[Adverse Effects]

i have seen a 3020

why would you buy one unless your only carving on things the size of a slice of bread (maby a touch bigger)

[MarcusWolschon]

300x400 not 300x200 and it's perfectly adequate for the many, small mechanical parts and molds yet contrary to the 6040 it's portable when mounted inside a stage cargo box.
No heavy water cooling either with the smaller spindle.
Basically a smaller CNC for my mobile workshop to take along in addition to the "large" machine in the workshop with fog cooling and 5 axis and a case and touchscreen PC and vacuum cleaner.

[Adverse Effects]

but out of that 300x400 you will only be able to use about 210x300 that is small but as you say its good for a mobile workshop

[Alantron]

In that case, if the box has an IEC socket with an earth, run a wire from the earth to a bolt inside the case (can be an existing mounting bolt, just make sure it's conducting solidly to the metal of the case) , and run an earth wire from there to the VFD's earth. The earth to the machine should go from the VFD via the spindle cable, either via the shield, or the 4th wire if the spindle cable is 4-core.

Ok this is what i have,




So, do i leave the green wire connected to the power supply and run a wire from there to the controller box or take the wire off the power supply and ground directly to the control box?

With the blue box the VFD is not connected to mains earth.
* replace the spindle cable with a shielded 4 wire one, connect the 4th wire to VFD-earth terminal. Make sure the cable is flexible enough. connect shield to earch on one side only.
* run VFD-earth terminal to the blue control box metal case and metal case to the earth terminal there
* give that water pump it's own 24V power supply (and optionally solder capacitors in a triangle between the motor case and both DC ports)
* if your PC has an external DC power supply (e.g. an all-in-one Atom touchscreen PC), find an earth point and connect that to the same point on the blue control box case
* if your PC is a desktop with an AC power supply, disconnect the blue control box earth and connect all of them to a point on that PC instead of the control box (star=exactly 1 point to connect to mains earth. No ground loops)
* if you use RS485, don't forget to connect the shield of that cable to earth on the VFD or on the RS485-adapter too (but only one of these 2)

1. Going to buy shielded wiring today seems straight forward
2.pics with question above
3.I completely removed the water pump wiring switch and plug im going to harbor freight today the buy one of those cheap pond submersibles
4.nope
5.again i think this refers to #2

Also read something about the boxes having a 5v usb or external power source? mine doesnt

[MarcusWolschon]

The real limiting factor on these machines I find to be the 55-60mm of Z travel when using the 4th axis.
Above and below the bed the Y portal limits the diameter of anything you can mount to the 4th axis heavily.
I'm considering mounting the spindle upside down and the 4th axis above the machine but that means extending the case heavily to not have shavings and coolant all over your (tiny, hobby-) workshop.

[MarcusWolschon]

Does anyone have the 3040 and can tell me the dimensions including steppers and cables?
(to select a case for it)

[Alantron]

So far I've unscrewed the ground going from the iec plug to the power supply and grounded that to the controller box. Then I ran a wire from that same bolt to the vfd ground. And finally another wire from the vfd to a bolt on the machine. The only thing I didn't ground was the pc. And I have shielded wire on the way. I'm still getting what I think is stalling, it'll be milling fine then it makes a groaning noise sometimes for a second sometimes more then continues but it'll be way off. I read I couple pages back and maybe I should downgrade to xp? Right now I'm using a 3ghz duo core windows 7 pc with 3 gigs of ram

[Adverse Effects]

I'm using a 3ghz duo core 7 pc with 3 gigs of ram

go back to XP or 2K

[Alantron]

go back to XP or 2K

Yes I'm installing xp as we speak. In standard pc mode.

[Adverse Effects]

the other thing i have seen cause that is running to fast and the power supply carnt give enough amps to push the stepper motors and it will stutter badly

think about it

say basic NEMA 17 = about 3 amps run 3 of thos + the control unit = 10 amps or more

[Adverse Effects]

another thing if you can dont have the computer networked so you dont have to use a anti virus on it so it runs better

[Alantron]

Hmm ... Are you stil using the blue controller box? What are your settings in motor tuning?

[Alantron]

Yes this pc no internet and has nothing on it but Mach 3 I use USB drives to transfer gcode

[Adverse Effects]

yes i use the blue box

BUT

there is nothing in it that was in there to start with HAHAHA

i striped thew guts of it out and fitted a G-540 and a bigger power supply and a few other things

[Alantron]

Oh lol lucky. Ill upgrade to a gecko some day

[Adverse Effects]

Attachment 190538

[Alantron]

You still using the water pump that came with it? I ripped out the button and the wiring for it. I went today to harbor freight and bought a $10 submersible pump but it wasn't strong enough

[Adverse Effects]

lol hell no i am using a 3000Lt per hour pond pump i just didnt bother takeing out the wiring for the old one

that 12VDC one that came with it could wake the dead

[Alantron]

lol hell no i am using a 3000Lt per hour pond pump i just didnt bother takeing out the wiring for the old one

that 12VDC one that came with it could wake the dead

Yea apparently it's a diaphragm pump for RVs. Do you guys think my problem might be the breakout board? Mine doesn't have the 5v USB plug for power.

[Adverse Effects]

if you read back through this thread you well see that how to ground everything is explained well (if i remember correctly) as for the controler box i have seen 1 or 2 people say "it all works with no problem at all" (i dont believe them) but i have seen more than 20 people say its crap (i am one of thos people) and not worth wasting time on (i wasted about 20 hours and got it sort of ok then it exploded) then i got the G-540 and i can drive the mill at lest 2 times the speed with it and i dont have any of the problems with lost steps any more (was a big problem with the YOOCNC drivers)