[A_Camera]

I am afraid I am going to have to disagree with what A_Camera has written about several things.

That's OK, but I hope you have the facts and the knowledge necessary.

* Connection to a Start ground: essential to cut noise problems - as Schuimpge has determined experimentally. Even power supply mfrs will tell you to earth their supplies, not to mention every CNC kit vendor.

Yes. But only a total rookie and a person with ZERO real (by "real" I mean knowledge and education received in school, not through googgling) electronic knowledge would interpret that as "connect EVERY ground and earth together, including low voltage signal GND and GND which supposed to be isolated from everything else. The very idea of "isolated supply" is violated and made totally pointless if that advice is followed literally and everybudy following it literally just proves his/her lack of knowledge.

* Use of Opto-isolators even with a common star ground - they prevent the coupling of very high frequency RF noise which can be a killer. The really high frequency stuff does not behave like audio, and VFDs can generate a lot of it.

Nonsense. Opto isolators are NOT filters, even if they can have that as some side effect. The ONLY purpose of optical isolation is to isolate power from other power sources. That is not achieved if your advice is followed because by connecting GND to earth you actually lose isolation.

* Arduino vs commercial - hardly the point. If Schuimpge wants to go the Arduino route, that is HIS choice. Others have done that and have working systems. The underlying idea is why we now have Mach3 and UCCNC and LinuxCNC rather than all still having to use Fanuc and Siemans etc very expensive but obsolete controllers.

Now you really have confused things quite a bit by comparing and mixing things and claiming that I said things I never said. Of course Arduino can be made to work, I never said anything else. What I said, or meant is that it is NOT for people with zero electronic knowledge and NOT for people in hurry, who's wife wants that key board and who is spending hours and hours on simple basic problems. Arduino is for electronic experimenters with great interest in electronic and firmware and for people who who know HOW things work in the electronic world. Even so, I doubt anyone really made an Arduino based controller which can compete with simple and cheap drivers or controllers. None of these have anything to do with Mach3 or UCCNC, other that that those software won't run on Mac. Of course, if he wants to use Arduino that's fine, why should I care, but considering his electronic knowledge, he will spend a LOT of time on trying to solve things and will NEVER be happy in the end. Get back here in two-three years time because right now, you have no case. You don't know if I am right or wrong at the moment about this.

Even if he gets it working, he will be unhappy with the speed and the only reason is Arduino. He will NOT be able to run his machine fast enough considering the size of his machine, which is very large, and also considering, like I also said and meant, that it is a nice build, in my opinion it is a shame he went for the Arduino, but yes, it is his decision, and his decision alone, so I really don't care.

* Capacitor filtering on switches - it works just fine because it filters the pull-up side of things and eliminates switch bounce. It comes into action the instant the switch opens, not while the switch is closed. Just because the switch shorts out the cap when it is closed does NOT mean it cannot function as an RC filter with the pull-up resistor the rest of the time. After all, it is the open state of the switch rather than the closed state which matters. And a capacitor is still a capacitor even if it starts with zero volts across it.

Yes and no. Of course, I know how capacitors work and what they do. BUT... there is no need to debounce ANYTHING in a limit switch circuit because the very idea of limit switch is to detect the FIRST change, i.e. the FIRST raising edge of the low to high transition. It doesn't matter if the switch bounces back and forth a thousand times more because the bounce will have ZERO effect since the limit switch triggered signal is already given and detected and the circuit is already broken. The software will (hopefully) not follow the bounces at all, otherwise it is a crappy software. Like I said, I have no idea about how Arduino handles this, but this is surely the case for both Mach3 and UCCNC. Once the limit switch is triggered the software is disabled and movements are stopped, even if the switch bounces back.

Of course, the capacitor will provide a delay and debounce the switch, but that debounce is totally pointless and there are better ways to do it if you'd find that necessary. Remember that we are not talking about a keyboard with push buttons which should only give one signal for every push and allow giving several signals in a row, like when we type on our keyboards. We are talking about LIMIT switch which should trigger as soon as the circuit is broken, not delayed because there is no point in that delay at all.

