and it functioned as flawlessly. It sure is nice to flip the switch and not have a huge pucker factor as was the case in the past.
Thanks again John and Novakon!
Kind of a nice machine.
Bill

[Novakon]

Hi Bill,

We do have a draft instruction manual for the ESS instalation. It will be posted very soon on our web site after a couple of minor changes we need to make. In the mean time, we will send it to you to look over.

Thanks!

Regards,
Novakon Team

[AUSTINMACHINING]

Morning Folks.
I just found this thread while searching for something else so a quick question for Novakon. You mentioned a beta manual for the ESS for a PRO. Is it available to the public yet. I have ESS's installed in two other home built machines and would like to review the process for the PRO to help in my considerations for a potential upgrade.
On another note, I received and installed the arduino based BOB and it functioned as flawlessly. It sure is nice to flip the switch and not have a huge pucker factor as was the case in the past.
Thanks again John and Novakon!
Kind of a nice machine.
Bill

I must have missed this. Is the Arduino based BOB part of the ESS kit ?.

[FineLineAuto]

I must have missed this. Is the Arduino based BOB part of the ESS kit ?.

I do believe it's separate. It's worth the upgrade. I am finding the mill is a lot less finicky with the new board, though that's probably because the pic on my old board died.

[bill south]

Novakon Folks;

Has the ESS been added to the Novakon web site? I can't seem to find it!

Bill

[Novakon]

Hi Bill,

Not yet. Still have to do some photos of the kit first but we can send you out a quote if you want one.

Regards,
Novakon Team

[mklotz70]

Novakon....John? At one point you said a new BOB was on it's way to me. I've never followed up to find out why. My machine seems to turn on differently some times when I turn it on. It always comes up okay. Once or twice I've had to hit the reset on the BOB to get it acting right. Sometimes things power up with the main switch, other times, nothing happens until I start the computer. Hasn't been a huge issue yet, but after reading this about the new BOB, I'd like to know how I can order/obtain this new board.

Thanks!
Mike

[Novakon]

Hi Mike,

Yes, this is John.

The new Torus PRO Rev 5 BOBs are being manufactured for replacing the older Torus PRO BOB. The processor used in the previous BOBs was the PIC processor and, periodically, it would scramble the program when the primary 220vac power surged on during start up. As a result, we have switched to the Ardurino processor which has been working very nicely in the noisy start up conditions. You are scheduled to get the Rev 5 BOB shortly and this will stop you having to reset the processor on the BOB.

Regards,
Novakon Team

[mklotz70]

That's awesome news John!!! Thanks!!!

[bill south]

Hello Folks;
I installed a ess that I had on hand from my old rf45 and used the noakon ess manual (draft). I've installed two others on routers with no problem. Also, I posted on another thread that I had some possible accuracy problems that I would address and add my findings. Well, before getting into the ess issue, I found the problem. After checking my tram (.002") and running the calibration checks, it all checked out. All within .001" or better. It was at that time that I suspected tooling/holders. I'm using TTC er20 collets which checked out pretty good. Turns out it was a re-sharpened tool that was causing all the headaches. It was .496 instead of .500. Go figure.
OK, back to my current issue. When doing all this checking, I noted that my spindle runs wide open all of the time. No speed control. OK, keeping things simple, can someone list the mach and ess settings I should be using? I used the draft manual and was just assuming it was accurate.
Current configuration. 1. Torus Pro Servo 2. New Arduion BOB 3..ESS (purchased about a year ago. 4. Plugins from Novakon (I think). 5. Measure 10 volts at the Sunfar C300 regardless of what speed setting I'm using. Oh yeah, when I did all the upgrades I added a breaking resistor and changed one reading on the vfd to .5. It's the time to stop interval. Sorry, don't remember which one and it is out in the shop.
Thanks again.

Thoughts Anyone?
As always, all help is appreciated.

Sure is a fun machine to run.
Bill

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Speed is controlled by PWM output from Mach3, so something is wrong in your PWM settings. With ESS, the PWM settings are in the ESS configuration dialogs, not the Mach3 ones. If you use Novakons XML file, and follow their installation instructions, it should work, unless the PWM circuit on your BOB is not working correctly.

Regards,
Ray L.

[bill south]

Thanks Ray!
The manual said to use the Setp/Dir setting on the ess for the Torus Pro and the PWM setting for the Pulsar. I tried that yesterday and had it working somewhat but the breaking resistor was not being used and my spin down was excessive so I switched back. I'll look more into that today. I don't have the Novakon XML file since I did not buy their kit but used an existing ESS I had in stock. I wish I knew more about how these systems communiate so I could have more success when it comes to setup issues!
Many thanks to everyone for looking. I'll post the results for documentation and hopefully help someone in the future.
Bill

[LeeWay]

I know on the Pulsar, if I didn't use the XML provided by Novakon and build up on that, then the ESS would all need to be setup in the software.
I did read up a little on it. Sounded like a pain, so I just modified the Novakon XML to suit my needs. ESS automatically loaded in it.
I would get the original ESS XML for the Torus Pro from them and then modify it. That should help eliminate some of the head ache.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

The manual said to use the Setp/Dir setting on the ess for the Torus Pro and the PWM setting for the Pulsar.

That is exactly backwards. The Pulsar is Step/Dir, and the Pro is PWM.

Regards,
Ray L.

[LeeWay]

I was thinking the Pulsar should use step/dir. Servo motor for spindle.

[hayes]

Can the ESS and new BOB be added to the older controllers? I'd love to have my machine run more smoothly.