[bhurts]

Hi Tom

I originally started down this road quite a while ago and am hopefully ready to see it thru to completion.

What I have to work with is I suppose the best place to start.

First I have a k-flop with a winford 26 pin breakout board to jp7 and a 16 pin breakout board to jp4. These are in a enclosure with a power supply that is connected to the Molex connector. I have tested that k-flop will connect to the pc and everything seems in order on this front.

I also have 4 animatics motors that have been setup to be commanded thru step/dir. The motors have been tested working through there interface and are setup so that when power is applied to the motor it is automatically locked and ready to accept step/dir commands.

There are two main wiring feats I would like to achieve at this time. First is to wire the step/dir from k-flop to the motors and second is to wire the encoder output from the motor to k-flop so it can monitor position and monitor for following error.

My issue is I have no idea how to wire step/dir signals and am also unsure about the correct way to rout the encoder outputs. I do know the manufacturer said I need to pull the step/dir signals low. I believe that k-flops step/dir generators 8-11 are what I need in software and should be able to setup the channels and test the motors in kmotion.exe once wired.

Attached is the wiring schematics that are relevant to my motors.

As always thank you for your consideration. If there is any info I am missing I will try to rectify that asap.

Ben

[TomKerekes]

Hi Ben!

Assuming those drives accept TTL inputs and provides TTL Outputs (I couldn't find a good specification Googling for sm2315d animatics) then yes you might configure OutputChan0=8 InputChan0=0

Step/Dir Signals

KFLOP JP7 Bit8 Pin15 - Drive Pin 1 Step
KFLOP JP7 Bit9 Pin16 - Drive Pin 2 Direction
KFLOP JP7 GND Pin 26 - Drive Pin 13 GND

For encoder #0 feedback
KFLOP JP7 Bit0 Pin 7 - Drive Pin 8 Encoder A
KFLOP JP7 Bit1 Pin 8 - Drive Pin 9 Encoder B
(same GND as above)

HTH
Regards

[bhurts]

Thanks for the help Tom. I did some damage to my back which ended with me in the er so all my projects will be about a week behind. All good now it aches all the time but I can walk and work again. I will report how things work out or any issues I run into asap. If all goes well I hope this thread will help others in this situation. I have searched the web like crazy trying to find a single person that has gotten these motors to work in a similar manner with or without the encoder input. I've found numerous posts on many different sites asking if it can be done but not one person reporting success. I hope to be the first to make that report.

I have few other questions regarding my own setup. Thanks to you it has been running without a single fault for a very long time.

I downloaded the new test version 433i and have looked at the fiducials app. I have been wanting to try my hand at a full geo correction table on 1 inch spacing for a long time and now have all the components to do so. It will end up being around 1600 measured points. I'm guessing the app won't allow more then the four point correction which is fine I can do it the longhand way.

This brings me to my question.(sorry about the long windup).

I can't find anything in the help files that give a description of or use of the measure button in k-motion cnc. I am assuming I can move to each point on my grid and hit the measure button and the points will be saved to a file. Is this correct? I know I will have to go back and edit the file to be formatted to match the way the geo correction help file shows it needs to be setup.

Just a little background on how I plan to do the mapping. I purchased a registration grid from here .

Registration Grids

Checking with calipers a tape measure and a square it seems to be surprisingly accurate. I will be sandwiching it between a large mdf panel with a lexan overlay to keep it flat and protected. I will then square the x axis at its origin and it's furthest travel point to align perfectly with the grid. Then I will go back to zero and start mapping points. This should allow me to adjust at each point for any distortion in the x rails as well as be square in y. I am going to find each point using a hd webcam mounted to my z axis. I will be finding the points using this software running on a separate pc.

CNC Cam

I am guessing the end product will be the equivalent of both screw mapping(rack in my case) and squaring the axis in software. I hope it works and wish me luck. If you see any flaws in my thinking please let me know. I will be finished transferring to 433i when I leave the shop tonight. I plan to start mapping Thursday night when I get off work and figure the process will take most if not all of the weekend. The machine is already setup as I described above so no putting it off.

