Basic setup for UCCNC with CNC4PC C76 300ETH

Not new to CNC but new to setting up a control package from scratch.

I'm ready to try and get my servos moving and am facing the following issues:

1) On the CNC4PC C76-C78 card I get a solid a green ready light ON when I hit the RESET button in UCCNC. This is with SCHP in either the ON or OFF position. Good so far.

2) I have a jumper on the E-stop C76 board terminals.

3) As soon as I connect any one of my 3 servo drives via RJ45 cable to the C78 section of the C76 card I'll lose the green ready light.

4) Nothing else external has been connected to the C76-C78 as yet.

I'm thinking I lose the green light and the RESET starts flashing because I have a fault condition somewhere. Question is where. Is it because I haven't set up the axis parameters in UCCNC yet?

Which leads to phase two of this question. I received help here recently on the STEP and DIRECTION port and pin numbers for x,y and z but beyond that I don't have much understanding of what needs to be set, and where to find the what to enter in the settings. What do I need to do in order to get the green READY light to stay on and the servos moving. Basically I'm just using the default settings UCCNC first opened up with. The port/pin numbers by default are x=1/2 for step and 1/3 for direction; Y=1/4 for step and 1/5 for direction and z=1/6 for step and 1/7 for direction which all seem to match the attached chart.

I've found the UCCNC manual to be of little help in relation to my specific CNC4PC components, and the UCCNC componets instructions to be of minimal help due to my overall lack of knowledge in this area.

I've attached a screen shot of the CNC4PC RJ45 pin connections from the C76 manual. The only ones that seem to relate to the UCCNC axis setup screen though are the step and direction settings.

So, to repeat, I need help figuring out how to get the green READY light to stay on when a servo drive is powered, and also what do I need to set it the UCCNC axis setting to get servo movement.......and are these two issue directly related.

Thanks for any guidance you can give, or reading you can suggest.

BH

On the download page for the C76 is a plugin that will show you where the fault is in UCCNC.
Here's an example video of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBwz...ature=youtu.be

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What do I need to do in order to get the green READY light to stay on and the servos moving.

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You shouldn't have to do anything else but the step and direction pins.

It seems to me like you have a wiring issue causing the fault, and it's unrelated to any UCCNC setting.

Also, I noticed there's a UCCNC plugin for the C76. Do you have that installed and configured in UCCNC?

Here's a basic manual for getting the C76 working with UCCNC. Have you followed it?
https://www.cnc4pc.com/pub/media/pro..._for_UCCNC.pdf

The installer will configure everything, so do not worry about the pinout stuff, that is there in the manual just for your reference.
What you are describing, is that the board is seeing a servo fault. Which I think is normal as probably you have not tuned the servos yet. Set DIP4=off to disable servo fault detection to force the servo to remain active while you tune it. Once you have tuned the servos and they are OK, you can turn the servo fault detection again.

Arturo Duncan
https://cnc4pc.com

Thanks everyone. I'll work on this in the next couple days and report back.

BH

OK........progress. It was a broken wire in the encoder RJ45 to DB15 connector. When I built that somehow I got the servo A- wire pinched and it had broken. After retracing all my wiring I finally opened that connector back up and found the problem. Immediately I was able to stay in ready mode with the cable hooked up between the C78 and the DG4S just as long as the servo encoder was also connected to the DG4S.

As to Gerry's suggestion on the C76 diagnostic software I did download that and tried to run it after watching the video. However I couldn't figure out how to open the program. I figure it's somehow embedded into UCCNC but didn't see where you would activate it. For now I don't need it.........I think.

So its on to the next step which I think will be trying to get the X-axis servo moving. I guess I'll have to figure out the servo tuning process.

Thanks Gerry and Arturo,

BH

Well, a good deal of progress since my last post. Servos are all functioning and I'd say about 95% tuned. I'm moving on until I can have a friend come by in a few weeks to finalize the servo tuning for me. This is my first time trying to do this and he's an industrial electrician with tuning experience so I'd like his review of my work anyway.

My current hitch is figuring out how to activate the brake release on my Z-axis servo. I initially set up a 24vDC transformer that releases the brake to turn on with the system. However since the C76 card is not "live" until I hit the RESET button in UCCNC the Z-axis is dropping on power up. I need to have the 24vDC go to the Z-axis brake ONLY when the servo drives have been activated.

I'm told I can do this with the charge pump or Pin17/Port2 on the C76 card.

I tried doing it through the Pin17/Port2 connector but cannot get the relay to change state. I always have continuity between the voltage in center pin and the right hand normally closed pin regardless of whether the main power is off, on not reset or on and reset. I've tried swapping the pin16/p17 jumper but that hasn't changed anything.

So the question is how do I activate that relay? With another jumper? With the I/O settings in UCCNC? A combination of both? Something else?

I have no idea at this point how to set it up using the charge pump circuit. I haven't even looked into that yet.

Thanks,
BH

I'd try using an output trigger which is set to LED25 (Reset). Set it to port 2 pin 17
On the C76, there's a jumper to have Port 2 pin 17 use the onboard relay. Make sure it's set correctly. Page 3 in the C76 manual, detail C.
Wire your break to this relay. Then, depending on the active low setting of the Output trigger, the break should either be on or off when the Reset changes state.

If you are using an external relay, then wire the relay to port 2 pin 17 on the RJ45 connector, and again make sure the jumper in Detail C is set correctly.

Jerry,

Thanks for the response.

First.....some of my confusion has been set straight. Turns out my board, which I bought from CNC4PC in Nov. of 2018, matches Ver.3.3 of the C76 manuals. I had been trying to figure it out with the current version manual. That put the Pin16/17 relay in the wrong place. My board has DIP switches instead of jumpers for the SCHP etc. My Pin17/Port2 relay is in a different location from shown on the current manual. That jumper for that relay is currently set for the relay to operate.