Attachment 339086

The above image is from the Mach3 manual. There is no capacitor because there is NO NEED for a capacitor in this circuit. Any other implementation is totally wrong, even if it works.

Cheers
Roger (BSc Hon, MSc, PhD, 50 years experience designing electronic systems (including robotics) and supervising graduate electronics engineers)

Considering that last line, I am very surprised by your comments above that and before. Also, if that last line is true it must mean that you are at least, or around 75 years old, which I don't believe you are. So, something does not add up in that last line. Even if you are a genius and received your PhD when you were 15 you must be about 65 today (if you have 50 years of experience in electronic design), which I also don't think you are... but never mind.

[A_Camera]

Thanks for your support Roger, felt, still feeling, quite upset with how this conversation is going south..

Cheers,
Luc

Ah, I see. I am sorry I can not give you the support you were looking for. I tried to help you out because I thought you had a problem. Apparently I was wrong and really sorry I wasted my time here.

[Schuimpge]

Ah, I see. I am sorry I can not give you the support you were looking for. I tried to help you out because I thought you had a problem. Apparently I was wrong and really sorry I wasted my time here.

A_Camera, I think you're pulling things totally out of context. I explained very clearly and I think very politely how I felt after your couple of last posts and the post from Roger brought, for me, back some sanity in the overall conversation.

I can fill some of the question-marks you had on Roger's education. Earlier post on page 20 or so: He mentioned he finished his PhD in London late 60s..So that would probably mean he was somewhere between 25-30 at that time. I was born in '70 btw, but that would indeed make Roger well in his 70's..

Another point on the Arduino. You're totally wrong on it having to be used by professionals or people with REAL knowledge on electricity only.
It was started as a project in 2004 for non-engineers to use electronics in a simple and easy to understand way in their projects...
From Wikipedia:

"Colombian student Hernando Barragán created the development platform Wiring as his Master's thesis project in 2004 at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII) in Ivrea, Italy. Massimo Banzi and Casey Reas (known for his work on Processing) were supervisors for his thesis. The goal was to create low cost, simple tools for non-engineers to create digital projects. The Wiring platform consisted of a hardware PCB with an ATmega168 microcontroller, an IDE based on Processing and library functions to easily program the microcontroller.[35]

In 2005, Massimo Banzi, with David Mellis (then an IDII student) and David Cuartielles, added support for the cheaper ATmega8 microcontroller to Wiring. But instead of continuing the work on Wiring, they forked (or copied) the Wiring source code and started running it as a separate project, called Arduino.[35]"

Last but not least, I have no hurry, neither does my wife, we enjoy life together.. it's too hot here anyway to do things in a hurry and you'll very quickly appreciate why your staff is working slower than what you're used to in Europe.

Cheers,
Luc

[Schuimpge]

Thanks Black Forrest, will get some video's done and get them posted as well. I'm not from Thailand originally though, Dutch.. Nachbar..Nah an die Grenze bei Vreden/Borken..:cheers:

Cheers,
Luc

[Black Forest]

Thanks Black Forrest, will get some video's done and get them posted as well. I'm not from Thailand originally though, Dutch.. Nachbar..Nah an die Grenze bei Vreden/Borken..:cheers:

Cheers,
Luc

Oh oh. From the Netherlands. Then I take back all those encouraging words!😆 just kidding.

[Schuimpge]

Had a few minutes to finally cut up the hold-down clamps.
Now 4 clamps, will serve me very well I think..

Attachment 339090

The back side screw can be adjusted to stay horizontal with the stock it's holding down.

Made a screenshot of the settings I'm currently using with most of the settings.

Attachment 339092

And a video to time the homing from the far corner. Took 1m13 seconds.. Might be that I could up the speed on home-seeking, but not sure enough yet on the machine.

Well, need to wait for that.. seems some connection problems don't let me upload anything.

Will do later today or this weekend..

Cheers,
Luc

[Schuimpge]

Oh oh. From the Netherlands. Then I take back all those encouraging words!�� just kidding.

Just testing to see if you really are from Germany.. (you passed the test...lol)

[A_Camera]

I can fill some of the question-marks you had on Roger's education. Earlier post on page 20 or so: He mentioned he finished his PhD in London late 60s..So that would probably mean he was somewhere between 25-30 at that time. I was born in '70 btw, but that would indeed make Roger well in his 70's..

