Anyone considering the centroid Acorn instead of path pilot?

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Originally Posted by kvom

So to clear up my understanding of Acorn, does it provide the functions of BoB and motor drives for step-dir motors?

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Hi Kvon, Best way to get a handle on everything is to go to the www.http://centroidcncforum.com/ Just click on the Acorn forum when you get there.

There are videos there and a lot of info. You do need drivers for sure and it can hook up stepper or servos.

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Originally Posted by Krenovian

The graphic on the Acorn page at the Centroid website doesn't show the drivers between the board and the stepper/servo motors. This could lead one to infer that the board replaces the drivers. It doesn't.

CJ

Sent from my XT1094 using Tapatalk

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The reason they don't show the drivers is because they have pictures of Clearpath servos and their drivers are built in. It was kind of a mistake on their part in the ad picture.

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Originally Posted by kvom

So given that on my NM200, which has the BoB and drives mounted together, interfacing the Acorn would mean bypassing the BoB, wiring it to the drives, and also wiring the 0-10V spindle control to the Acorn. That said, maybe the BoB would just pass the step and dir signals through.

I'd still need a PC and the Centroid software.

Probably not a good choice for me given the relative ease of the PP hardware which was just a DB25 cable between the Mesa card and the BoB. Obviously the software integration took some effort, but that's more in my sweet spot than wiring. The components for the Torus are probably easier to work with then what I have. In any case I'm very satisfied with PP.

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Yes, you would bypass the NM200's BOB. The wiring from the drives, and the other input and output wiring going to and from the BOB would be connected to the Acorn board.

There is at least one discussion on the Centroid CNC Forum asking about using a BOB to pass the signals through to the drives. The recommendation was to bypass the BOB as going through it might work but would make it more difficult to trouble shoot any problems which might arise.

The Acorn board would provide the 0-10v signal to the VFD to control the spindle. Depending on your needs there are three levels of software available. There is a free version packaged with the Acorn kit.

If you already have a PP installation working for you I don't think there really is much of a reason to consider the Centroid Acorn platform. I'm comfortable with the wiring involved in going with Acorn as I gutted my NM145 and rebuilt it installing Shadowspawn's conversion, a CNC4PC BOB, and a Warp9 ESS, new VFD, and two different power supplies. The only parts which remain in the cabinet from the factory are the Leadshine drives and the transformer. I have little to no experience tweaking Linux related software so a PP conversion seems more daunting to me.

CJ



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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Roadstercycle

The reason they don't show the drivers is because they have pictures of Clearpath servos and their drivers are built in. It was kind of a mistake on their part in the ad picture.

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Thanks for clearing that up. It makes sense now. I thought it was odd that they would leave drivers out of the graphic.

CJ

Sent from my XT1094 using Tapatalk

FWIW - I've just looked at the Acorn documentation in some detail, and see no reason it could not be fairly easily adapted to any Novakon machine. Duplicating the functionality of the off-the-shelf Novakon should be very straight-forward, and requires only some wiring changes. I would not try to keep the BOB. Just make new cables and wire the drives, spindle, limits, etc. directly to the Acorn, being careful to pay attention to signal levels, etc. The Acorn has a combination of 5V and 24V I/Os, so you must be careful how those signals are interfaced to the machine control signals, to avoid damage to either the Acorn or the machine.

The Acorn looks to me like a very nice industrial-level control, that, once properly setup, should be very robust and reliable. It also appears to be quite flexible, though is not as easy to customize as Mach3. Such is the cost of reliability.

Regards,
Ray L.

I am happy with Path Pilot on the Pulsar and it also lacks the deep customization possibilities of Mach 3, however it runs the machine better, does not make tool change mistakes and does not forget where machine coordinates are.
ESS also does not run out of memory or loose communication.

That last one is why I choose to use Acorn on my CRP router. I did consider PP, but could not figure out how to do a slaved axis on it. I doubt doing it the conventional way would be possible. Maybe, but I did not dig very deep.
I basically used the Mesa card to bypass the ESS on the Pulsar. Path pilot instead of Mach 3 was a bonus.

The Acorn on the router for similar reasons.

How is the Acorn working out so far compared to Mach3 for you lee

They have not sent me any notice yet that they have received the order. So not quite as well. ;)
I imagine they are pretty swamped with the discount pricing coming to a close.

I wish I ordered the kit before the price hike but still, a very compelling looking kit I plan to retrofit into my Torus Pro.

Regards,

-Jason

I have the touch screen laptop and the BOB's for the ribbon cables I needed so just waiting on the good stuff now.
I haven't yet received any notice from them other than my Payment receipt, but I will shoot them over an inquiry sometime this weekend and hopefully hear something next week.
I will let you guys know when I do hear something.

You may be waiting Lee, I have seen quite a few post this week of people ordering them. I just hope it is as good as what people have been saying it is.

I'm probably going to put the order in myself shortly. My machine is ripped and torn apart and now seems suitable to undertake such a feat :)

-Jason