CNC Optimum DM45 Milling Machine - Need advice
Hi guys, I'm new here and this is my first post, and hopefully not the last. Please be gentle, lol
I'm in the process of building my first CNC mill. After doing a bit of research, I've decided to go for hybrid servo motors over the traditional steppers as I have heard that steppers are prone to losing steps at high speed. I'm not planning on running the machine fast, but would rather spend the extra money and get the servo's straight up.
I have a bit of a dilemma. I purchased the motors through one of the many Chinese sellers on Ebay. They arrived today in a big white plastic shipping bag with no bubble wrap or any sort of padding around them. The motors were packed in a moulded foam casing and sticky taped together. The foam casing on all of the motors is cracked. They look like they have been dropped or thrown around.
My question is, is there a possibility that there could have been some internal damage caused to encoders or anything else inside the motor? The exterior looks fine, not even a scratch on them. I'm worried if I plug them in and they start smoking, I'll have no chance in returning them for a refund. I have contacted the seller, but have had no reply as yet.
Has anyone been in this situation where they have received the motors with damaged packaging, but they were ok? I have just spent $550 on the 3 motors, so don't want to take any risks. I was looking at the Teknik servo's but unfortunately they were going to be to much to post to AUS. I now wish I had paid the extra money and purchased them.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Regards,
Bob
Re: CNC Optimum DM45 Milling Machine - Need advice
I've just realise I posted this in the wrong section. Is there any chance it could be moved to milling machines please? Sorry for the stuff around.
Re: CNC Optimum DM45 Milling Machine - Need advice
Buying from China off Ebay is risky. I have done it way more than I would like. Unfortunately the problem is that there is little way for the buyers to get satisfaction if they are dealing with a less than reputable seller. That is why, on Ebay, you only buy from sellers with a great reputation rating. It sounds like you have have gotten a seller that is less than perfect. My advice is to test the motors as soon as possible to make sure they are working. You may well have gotten lucky and all of them function. If not you may have to suck it up and buy a replacement from another seller.
A stepper motor is pretty robust and the encoders are pretty solid as well. I would suspect that, unless there is visible damage to the motor itself, they are probably ok. It sounds like the foam packaging did it's job and protected the contents.
I always use a credit card for large purchases from Ebay. I have never had to do this, but I think I could cancel payment from the CC company if I got screwed by an Ebay seller.
Finally I can't say enough nice things about the Teknic ClearPath servo's. I use them exclusively on my projects after having bad luck with steppers. It's not that steppers are bad, it's just that ClearPath SD servos are so much better. Yes, they are not cheap, but quality is always more expensive.
Re: CNC Optimum DM45 Milling Machine - Need advice
Re: CNC Optimum DM45 Milling Machine - Need advice
File a complaint with eBay and the vender. Since he is in China he will try to stall and delay as long as he can until your Return/Refund time expires.
Re: CNC Optimum DM45 Milling Machine - Need advice
Thanks for the reply and also placing the post where it's meant to be maxspongebob. There doesn't seem to be any physical damage to the motors that I can see. The one thing I wasn't sure about is how the internals would cope with being knocked around. I paid via PayPal so I have protection there. In Australia we have a policy where if a product is defective, the seller has a responsibility to replace the item or offer a refund in this situation. They are also responsible for returning the item back to them.
I'm not really keen to plug it in and try it just in case there is an issue with them, and it goes up in smoke, lol. My option to return them would then cease. It's good to know that they are robust though. I'm going to contact Ebay today and see exactly where I stand and what I can do about it. If there's nothing I can do because it's just the packaging that's damaged, then I have to bite the bullet and hope they work. At the end of the day, lesson learnt. I did look at their reviews, they had pretty good stats and sold a lot of these motors recently. I know it still doesn't really mean they are good.
If I can return them, I'm going to go straight to Teknic and buy a set of motors. It's going to be double the price, but you get what you pay for right? Any recommendations on what motor would work really well with the DM45 mill? I thinks its similar to your Grizzly RF45 mill, just has different gear knobs.
This will be my first build so I still have a lot to learn. I understand the mechanical side of the build. The electrical and the operating side is where I'm going to struggle. I can read wiring diagrams so I will work out the electrical eventually.I'm struggling to understand how a drawing on a program like Fusion 360 turns the file into G-Code for the machine to do it's thing. This is one thing I have to try and get my head around, it's pretty daunting.
Thanks again for the reply and advice.
Cheers,
Bob
Re: CNC Optimum DM45 Milling Machine - Need advice
Thanks for the reply George, I'm going to ring them today and see where I stand.
Cheers,
Bob
Re: CNC Optimum DM45 Milling Machine - Need advice
Some questions for you.
What software will you run? Linux? Windows? Mach 4?
What motion controller will you be using?
Are you buying a kit with all the brackets, adapters, couplers, ballscrews?
Were your hybrid drives NEMA 34?
What is the diameter and pitch of the ballscrews?