I'd let him answer that comment about his credentials, but if he has 50 years of electronic design experience then he must be in his LATE 70's, at best and from the way he writes, I doubt all of that is true. I don't know which part of that is true and which is not, nor is it actually important. I only know that I have ONLY worked about 43 years in total and ONLY about 36 of those in the fields of electronics, computing and similar engineering work, so he is definitely my senior (assuming he really has been working as long as he claims he have) and you should listen to him. It seems to suit your needs more than what I said and I really don't have more time to waste here with such basic questions as how to connect limit switches and what capacitors do and don't do and how they should be used and how you should and should not connect your earth and if GND and protective earth are the same or not... I feel I wasted more time here than I had available.

Your building progress was interesting to follow so far, but I will leave now and I wish you good luck in the progress.

[Schuimpge]

Well, the Key hanging board gets better, put my brother on the paintwork.. he's the artist in the family..lol

[Schuimpge]

I'd let him answer that comment about his credentials, but if he has 50 years of electronic design experience then he must be in his LATE 70's, at best and from the way he writes, I doubt all of that is true. I don't know which part of that is true and which is not, nor is it actually important. I only know that I have ONLY worked about 43 years in total and ONLY about 36 of those in the fields of electronics, computing and similar engineering work, so he is definitely my senior (assuming he really has been working as long as he claims he have) and you should listen to him. It seems to suit your needs more than what I said and I really don't have more time to waste here with such basic questions as how to connect limit switches and what capacitors do and don't do and how they should be used and how you should and should not connect your earth and if GND and protective earth are the same or not... I feel I wasted more time here than I had available.

Your building progress was interesting to follow so far, but I will leave now and I wish you good luck in the progress.

Thanks A_Camera for your input, even though it stops here for you maybe, I'll still continue with the to-do list and see what works or not. Appreciate your time.. for me it sure wasn't wasted.

Kind regards,
Luc

[Schuimpge]

Amazing machine, well done video as well. Thanks for shearing..(pun intended)

Watched it again just now. That is an amazing machine..
Never thought to commercialize it?
Cheers,
Luc

[fretman_2]

My (hobby) machine is controlled by an Arduino Uno too. My first experience was with a Shapeoko machine and I used the Arduino off of that. I'm familiar with the Arduino and it worked which is why I went that way. It only has 3 axis of control, but that's not an issue as the single Y axis controls two M542T drivers. I've yet to hook up any limit/homing switches but they do work on the Arduino...lots of people have them going. My gripe with the current 'commercial' setup is having to scrounge a machine with a parallel port. The Arduino behaves beautifully with the USB port.

I build electric guitars on the side and only build a few a year. The setup I have is great for that. Might go another route if I start building more guitars, but I'd still hate having to use a computer with a parallel port!

[Schuimpge]

Yesterday I took the dive and started cutting a small groove around the table to determine the necessary cutoff for leveling the table.
Was as I measured some weeks ago, just short of 2mm from highest to lowest point.
So this morning first job was getting my brother to finish the Key board, then started with a 13mm router bit to make a wider path around the table.
This would also help me to keep a nice straight line on the outside, as the FlyCutting code goes left-right-left pattern, so it leaves circles at the end-stops.
Took quite some time, but started on a sample for a logo for a friend of mine. In multiplex, so good to test.
1mm cut, 1200mm / minute with a 2mm bit..upping the speed more and more, really goes fast.

Also finished the key board this afternoon. Quite productive today.


All done. Only couple of hangers on the back and ready.


This is a negative of the intended picture. The light parts are black in the original.
Just a first try, the wood is bent like crazy, but with the 4 clamps I have now, it was very easy to clamp it down flat


That's the table now. You can see the edge of what has been leveled.
And the 4 clamps, (cut the original 2 in half).