So if I use that relay will it handle the approx. .2a of my 24vDC ice cube relay coil? If so I'm all set.

If it won't handle that .2a then I need to go to the C78 (RJ45 daughter board) output as you mentioned. I'm not clear on how that operates. Do I need to bring my 24vDC into the two left hand terminals labeled 24vDC input and then run my relay coil 24vDC positive out on Pin17 ? And if that is correct I assume I'll be swapping the Port2/Pin17 jumper over to Pin16 ? I've attached a photo my version of the C78 board snipped from the online manual.

Thanks again. Your help has been great !!

BH

Got it. Pin17/Port2 relay is activating my 24vDC coil external relay. That is then sending the 24vDC to the Z-axis servo brake. It seems to be working correctly.

I know you said to use the C78 (RJ45 outputs) board for an external relay but this seems to work just fine. Only about .2 amps going through the Pin17/Port2 relay so I'd think that would have to be well within its capacity.

Thanks for your help.
BH Davis

Time to setup my limit switches. This will be my first work with the C76 input pins. Does anyone know where I can find a guide for the I/O set up for the C76 and UCCNC ? I have both manuals but no real guidance for the novice here.

It seems the logical setup would be to send a 5v or 12v positive signal from the C76 out to the switch and then return it to the pins on the Port 1 inputs. I say Port 1 because there are 6 inputs on Port 1 so it seems logical that they are intended for the high and low limits on X, Y and Z.

Then I would just insert the Pin and Port numbers into the axis screens on UCCNC.

Sound correct? I just don't want to apply 5v or 12v to the input pins if that is not supposed to be done. Again a lot of this is "first time" for me.

Thanks,
BH

See page 7 in the 3.3 manual. It shows how to wire the switches.
12V is better than 5V

Yes, just put the port and pin numbers in UCCNC.

Thanks Gerry. I didn't quite get the page 7 drawings but clearer now that you confirmed what I thought. I'll use the 12v instead of the 5v. I was wondering about that too.
BH

Jerry,

Limit switches are now working, as well as using them to home the machine.

One issue though: when I hit a limit switch it trips UCCNC out of RESET mode. The only way I can find to do the RESET is to either physically move the axis off the limit switch or swap the switch contacts over from NC to NO temporarily until the axis can be moved slightly, and then change them back.

All the other CNCs I've owned over the years would let you move in the reverse direction if you touched a limit switch. UCCNC though goes into a complete software stop as is explained in the UCCNC manual. Is there a way around this somehow ?

Thanks,
BH

There's an override button in UCCNC, that will allow you to back off the switches.

Jerry,

Duh.........thanks. I was looking all through the manual at CONFIGURATION settings without closely examining the RUN screen for a simple solution. Sort of a "can't see the forest for the trees situation". Problem solved thanks to you !!

Another question that probably has a simple answer I can't find: On the left hand side axis motion pop out there is a 10% to 100% setting for the transit speed of x,y and z. That resets to 10% with every restart of the UCCNC software. I believe it is a percentage of the velocity I have set on each axis configuration tab.

What I can't find is a way to default that to say 50% or 100% on each startup instead of 10%. The setting must exist somewhere but is evading me.

A while back we talked about your custom RUN screen for UCCNC. Can you direct me to an image of that again? I think I'm going to want to purchase the file from you if nothing else but as a thank you for all your help.

Thanks,
BH Davis

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What I can't find is a way to default that to say 50% or 100% on each startup instead of 10%. The setting must exist somewhere but is evading me.

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No setting but I can show you how to do it.

Open your M99999.txt macro and ad this to it:

// Jog Percent
double fieldval = 100;
exec.Writekey("JogSpeed", "913", fieldval.ToString());

Then open your M99998.txt macro and add this:

readfield = exec.Readkey("JogSpeed", "913", "100");
AS3jog.Setfieldtext(readfield, 913); // Set Jog Percent
AS3jog.Validatefield(913);




I'm working on the new version of my screen right now. Hope to have a usable version ion a few weeks.

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Originally Posted by ger21

No setting but I can show you how to do it.




I'm working on the new version of my screen right now. Hope to have a usable version ion a few weeks.

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Can you find a place for xy zero with laser? Maybe instead of G59?

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Originally Posted by ger21

No setting but I can show you how to do it.

Open your M99999.txt macro and ad this to it:

// Jog Percent
double fieldval = 100;
exec.Writekey("JogSpeed", "913", fieldval.ToString());

Then open your M99998.txt macro and add this:

readfield = exec.Readkey("JogSpeed", "913", "100");
AS3jog.Setfieldtext(readfield, 913); // Set Jog Percent
AS3jog.Validatefield(913);




I'm working on the new version of my screen right now. Hope to have a usable version ion a few weeks.

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Gerry,

I'm away from the shop for a few days so can't try the code on the machine. I did try it on my demo version on the laptop but got an error message for the M9998.txt. I'm just waiting to see if it works on the UCCNC copy with the new control.

The screen looks great. Are you going to end up with any of the "set current position to 0" buttons that are in blue on the left side of the co-ordinates section on the default screen? I'd find those useful but certainly not required.

Thanks,
BH Davis

The zero buttons are to the right of the coordinates, circles with crosshairs in them.

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Originally Posted by ger21

The zero buttons are to the right of the coordinates, circles with crosshairs in them.

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I dont want to highjack the OP's thread, but I was talking about setting zero from a laser. Using a macro to go the offsets set for the laser pointer and setting x and y to zero. I think you had that in v2010.