[bill-the-cat]

I just placed the order for my Taig CNC mill with a Gecko drive. I'm still in the process of reading through this forum and picking up tons of useful information. I'm sure I'll be posting those troublesome newbie posts asking questions after I get the machine and run into problems, so I thought I'd say Hi and introduce myself before I start asking for help.

My name is Bill Shubert and I live in Peoria, IL. My hobby is making pool cues and I plan to use the Taig to cut custom inlays for my cues. I've had previous experience with CNC. Actually, I'd have to say NC. When I programmed my first tool path back in the 80's, we had to punch a mylar tape to transfer the G-code to the machine. Yea, I'm old

The area where I am really lacking experience is in the electronics/hardware end. If anyone can point me to books/articles/tutorials that would be targeted toward the electronics used in these machines, I would appreciate it!

Thanks and hello to all!

[cnc2]

Hi Bill & Welcome onboard !

You don't have to be an electronics geek to get started with CNC, the hard work has already been done by others, it became a little bit like with computers, you just have to choose the right hardware that suits your needs/budget, if you have basic soldering skills and can recognize electronic components you can assemble your own electronics from available schematics =>cheaper, or if you don't have that basic knowledge just go ahead and buy preassembled hardware you'll just have to wire it together=> faster but more expensive depending on the hardware.

When buying a computer components to build your own computer you need to know the you need a hard drive a motherboard ...etc in CNC you'll need an interface board (BOB) motor controller boards ...etc

You'll find loads of info on the following website:http://www.pminmo.com/

This pic'll give you a general idea about the setup (a good summary about the setup):


I hope you have a quality well tuned screen because you'll have a lot of reading... and don't forget Google.com is a valuable friend.

I hope it helps, and good luck !

cnc2.

[cnc2]

All the switches are connected to the interface board, this board is the "eyes & mouth" of the computer to the machine, through that board the computer can "see" if the machine is homed or reached a limit where it should stop & "tell" the motor controller boards to act accordingly.

I don't think you'll fry any controller board when tuning the switches, you can test all of your switches with the motor controllers disconnected, you'll just have to move the axes by hand til it reaches a switch and see if it acts properly on the software on the computer's screen, once you get the desired result and everything works as you want it to, you can plug in the motor controllers and make another test to see if the motors are stopped when it reaches a switch, if the motors are not stopped or something goes wrong you'll have to hit the estop (emergency stop, the big red button you see on every machine & that stops everything when hitted to prevent any physical damage to the machine or the part it is making)

For the hardware & mounting locations of the switches for your lathe you should ask people that did it before you, they can give you the part numbers & where to buy the parts from & more specific info about the conversion of your lathe, you can even ask for pics to see how it is mounted, schematics ...etc.

When you're new to such a subject each new word should strike a google search to get more info, you can join the forum on pminmo.com to ask about the electronics they have, they have schematics of interface boards you can assemble by yourself for cheap & they are well documented (it's better than buying a ready made board for 30$ or more) if your motor controllers don't have optocouplers you should choose an interface board(bob) that has optocouplers they're used to protect the computer's parallel (printer) port from any back current from the machine & keep it from frying, you should also choose if you want to use steppers or servos...oh, where to stop ?

Just remember it's been done before with the exact same machine, so searching for info should be easy, i think there's a yahoo group about taig lathe & mill.

Good luck !

cnc2.

[bill-the-cat]

Thanks cnc2! Looks like I"ll be Google-ing for the next week or so

Getting there is half the fun!

[cnc2]

You're welcome !

The Yahoo group i was talking about is named "taigtools", the least i can say about this group is that it's very active, they filled my mailbox pretty fast, i didn't choose the correct mailing option, so it turned into spamming & mailbombing...

Bye !
cnc2.

[jalessi]

Bill,

Nick Carter's site has a wealth of information and lots of good links.

http://www.cartertools.com/

Welcome to the Zone,

Jeff...

[bill-the-cat]

Thanks Jeff!

I've been spending the last couple of days migrating off my desktop computer to a new laptop. I'll be using the old desktop to control the CNC machine. Good God it takes a long time to clean all the bloatware off of a new machine!

I've dealt with Nick Carter before. My cue building lathe is based on the Taig lathe, so I've purchased parts from him more than once. He's a great guy and I know that his site has a lot of good info. Thanks for the reminder Jeff!