Homing Cycle: https://youtu.be/-kk0L23wRh4

And cutting the portrait: https://youtu.be/sDy26E8nQe8

Cheers,
Luc

[Schuimpge]

My (hobby) machine is controlled by an Arduino Uno too. My first experience was with a Shapeoko machine and I used the Arduino off of that. I'm familiar with the Arduino and it worked which is why I went that way. It only has 3 axis of control, but that's not an issue as the single Y axis controls two M542T drivers. I've yet to hook up any limit/homing switches but they do work on the Arduino...lots of people have them going. My gripe with the current 'commercial' setup is having to scrounge a machine with a parallel port. The Arduino behaves beautifully with the USB port.

I build electric guitars on the side and only build a few a year. The setup I have is great for that. Might go another route if I start building more guitars, but I'd still hate having to use a computer with a parallel port!

Agree with the issue of having a computer continuously next to it because of the parallel port and the fact that it's running on XP.
Arduino on USB is very stable and fast. The only downside is that you can't have an external jog-dial. But that's not a huge problem.

Cheers,
Luc

[Schuimpge]

Bit late, but some progress again. Finished a first dust-shoe this Sunday. There's several criteria for it. Easy removal. keeping the dust in and providing a 'barrier' for objects flying around (including potential broken drill-bits).. visibility for zero-ing the drill bit. Accessibility to the chuck.
So with that in mind, I started with a simple square of 12x12 cm. There's 2 large holes, 1 for the spindle, 1 for the dust-collector.
Then there's 6 smaller holes cnc'd with 1 mm wood to spare to fit magnets to hold the dust-shoe to the part that goes around the spindle.
Simple symmetric design that was easily made in Easel and copied to make 3 of them.

Gave me also the opportunity to test Tabs and later cut out the work-piece.
From there, sanding is the next step and then putting the magnets in. Bit of glue first, magnets in, and then glue the top part on and clamp it.
The bottom part again glue the magnets in, then simply click it on and the magnets will pull into the glue by themselves.

The cover is from an old rubber inner tire. Stiff enough to not be sucked in and flexible enough to move over objects.
It's fitted with Hook'nLoops so I can access the chuck and check for zero-ing easily.

Pictures:


First layer cut.. you can see the tabs around all the parts. Worked well.


Top 2 layers. Magnets and fitting for dust-collector done.


Test fitting. It's a perfectly tight push-fit.. Will still add a small cable over the spindle mount for safety.


Bottom part taken off and upside down. Magnets are giving a nice secure fitting and align the bottom part perfectly with the top.


Bottom view.


And with rubber 'skirt' around it. With the Hook'nLoop I only need 1 wood base and can make different 'skirt-sizes' for longer and shorter drill bits easily.

Not tested yet..maybe tonight.

Got some small LED strips that will be fitted to the underside. This will help visibility on zero-ing the bit and checking on the work.

Cheers,
Luc

[Schuimpge]

tested.. works wonders.. no dust at all. Now only need to get that dust collector silenced...lol

- - - Updated - - -

Coming back to the capacitors..Went back to 1uF, had a couple of false triggers on 0.1uF. No problems since.

Cheers,
Luc

[1Jumper10]

HI Schuimpge. Good job on your router. I made a similar dust shoe one time using PVC pipe and also some PVC board to bracket tit to the spindle. Structurally it worked fine but the plastic parts created another problem- Static electricity. It played havoc with my limit sensors. I couldnt figure out what the problem was until i went to disconnect the vacuum hose and got zapped. I now use a different shoe design and a grounding wire to dissipate the charge.

[RCaffin]

Fwiiw:
Yes, I graduated early, and my MSc was the conversion of a defunct electron microscope into a functional scanning electron microscope. Needless to say, there was quite a lot of electronics involved, both low voltage stuff and also stuff at ~30 kV. My PhD in London was in Control Systems. That covers the basic tuning of PID servo systems and systems interfacing and control with a computer. Programming was in Assembly in those days. Even then we had to watch out for RFI from the ~30 kW of phase-controlled power being used in the equipment being computer-controlled. It worked.

Some time after I retired I bought a CNC second hand so I could make some very specialised mountaineering gear and sell it. The electronics started to fail and was not repairable. I stripped out everything except the main power transformer (It had NOT failed!) and totally rebuilt the entire system. It runs very well now (and the product sells).