Thank you always.
Ben

[TomKerekes]

Hi Ben!

Sorry to hear about your back. I hope you recover soon.

That all sounds reasonable and thanks for the Links. Except I expect measuring 1600 points will take a long time.

The "Measure" button should allow you to build the correction table in the correct format. It always uses a fixed file name:

\KMotion\Data\Measurements.txt

The file has 3 header lines and then the data points follow. You must initially create the file with the 3 header lines yourself with a Text Editor. It should have the number of rows, cols, then the xy grid spacing, and then any offset for the machine coordinates to grid row,cols.

Pushing the Measure Button will examine this file. If it has only the 3 line header and no data points it will assume you are starting the alignment and will reset to row=0 col=0 and append the first data point. If there are one or more data points it will assume you are in the middle of the alignment and append the next point by incrementing the col and then row.

I find it helpful to write a GCode Loop to automatically advance to the next Grid point and halt.

To examine the source code for the Measure Button Search for:
int CCoordMotion::MeasurePointAppendToFile(const char *name)

Good luck
Regards

[bhurts]

Thank you so much for the fast reply. It seems it will be much easier then I assumed. I thought hitting the measure button was going to only save the point. Example: X1.005,Y1.002. I was thinking once I was done saving all the points I was the going to have to open the txt file and manually add the row and column number to each line. This is so much better. That will remove what I was seeing as the hardest part out of the equation. That is awesome. Also it's nice to know I can shut down at the end of each session without having to worry about how I'm going to startup where I left off. I was thinking I was just going to have to leave the machine on till I was completely done. Not that that worried me to much. I have left the machine on for at least a week on several occasions and never had any issues. Heck the motors don't even get warm at all unless running for extended periods. Never while idle. I've left the machine cutting for 12-16 hours on really complex 3d parts and even then they never get more then 10-20 degrees above ambient if that. You have truly made a superior product and every time I need help I find you've already thought of and made provisions for almost everything.

Thanks again
Ben

[bhurts]

Tom
I finally got a motor wired and tested but could not get any movement so far. I have tried several different things but nothing yet. I am pretty sure I am getting a signal to the motor. If I power the motor on without the connector for step/dir the motor leds come on and it holds position. If the cable is connected I get only one led and no lock. If I then hit the move button the leds both go green and the motor locks up but no movement. I am wondering if I need to try a different pulse length or maybe a different generator. Also maybe it's not wired correctly. I do know it is wired like you showed in a earlier post and have confirmed it's wired that way. I will post a few more things I found on the motors io that has more info then earlier. If you can see something different to try or have any suggestions please let me know. Also if you want me to find any more specific info or I've missed something.

Thanks
Ben

[TomKerekes]

Hi Ben,

Very odd that the Drive would change from green to red just by connecting the Step and Direction signals without even generating any pulses.

It seems pins 3 and 4 are limit switch inputs. Maybe those need to be driven high or low to avoid noise or a floating level from causing limit faults. There is also a "G" input? Were you ever able to find a manual for the drives?

Regards

[bhurts]

Ok

I tried again with the cable drain wire connected to a gnd input and no green to red just steady green. I still am not getting any movement. As for the limit inputs they are also gpio and are set as gpio not limits. A little background. I got the program I flashed to the motors from animatics support. The limits had to be turned off to allow the motors to be active at power up. Basically when powered the lights go green and "supposedly" the motors are ready to accept step/dir input. This was setup through rs232 using there software. The person I spoke to said only that the signal needs to be pulled low? As for the Manuel if you follow the link below it can be downloaded from there site. It is listed under the second heading down "smartmotor Manuals" and should be the first of the two listed. The motor model is sm2337d. The d corresponds to the connectors I posted earlier. If you can think of anything or see something that may help please let me know. I understand you are a busy man so no hurry.

