The mill is 3 or 4 years old I can't remember the exact year I bought it. The break out board is off a Torus pro stepper version. I think the 5.2 is still the current version.
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The mill is 3 or 4 years old I can't remember the exact year I bought it. The break out board is off a Torus pro stepper version. I think the 5.2 is still the current version.
I have a touch screen for normal machine operation but have a mouse and keyboard too. I can see where including a mouse might be a problem depending on how your enclosure/control is setup.Quote:
Originally Posted by Titaniumboy
Many people run the test releases of UCCNC because they generally are bug free (or have so few bugs that only an extremely small subset have issues) and are very stable. I am on the most recent test release, I've run it for weeks now without issue. I'm confident I am not alone in that. That said, the current official release has been out for less than a year. So G41/2 isn't just a test release feature since it appears in the most recent stable release.
I wonder if our BOBs are different because my Torus has a spindle servo that can do rigid tapping?Quote:
Originally Posted by upnorth
Quote:
Originally Posted by CL_MotoTech
I pulled the trigger on the UCCNC option.
I bought the UC300ETH motion controller with the 5LPT motherboard and UCCNC software. $209 for the hardware, $55 for the software, and $17.14 for shipping from CNC4PC. Total $226.14.
They said 2 day shipping, but it may be longer since I think they will have to get the software key from CNCdrive in Hungary.
I am bummed out about by being so chicken with PathPilot. I may yet get the PathPilot USB stick and Mesa 5i25 in the future and have a go at it, but at least this way I’ll be up and running in the meantime. I would be able to tinker with PathPilot with no time pressures.
I just looked amd it seems our break out boards are different. My torus pro will not do rigid tapping.Quote:
Originally Posted by Titaniumboy
You probably made a good choice. A while back I was considering installing path pilot and one of my concerns was that Tormach really did not want us using it so support might be an issue. I was uncertain about how big the user base would be so thought getting help might be difficult. I also thought updates might be hit or miss. I went with an acorn and so far am happy with it. I have been mostly just doing testing with it but its ready to do some real work now. I work in a shop with no heat or insulation and we had snow as recent as last week so I have been slow getting things going. Good luck with the new system install. Keep us posted on how it goes. I'm interested in hearing how it works out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Titaniumboy
It's a tough call. I think LinuxCNC is a good option. The small amount I've used it, the control has worked well and was easy to use (i could get into detail but I wont). I think the PP option is very hard though. I work in IT for a living, I run Windows, OSX, and Linux every single day. I like various things about all of those systems. As upnorth mentions though, being alone on PP sounds scary to me, especially given the accounts that aren't that uncommon here. It's not scary from the perspective of eventually getting it to work, it's scary from the how long and how much frustration angle. Ultimately, I want to make stuff, not tinker on controllers (or the machine). I do think Acorn is a good option, I hope to build a CNC lathe soon, and Acorn is probably top of my list for that build.Quote:
Originally Posted by Titaniumboy
Good luck with your new stuff! Hopefully it works out for you!
I mangled the costs above. I should have said $154 for hardware, $55 for software, plus shipping totaled $226.14. I received the UC300ETH last Saturday in good condition.Quote:
Originally Posted by Titaniumboy
I have a bunch of extra cables on the power supply that Novakon used to power the Windows 7 motherboard and the breakout board. I thought I would just tear into one of those spare cables and grab a 5V wire and a ground wire. Easy peasy.
After the UC300ETH arrives, I decided to check in at the UCCNC cnczone forum and they advised that it would be a good idea to power the UC300ETH with a separate power supply. Something about the UC300 being isolated due to its ethernet connection and wouldn't it be a shame to risk that lovely isolation using a common power supply. So off to Amazon I go last Tuesday and order a Meanwell RS-15-5 power supply, 5 Volts at 3 Amps for $12.49. Very tiny and cute.
Attachment 443148
And then I realize last Wednesday that the UC300ETH uses IDC26 headers everywhere. I used to build computers way back in the day and I surely must have one of these ribbon cables laying around. No joy. Evidently it has been a long time since I've built a computer and nobody has used these cables in a computer build since forever. So then I start searching for a IDC26 to DB25 cable. While they exist, I decided a better solution was to use a CNC4PC C84 IDS26 to DB25 adapter board. Only $4.50.
Attachment 443150
This C84 adapter board will let me use a standard printer cable to connect from the UC300ETH to my Novakon breakout board. I should receive it by Wednesday.