Dust shoes: I rigged up a vacuum cleaner nozzle next to the cutter tip. No shoe as such, but it works fine with a commercial shop-vac driving it. I use that when machining Corian for jigs.

Cheers
Roger

[Schuimpge]

HI Schuimpge. Good job on your router. I made a similar dust shoe one time using PVC pipe and also some PVC board to bracket tit to the spindle. Structurally it worked fine but the plastic parts created another problem- Static electricity. It played havoc with my limit sensors. I couldnt figure out what the problem was until i went to disconnect the vacuum hose and got zapped. I now use a different shoe design and a grounding wire to dissipate the charge.

Hello 1Jumper10, thanks for the comment, static electricity, hmm that's a nasty bugger indeed. Not having any problems with it so far. Used the dust shoe on Saturday to cut another logo for a friend and it really takes out all the dust very well. No more big cleanup needed afterwards.
Never had issues with that anyways with my dust-collector. It's a home-build combination of an old wet-dry shopvac and a thien-baffle separator.


Complete unit, it's on castors so very easy to move around to the machine where I need it.
All machines have the same PVC pipe fitting. Just push the hose on and start working.
There's a HEPA filter in the front, so there's almost zero dust escaping.
Added some extra electricity outlets so wherever the dust-collector is, I can just plug a machine into it as well.


The inside, it's now covered with foam to reduce noise. But still a noisy bugger. Might one day replace the shopvac, but it's working fine for now.
Dustbin has a rubber strip on top to create a good seal between the Baffle and the dustbin. Tried using dust-bags, but the suction is to strong, even when weighing down the bags.

The top of the cabinet also rests on a rubber seal and the Hepa filter is clamped to a rubber seal as well. So air comes in through the hose, goes out through the filter only...zero dust.


Dustbags are very hard to get for it, and the Thien Baffle separator takes out 95% of the material anyway. So I use filter-flos and that works perfect. Even without the HEPA filter I never had any problem with dust getting past the motor outlets. I change the floss every 4-6 months. Changed it last Saturday because my contractor had used it during sanding down a ceiling he'd fixed (gypsum filler on the seams.. nasty dust..). Worked perfect..

Overall, I can recommend anybody looking for a dust-solution to build a Thien Baffle separator. They are amazing. Bit of experimenting sometimes in terms of the inlet size/height etc, but it works perfectly. Plans are freely available on the internet.. Just search for the name.

Cheers,
Luc

[Schuimpge]

Fwiiw:
Yes, I graduated early, and my MSc was the conversion of a defunct electron microscope into a functional scanning electron microscope. Needless to say, there was quite a lot of electronics involved, both low voltage stuff and also stuff at ~30 kV. My PhD in London was in Control Systems. That covers the basic tuning of PID servo systems and systems interfacing and control with a computer. Programming was in Assembly in those days. Even then we had to watch out for RFI from the ~30 kW of phase-controlled power being used in the equipment being computer-controlled. It worked.

Some time after I retired I bought a CNC second hand so I could make some very specialised mountaineering gear and sell it. The electronics started to fail and was not repairable. I stripped out everything except the main power transformer (It had NOT failed!) and totally rebuilt the entire system. It runs very well now (and the product sells).

Dust shoes: I rigged up a vacuum cleaner nozzle next to the cutter tip. No shoe as such, but it works fine with a commercial shop-vac driving it. I use that when machining Corian for jigs.

Cheers
Roger

Hello Roger, you've achieved more in your study/eduction time alone than me in my entire life I guess..impressive list of qualifications and work.
I've only managed to finish a college degree and am a qualified teacher Biology & Geography..Never worked 1 single paid hour as such though.. At the time there where hardly jobs available and I just started sweeping floors in a factory to get some salary. Worked my way up and some 7 years later I was in Singapore, Sea/Air freight sales manager.
Got bored with logistics and moved over to one of my customers who was into electronic-waste recycling and that's what I still do, now running 2 sites myself (as part of a large MNC with HQ in Singapore), Thailand and Vietnam, with Myanmar and Laos next on the list.

Any pictures of your machine?

Cheers,
Luc