[kweierbach]

Hi
I have been working on a old spectralight 0200 mill.
Got for a good price 2 years ago it came with the control box but not the isa card.
It sat in my garage till a month ago then work slowed down and now I have time to work on it but not alot of money.
so I op'ed to get emc2 and a mechatronic 4axis drive (actualy had the it for a while to) and using the steppers the came with the mill.
So my question is this the max feed rate I been able to get with this setup is 19in on the X axis and Y axis but Z axis I only get 15in. Do you think I would get fast feeds with Mach3.
thanks for any advice you can give me in advance
Kevin

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Hi
I have been working on a old spectralight 0200 mill.
Got for a good price 2 years ago it came with the control box but not the isa card.
It sat in my garage till a month ago then work slowed down and now I have time to work on it but not alot of money.
so I op'ed to get emc2 and a mechatronic 4axis drive (actualy had the it for a while to) and using the steppers the came with the mill.
So my question is this the max feed rate I been able to get with this setup is 19in on the X axis and Y axis but Z axis I only get 15in. Do you think I would get fast feeds with Mach3.
thanks for any advice you can give me in advance
Kevin

You can easily calculate the feedrate you're likely to achieve, if you know the steps/inch or steps/mm for the machine. Mach can typically (with a decent PC) issue 45,000 steps/second per axis. So, if your machine requires 10,000 steps/inch, you'd be able to get 4.5 inches/second, or 270 inches/minute. If you need higher step rates, *some* PCs will get up to 100K steps/second, but a much better option is to buy a SmoothStepper (about $150 from www.warp9td.com), which will run up to 4 million steps/second. I use one on my knee mill, which has 20K steps/in on X/Y, and I can run 400 IPM.

Regards,
Ray L.

[kweierbach]

I'm using the 20 pitch lead screws that came with it.
the motors stall if I up the feeds beyond what I listed.
the feeds quoted by Spectralight using there system is 30in feed rates

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I'm using the 20 pitch lead screws that came with it.
the motors stall if I up the feeds beyond what I listed.
the feeds quoted by Spectralight using there system is 30in feed rates

If the motors are stalling, then either:

a) You're trying to accelerate too quickly, or
b) Your motor drivers and/or power supply are not suitable for properly driving the motors, or
c) The motors do not have enough torque.

a you can fix by changing the motor tuning parameters in EMC or Mach. For b, you need to look at the motor ratings (voltage and current). Your power supply voltage should be 20-25X the motors rated voltage. Your drivers must be capable of driving at least the full rated motor current.

Regards,
Ray L.

[kweierbach]

They don't have any info labels on the steppers. I tried differant ramp Up speeds. At first they only did 5in feed rates. I got them up to these feeds but no more. I'm thinking i'm close to the max for this drive board. I'd just trying to find out if others are getting faster feeds With this size mill with stock lead screws and steppers.
Kevin

[Jeff-Birt]

The steppers, power supply and stepper drivers have to be chosen as a set to fit the machine. With 20 TPI screws you are probably using NEMA23 sized motors that are around 200 oz-in. Scratch the last sentence, I just found the machines data sheet: http://www.intelitek.com/admin/Produ...le/File1_2.pdf, it only comes with 100 oz-in motors, so I would suspect that the stepper power supply is no more than 24V.

The PDF above says the max rapid rate is 30 IPM. If you can get that with Mach and barring any mechanical problems, look for binding axis and such first, I would suspect that your not getting a good pulse stream out from Mach. Other processes running on the machine and sometimes the motherboard design can prevent Machs parallel port driver from operating correctly. The result is a very uneven pulse stream that is hard for the stepper driver to work with. The other thing to look at is that you have the step/dir polarity correct in your settings. Some drivers are very picky about this.

There are a few things you could do to improve performance. One is to use a SmoothStepper:http://soigeneris.com/Warp9.aspx . I've sold a lot of them and everyone has been well pleased. The next step up would be to use a more modern stepper driver: http://soigeneris.com/products3.aspx . Given that we don't know exactly what your stock steppers are it would be good to update to ones that are a good fit to the Gecko G540: http://soigeneris.com/CNCParts.aspx . The 166 oz-in motors are a good choice for this size machine. I use them on Taigs. The power supply at the top of that page is a good choice as well. It is solid unit that will deliver the rated power all day long while keeping its cool.

Hope that helps some...

[kweierbach]

The steppers, power supply and stepper drivers have to be chosen as a set to fit the machine. With 20 TPI screws you are probably using NEMA23 sized motors that are around 200 oz-in. Scratch the last sentence, I just found the machines data sheet: http://www.intelitek.com/admin/Produ...le/File1_2.pdf, it only comes with 100 oz-in motors, so I would suspect that the stepper power supply is no more than 24V.

The PDF above says the max rapid rate is 30 IPM. If you can get that with Mach and barring any mechanical problems, look for binding axis and such first, I would suspect that your not getting a good pulse stream out from Mach. Other processes running on the machine and sometimes the motherboard design can prevent Machs parallel port driver from operating correctly. The result is a very uneven pulse stream that is hard for the stepper driver to work with. The other thing to look at is that you have the step/dir polarity correct in your settings. Some drivers are very picky about this.

There are a few things you could do to improve performance. One is to use a SmoothStepper:http://soigeneris.com/Warp9.aspx . I've sold a lot of them and everyone has been well pleased. The next step up would be to use a more modern stepper driver: http://soigeneris.com/products3.aspx . Given that we don't know exactly what your stock steppers are it would be good to update to ones that are a good fit to the Gecko G540: http://soigeneris.com/CNCParts.aspx . The 166 oz-in motors are a good choice for this size machine. I use them on Taigs. The power supply at the top of that page is a good choice as well. It is solid unit that will deliver the rated power all day long while keeping its cool.

Hope that helps some...

Jeff
Maybe some day I'll be able to upgrade to gecko 540 but with my work slowing down like it is I have time but no money. So I'm trying to do this project without spending a lot of money.
I also seen their spec. sheet . Thats why I'm thinking I should get higher feed rates. I don't know if that 30in feed is per axis. Because when I jog Both X & Y at the same time EMC2 Screen shows Vel. Of 28in.
The Z axis is another story the last 2in at the top it stalls (binds) so that may be wear on the ways or the alignment of the leadscrew. I'm leaning more to the leadscrew because of the way that the backlash is ajusted. When I Get it to .002 the binding gets worst. I may have to live with more backlash (.013) to get it to go all the way up

Kevin

[Jeff-Birt]

You should be able to get 30 IPM per axis, at least the X and Y. The Z axis is sometimes slower as there is a lot of mass and gravity to fight. It sounds like your on the right track by tracking down the binding issues. I have not played with EMC for ages but remember that you need to get the timing values set up right.

[kweierbach]

thanks Jeff for your help.
thats what I thought it should be per axis
I still have the old controlbox for it and today I turned it on to see what kind of voltage it was using. I found 32v out of the power supply it was stepped down to 8v to the motors. I'm using a 20v power supply with 5v max out to the motors so I'm thinking that my power supply and drive board are not up to task of driving these motors to factory spec's or am I wrong.

[kweierbach]

the problem was me. I forgot to check the setting on the power supply when I was wiring everything. the switch was on 220v not 110v that I wired it for.:nono: Now it rapids a lot faster.
So again thanks for the help