Recomending a particular drive is risky without all the details. My machine is a smaller X2 type system, Grizzly G0704, so it is much lighter then your 45. That said, when I built it, I planned on someday upgrading to a much larger machine and I tried to buy components that I could use on the bigger machine. All my motors on the mill are NEMA 34, yes it looks a bit silly with those big servos on a little mill. I used ClearPath CPM-SDSK-3421S-RLN.
These could probably do well on your system also. The only thing I would really worry about though would be the Z axis. The weight of your head and spindle motor could require a counter balance to achieve a good acceleration in the up direction.
Re: CNC Optimum DM45 Milling Machine - Need advice
Hi Max,
Not too sure about software yet, still deciding on whether to go for Linux or UCCNC.
As for motion controller, its a toss up between the UC300ETH-5LPT ethernet or Smooth stepper ESS, but not sure if that will work with Linux. Does it?
I'm making all the brackets myself on the old faithful HM32 /RF32
The motors I purchased were Nema 34 12nm. I was looking on Teknics site earlier today and realised I'll be looking at a ballpark figure of about 2K for Nema 34 motors delivered to me, It's just a bit more than I expected. I'll jump on and have a look at the ones you used.
I bought the ball screws from an Ebay seller in China called e-link-world. I have purchased all of the 20mm linear rails and ball screws from him for my router build,(which will happen one day) and they look as though they are of pretty good quality. They manufacture the parts themselves.
I'm using an RM2505 for the Z axis and RM2005 for X and Y
Looking at how big these steppers are, I can imagine the steppers would be the first thing you would notice on yours, lol.
I was actually thinking of using a planetary gearbox, would that work? The counterbalance idea is much better. Your're not wrong about it being heavy, I think there's about 80-90 kgs just in the head. Luckily I have a little digger that'll do all the lifting for me,lol.
Cheers,
Bob
Re: CNC Optimum DM45 Milling Machine - Need advice
I am running Mach 4 on Windows. I am using an Ethernet Smooth Stepper on the lathe and Pokeys57CNC on the mill. I like the ESS better, but neither will work with Linux. Although I like Linux a lot and use it on many of my systems, the idea of offloading the motion control processing onto a special purpose board was appealing. It's personal preference really.
A planetary would work, but you would loose a lot of rapid movement and would gain a bit of backlash. The best thing would be to try it to see how well a direct drive would work. If it is not great then use a 3:1 or 5:1 reduction gearbox inline. 20 and 25mm screws. Will they fit without much modification?
Here are links to my mill and lathe conversions. I just finished the lathe last week and now I am getting to learn lots of new things.
https://www.cnczone.com/forums/bench...are-posts.html
https://www.cnczone.com/forums/verti...-software.html
Re: CNC Optimum DM45 Milling Machine - Need advice
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bob_ski
Hi Max,
Not too sure about software yet, still deciding on whether to go for Linux or UCCNC.
As for motion controller, its a toss up between the UC300ETH-5LPT ethernet or Smooth stepper ESS, but not sure if that will work with Linux. Does it?
I'm making all the brackets myself on the old faithful HM32 /RF32
The motors I purchased were Nema 34 12nm. I was looking on Teknics site earlier today and realised I'll be looking at a ballpark figure of about 2K for Nema 34 motors delivered to me, It's just a bit more than I expected. I'll jump on and have a look at the ones you used.
I bought the ball screws from an Ebay seller in China called e-link-world. I have purchased all of the 20mm linear rails and ball screws from him for my router build,(which will happen one day) and they look as though they are of pretty good quality. They manufacture the parts themselves.
I'm using an RM2505 for the Z axis and RM2005 for X and Y
Looking at how big these steppers are, I can imagine the steppers would be the first thing you would notice on yours, lol.
I was actually thinking of using a planetary gearbox, would that work? The counterbalance idea is much better. Your're not wrong about it being heavy, I think there's about 80-90 kgs just in the head. Luckily I have a little digger that'll do all the lifting for me,lol.
Cheers,
Bob
The UC300ETH-5LPT works with UCCNC, Mach3 and Mach4.
The ESS works with Mach3 and Mach4 only.
Non of them work with Linux.
For stepper drive you can use any drives which has step/dir interface. No need to buy the most expensive ones like Technics.
You can get some cheap Nema34 steppers from China and some D860 or DM860 high current stepper drives and they will do the job just fine.
For the stepper motors one thing to take care of is to get a low inductance one to get the best possible performance.
Re: CNC Optimum DM45 Milling Machine - Need advice
Without knowing details of your servos, you might be better off with Linuxcnc and close the position feedback from your encoders in Linuxcnc.. Most people will use a Mesa 7i77 for servos as that gives you more than enough analog servo interfaces and encoder inputs. for your motors. This is a daughter board so you'd need a pci or pcie Mesa 5i25/6i25 or alternatively one of their ethernet cards to hook the 7i77 to.
If I was going to use servos on a mill, I'd use a 12 volt motherboard with the 7i77 and wire the motherboard into the control box as if its just another component. Then depending on if my mother board had a PCI or PCIe bus, I'd use a 5i25 or 6i25.