Hopefully this helps anyone else going down the UCCNC road to save some time by not making the same mistakes I made. Extra parts are definitely needed to make this UCCNC installation work properly.
In the mean time, since I've been in this cycle of ordering parts and then waiting on parts to arrive, I decided to mill some delrin using the demo Mach3. But I've ran into a dumb problem that maybe someone can help me with.
I'm trying to indicate on a round boss with an indicator in order to set my part zero. But the damn spindle won't let me sweep the indicator around the boss. Apparently the servo motor on the spindle is intent on keeping the spindle in the same position, thus preventing me from spinning the spindle by hand. What the heck?
If you have the same servo spindle motor with rigid tapping the only solution I have found is to press the E-Stop button to free the spindle. It is a pain but you have to love rigid tapping.Quote:
Originally Posted by Titaniumboy
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve303
My Torus has the body of a NM-145, the heart and brains of a Pulsar, and an apparent idiot for an operator. I do indeed have the same servo spindle motor with rigid tapping as you do.
Thanks for the tip of using the Emergency Stop button to deactivate the servo spindle. You weren't kidding when you said it is a pain.
1. Press Emer Stop
2. spin the indicator and guesstimate how far to move in X and Y
3. reset Emer Stop
4. press the Mach3 Reset icon
5. physically move the X and Y by the guesstimate distance.
6. Go to Step 1
Lather, rinse, repeat for umpteen times. Yikes.
And Double Yikes for doing all the above without a MPG on a pendant. That sucked. Note to self: Get a freaking pendant ASAP.
Pressing the Emergency Stop button kills both the servo spindle and the axis motors by de-energizing the relay located on the DIN rails. The Drive Power switch (located on the electronic cabinet exterior next to the Main Power switch) is immediately downstream electrically of the DIN rail relay, and so has the same effect as pressing the Emergency Stop.
What would be handy for indicating in a part this way would be a way to disable only the servo spindle while leaving the axis motors operational.
Your Pulsar and my Torus are wired such that the DIN rail relay (and the Drive Power switch) feed 220 Volts to the servo spindle, the coolant pump,, the washdown pump (which my Torus does not have), and the 220 Volt power transformer. The 220 Volt power transformer then feeds 50 VAC to the three axis motors. It should be an easy mod to add a dedicated relay for the servo spindle so that only the spindle is de-energized.
My Torus has finally made its first chips today. Ok, so they were plastic delrin chips.Quote:
Originally Posted by Titaniumboy
One shouldn't rush unnecessarily into these things...:withstupi
And the delrin part isn't machining quite correct yet. I'm having trouble with the Mach3 G41 cutter comp path making too large of a circle around my round boss. I can see the 5/16" cutter going in a circle around the 1" diameter boss and not getting any closer than about 1/4". I generated the toolpath in Solidworks CAM, and I input .3125" in both T01 and T21 in the Mach3 tool tables.
I have a circular pocket in the same part and it also is using a G41 cutter comp for the finish pass. In this case, the tool path is much smaller than expected and is not even touching the walls for the finish pass.
I found the answer to my problem the day after I posted this about a month ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by Titaniumboy
Everyone here probably already knows this, but the following will be for any CNC newbies. There are two different types of contours encountered when using G41/G42 Cutter Compensation. The first kind of contour is called Material Edge Contour and the tool path is the outline of the part itself. The value input to the Tool Table is the actual diameter of the tool.
The second kind of contour is called Tool Path Contour and the tool path accounts for the tool radius is and therefore offset from the part outline. The value input to the Tool Table is zero, assuming that the tool is the correct size.
I had only done hand programming in the CNC classes I had taken, so we were writing G-Code using the coordinates of the part itself. And so we would always use the tool diameter in the tool table. We were using Material Edge Contours.
The G-Code output by Solidworks for my delrin part, however, had already taken into account the tool radius and so had programmed the tool path to be offset from the part outline. Solidworks had generated code using Tool Path Contour. The correct Tool Table entry should have been zero. No wonder the tool path was much larger than expected when I instead entered the tool diameter into the Tool Table.
All of this information is explained very nicely in the Novakon Pulsar manual on pages 5-80 thru 5-83.
Here is my simple delrin part shown in Solidworks. The part is one inch high and the starting stock is 1 inch diameter.
Attachment 444356
And this is the tool paths generated by Solidworks CAM. This took quite a bit of time since this was my first time using the CAM package.
