[lambodesigns]

Thanks. Well the good thing is I have the air drills already.... one of the high speed ones posted in the other thread Gerry mentioned and an older hand drill style that is low RPM which was where I started but I was looking for a way to control the RPM a little better and not have the noise that they make. Oh well... back to the drawing board. I was also thinking about gearing up the spindle shaft to gain RPM and keep in the higher torque range of the motor but by then I'm at the "more trouble than it is worth" category

[Devastator]

Might not be too much trouble to add some pulleys to the stepper/drill shaft assembly.

[eloid]

Any updates to this build ger21

Looking forward to seeing this build progress ...
a very interesting build keep up the good work.

[ger21]

No, not yet. I'll get there eventually, but have been too busy to start building.

[eloid]

3 Eksen CNC Gantry Router Otomasyon ve Yazılımı - 3 Axis Gantry Router Automation and Software - YouTube

Another cool multi spindle idea for those following this thread.

[Khalid]

Gerry.. Its 10 year project ...

[ger21]

Yes, but I'm doing other projects instead.

[ger21]

Gerry.. Its 10 year project ...

You were right, Khalid. It's now 10 years since I started designing this machine.

But the project is far from dead.
Today I machined the frame rails that the X axis linear rails will mount to.
3 layers of 3/4" plywood, glued and screwed together while held down to a the vacuum table of our CNC at work. I left them there for an hour, then machines about .01" off of each side to get them smooth and flat.
I then routed a rabbet about .08" deep, 3" wide, and epoxied in some 1/2" phenolic. Machined the phenolic flat, with a mounting ledge for the rails.
These are 119-1/2" long. My rails are 3000mm ( about 118-1/8").

Sorry about the blurry pics - I got a new camera and don't know how to use it yet.

[ger21]

I'm going to be using UCCNC for this router, and purchased a UC300ETH, and an MB2 motherboard from CNC Room.
Today I made a plate to mount the UC300 to the MB2, which is designed for the ESS.

I'm working on the electronics right now, figuring out what I need, and ordering components.
I picked up a Huanyang VFD, to go with the 2 spindles I bought two years ago.
My plan is to run both spindles from the one VFD.
I bought some contactors, and hope to be able to wire up a test board to make sure I can get them to work like I want. I have an interlock, so only one can be energized at a time. I also have to figure out a way to make sure that the active contactor stays energized, even during an estop or limit switch hit, or the VFD will blow.

Once again, there will be changes to the drive system, with X and y using a Servobelt system with planetary gearboxes. And I'll probably now be using DMM Dyn4 drives and 400 watt servos.
I still need another $2500 worth of components or so, but hope to have everything by the fall, so I can start building.

[Devastator]

Good to see some progress! Sounds like you've abandoned the Nexen roller pinions?

[1Jumper10]

Agreed. Good to see progress. I like the adapter plate for the UC300 -> MB2.

[ger21]

Sounds like you've abandoned the Nexen roller pinions?

I don't want to spend all the time, and find out I'm not happy with them, and have to rework everything.

[pippin88]

Is a second VFD going to cost much more than the switching hardware to use a single VFD? Won't you have to fully power off the VFD for switching? My HY VFD takes quite a number of seconds to turn on and off.

I use one set of stepper drivers and one hardware step generation board for three different machines, so I definitely appreciate the principle of sharing what you can, but I wonder if it might not work as well as desired in the two spindle setup.

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

[ger21]

Is a second VFD going to cost much more than the switching hardware to use a single VFD?

Not if I bought another Huanyuang. But I'd need more space for another one. And more power to run two of them. I'm already a bit short on power, and can't get more unless I move.

Won't you have to fully power off the VFD for switching?

No, as long as the spindle isn't spinning when you switch them.

I'll need to do some thorough testing to make sure it works OK. If not, then I'll probably end up with two. But, I'd rather not.