Thanks
Ben

[TomKerekes]

Hi Ben,

I don't see the link. Both TTL Mode and Open Collector Mode should pull the pin low. There might be an issue with not going high enough. You might switch switch the pin Low, High, and Open (as an input) with the Digital I/O Screen to see if you can get the motor to step individual steps. Also check the voltage levels with a voltmeter. Make sure you do this after a power cycle and before any pins are configured as Step/Dir generators or the Digital I/O Screen will not be able to change them. If the pin is going high and low and the motor doesn't step then there is a setup issue with the drive.

Regards

[bhurts]

I'll give it a try and report back. It will be a few days. Thank you for the suggestions. As for the link I'll try again.😊

Animatics | SmartMotor | Integrated Motor | Servo Motor | cnc | servo | actuator | motor control | step motors | robots | robotics
/legacy-downloads.html

Ben

[bhurts]

Ignore that link it takes you to the wrong page. Hope this one works.

Downloadable files for Legacy Products

Ben

[bhurts]

Tom

Regarding the measurements file I have run into a issue. Everything is working as you described above with one hitch. When I started the file all seemed good and as described but I had to stop in process. I have gone back to where I left off and started measuring again. It does continue from where I left off as described above but it started the new measurements at row0 column0 instead of row8 column0 like it should have. Am I doing something wrong in process? No big deal I can amend the file manually it's just not expected.

Thanks
Ben

[TomKerekes]

Hi Ben,

Sorry I should have mentioned that the measurement sequence was not setup to be resume-able after a restart of KMotionCNC. It currently just looks for a file with the header but no data points. If so, it resets its row and column counters in memory to zero. Otherwise it increments the count in memory and just appends a line to the end of the file. To make it resume-able we (or you ) would need to change the code to scan the entire file to find the last line and use that as the previous row and column to increment.

Regards

[bhurts]

It's all good. I appreciate the quick response. I had just finished measuring the points when I realized the disparity. I am almost done amending the numbers in notepad. I'll let you know how it runs and if there is a noticeable increase in precision. I do have to note that the grid I linked did not work as hoped. I checked a smaller section with measuring tools and all looked great. The actual full grid was perfectly square but the 48 inch measurement was off about 3/32 to the plus. I ended up just mapping the linearity of the x in relation to the y. The x was not perfectly straight so I mapped the travel in 1 inch increments aligning it in y to be a perfectly straight line. Then did the same with y moving x to align with a grid line. I drew the points in cad as a polyline as I was mapping. The start points were both in relation to 0,0 or home on the machine. I then copied the lines in 1inch increments in each axis to create the full travels in cad. I then went in and put a point at each intersection throughout the entire grid to get true position mapped. (very tedious). Then I erased all the lines and drew line's point to point following the mapping setup. Last I used that file to create g code to measure the points. Hopefully that makes since and actually works. The only caveat is that the 1 inch spacing will not adjust for the actual travel but instead follow the spacing dictated by the counts per value in the trajectory planner. It should I believe create straight and square parts which was the real reason for the process to begin with.

Ben

[bhurts]

Ok it's been a bit. I have decided to put the animatics motors to the side. I can't afford to wait until I understand these motors enough to get them going. Instead I have a snapamp and kanalog on the way. The snapamp will go with the kflop I have for the animatics setup. I have enough brush dc motors to get things going. I did have to order encoders for them and ordered a 50 pin breakout from winford as well. Luckily I think I can get this going almost entirely on my own. I may have a few questions but I'll get to that if needed. The kanalog I will get to eventually. I have been dying to experiment with analog drives so it was time to pick one up.

Tom I don't know if you have seen the link I put up for my brush motor tuning help file. I will post the link here. If you get a chance to look at it please ignore the grammar mistakes. I would like your opinion on it before putting up a refined version for general use.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qidfvxteex...uning.rtf?dl=0

Hopefully the link works. It opens in wordpad.

Ben

[TomKerekes]

Hi Ben!

Excellent job. Thank you.

I added a few minor comments and tried to correct the spelling and typos.

Attached is a PDF and also a zip of the .rtf file.

Regards