Attachment 444358Attachment 444360
My first successful part on the Torus! Not the most rigid setup but it worked anyway. The amount of delrin chips generated was very impressive. I had delrin chips all over the place. I am now convinced of the absolute requirement for a mill enclosure to contain chips and coolant.
Attachment 444362
The parts coming off of the mill had to be parted off in the lathe. I ended up making eight parts in total.
Attachment 444364
You need a slitting saw. You could have parted those right on the mill. I do stuff like you did there all of the time. The slitting saw made it go much faster.
CL-M,
That is a darn good idea. I even have a couple of slitting saws. I would normally have tried this, but the idea of generating another toolpath and then changing tools out after each part didn’t appeal to me right then.
It would have also meant dorking around with Mach3 longer than I wanted to.
You see, these eight parts made in the Torus are destined to become part of the Torus. The Torus is making parts for itself !?!
Skynet
Glad you are up and running. I think you will be happier than you were with the original controller. Please post an update after you have been using it for a while.
Quote:
Originally Posted by upnorth
X2
Steve
Thanks guys! Keep up the encouragement because I sure need it some days.
Unfortunately I am still running on Mach3. After the first successful milling project that made a big mess of delrin chips I decided that I needed an enclosure before I graduated to aluminum and flood coolant. So the UCCNC install has been slightly delayed, but I'm still hoping to get it up and running by the end of June.
So here is my version of LeeWay's shower curtain enclosure.
Curtain Closed
Attachment 444666
Curtain Open
Attachment 444668
Where LeeWay had used all PVC pipe, I instead used 1/2" electrical EMT conduit. I would have liked to use EMT metal fittings, but there doesn't seem to be a compact corner fitting, so I ended up with PVC corner fittings. The EMT conduit OD is smaller than the PVC corner ID, so I made 12 delrin bushings on my manual lathe.
Attachment 444670
A reasonable question is why did I make the EMT bushings on the lathe instead of the CNC mill? The answer is that I was running short on 1" delrin rod and the lathe was wasting less material than the mill would have. I got faster as I made multiple bushings, and I was making one in less than 20 minutes by the time I finished. The picture above doesn't show it, but I drilled and tapped through both the PVC corner fitting and the delrin bushing and installed setscrews to secure the EMT conduit.
Remember this part?
Attachment 444672
This part was my overly complicated way to secure the EMT conduit in place. I thought my delrin conduit bracket design might be too flimsy, but it has ended up being plenty sturdy.
Attachment 444674
M4 socket head cap screws are holding nicely in the delrin tapped holes.
Attachment 444676 Attachment 444678
It looks good! Very practical! Nothing is worse than walking around in chips.
Try not to delay that UCCNC switch. If you know how to use Mach, you already basically know how to use UCCNC. The buttons might be in a different place, some of the setting are slightly different, but it's a small hurtle. Two hours and you're over it. UCCNC is better in basically every way. Once you switch, you won't be going back to Mach. It took me like 2 years to commit to UCCNC, but I haven't used Mach in months now, and I regret that it took me so long to make it happen because the occasional oddball issues I used to run into are all gone with UCCNC. Don't be like me.
In my opinion running the mill with flood coolant and no enclosure is not an option. Your shower curtain should work fine. I have a half built enclosure made out of sheet metal. The sides and front are done. I made the sliding doors on the front out of lexan. The back is mostly done but the part that will be a sliding door in the future is for now just some plastic sheet held with magnets and spring clamps. Some times I have to adjust it to stop minor leaks but it works very well. No fluid gets out except for where the temporary plastic is. I will eventually build a top for it with built in florescent lighting. Occasionally I get a birds nest when drilling and it turns the coolant to mist and it goes over the top.I will never go back to not having an enclosure.
Glad to see some activity on this forum. We should really make an effort to keep it going. I would be interested in seeing what we are up to control wise and what is being made. I can start a new thread on it if people are interested.
I have been following this thread for some time. I agree "upnorth" we should start a new thread. I have been wanting to so I could show off my Torus. Titaniumboy - I put UCCNC in mine as I had already converted to it from mach 3 on my router. I purchased a stripped Torus so I could wire it myself. Mine landed on my floor 04-2019 for a big job I was doing. It took me about a month to get it wired and running but it has been making parts ever since. I finished the big job a month ago, so I have taken down my shower curtain enclosure and assembling one from 80/20.
A couple pics.
Attachment 444708
Attachment 444706
Attachment 444704