[ger21]

Made some custom length ribbon cables, and now it's a much cleaner installation.
I used 25 wire cables, as I didn't want to risk damaging the UC300ETH from the 5V on pin 26 of the MB2.
I probably should have tested the cables, as I've never made any before, but i was in a hurry, so I just plugged them in, and fired it up. All seemed to work fine.

I'm hoping to fire up the VFD and test my spindles this weekend. I need to make a board to hold the spindles and VFD for testing.
I also want to start doing some testing with the contactors, before I actually connect them to the VFD.

[ger21]

I started wiring up some electronics on a "test board" to do some testing with UCCNC. The contactors will be used to switch the output from the VFD to the two spindles. They have an interlock so they can't be turned on at the same time. I still need to figure out how to make sure that they don't drop out with the VFD running. Right now, I just wanted to test the way I'm controlling them. The contactors have 24V DC coils. My MB2 breakout board is 24V. I bought an 8 channel, 24V relay board from Amazon for about $10. The coil voltage runs through the relays, which are controlled by outputs on the breakout board.

2 years after buying my spindles, I finally got to see them spinning yesterday. I had a minor setback, when I couldn't get the spindle to run when under UCCNC control. Turns out that my VFD has a bad forward run input. Took me about 2 hours to figure that out. Today, I switched the wiring over to a different input, and everything worked great. The spindles are much quieter than I thought they would be, even at 24,000 rpm.
I originally had an issue with the speed control on the MB2. It uses +10V from the VFD to generate the 0-10V analog control voltage. The problem, is that with 10V in, it can only output 9.8V max, which wouldn't allow me to get the full 24,000 rpm from the spindles.
My solution was to change the VFD to accept a 0-5V input, and adjust the PWM settings in UCCNC to get a 0-5V output. I set up UCCNC to use 53% max PWM signal for 24,000 rpm , and it worked great. So instead of a max of 22,500 with 0-10V, I now have the full 24,000 with a simple parameter change.
A lot of people use modbus plugins to control their HY VFD's, but with the built in speed control on the MB2 motherboard, there's no need to. Just a few wires, and a few very simple settings in UCCNC, and the spindle is up and running.
I'll try to post some video tomorrow.

One other issue, is that I found out that the spindle would run when power was turned on, until UCCNC got control of the UC300ETH. The solution is to use the charge pump on the UC300ETH. My plan is to run the power to my PNOZ safety relay through the relay board, controlled by the charge pump output on the MB2. So, the safety relay can't be enabled until UCCNC is up and running. The Forward Run signal to the VFD will then run through my safety relay.
My control box is going to have a lot of stuff in it, so a lot of thought still needs to go into it.

[MajorTendonitis]

Gerry , I have heard of issues caused by noise generated from some VFD's , but I notice most install there's with the rest of there electronics regardless .
I was debating to mount mine in a separate enclosure, simular to what CNCrouterparts does . My choice was a VFD from Hitachi .
Am I overthinking this?
I thought it would be nice to free up real estate in the main enclosure also

Btw , Sorry if I'm side tracking your thread

[ger21]

With proper wiring and grounding, noise shouldn't be an issue.
CNCRP uses a separate enclosure for cost reasons, imo. Since they sell their controls without VFD's, they use a smaller box, which is cheaper. If you want a plug and play spindle setup, you then have to pay for another box for the VFD.

[MajorTendonitis]

CNCRP uses a separate enclosure for cost reasons, imo. Since they sell their controls without VFD's, they use a smaller box, which is cheaper. .

Very good point , and it seems obvious now and I should have figured that out

[MajorTendonitis]

Gerry ,please forgive me for all the noob questions,but I'm not familiar with those stepper drivers your showing in your layout . Any particular reason you chose those ?
At least I think that's what the yellow component is , and the next ones to the right of it ?

These are the ones I wanted to go with to drive Nema34 steppers . Only because I know a guy who uses and recommended them

http://www.automationtechnologiesinc...k-is-included/