[ejkoeze]

Servo controller developed in Germany.

Since I have seen a couple of very interesting threads here that I have read with great pleasure and from which I have learned a great deal I thought I’d pass trough some things I have learned elsewhere. On the cncecke.de (German CNC forum) there have been developments that should not be made available to just German reading enthousiasts.

Many of you will have seen the pages made by some Japanese guy that made a simple Servo controller complete with schematic for the driver board and source code for it’s Atmel processor. This project seemed to have a lot of potential and a couple of guys went to work on it. The result is a controller that is able to work with DC Motors with ~200 to 500 CPR encoders and with up to about 3000 RPM.
The controller board can be adapted to drive DC servo’s with power in excess is 1 kW!!!
It has a serial port which can be used to alter PID parameters, debug and finetune the controller. There is a dedicated (DOS) program that can be used for this, that has a little graph showing the position of the servo in realtime (for fine tuning and reducing overshoot). It is controlled with normal Step/Dir signals just like nearly every other Stepper driver. It has a current limiter.

Safety measure include the following.
Daisy chaining controllers to ensure shutdown of all controllers in case a single one has an error. Emergency stop can also be wired to this.
Current limiter
Adjustable position error shutdown (if for some reason the position error exceeds a preset value the controller is shut down.
If the controller hangs the output stage is shut down so no irretic behaviour can occur.

About the amount of power this thing can supply. Yesterday there was a post of a guy that had 1.6kW servo’s attached and while trying to determine the correct PID parameters it started to oscilate. Afterwards his son asked him why the house had vibrated to stangely…. Another has replaced his industrial Haidenhain controllers with these.

The project is not completely open source since the author of the software for the controller keeps the code to himself. However controllers can be bought from him at cost price and the entire project is called beerware. Repay him his costs (2 euro per controller (programmed) and postage and send him a beer or something else usefull (couple of milling bits, centre drills, or whatever) and he’s completely content.
I have built my first controller and I’m impressed.

This can take home cnc’ing to a whole new level. Imaging the amount of power and accuracy this will give your machine not to mention the increase in speed.
At about 40 Euro (~$50) (depending on where you get them) in parts this cannot be called expensive.

Erik Jan
Layout and schematic
Controller software (DOS) and manual (also in English)

Edit: Corrected link.

[jerber]

The first link gives "404 Not found".

[pcroxford]

I got the same eror message when looking for the schematic.
I am very interested though..I checked the rest of the gertrtonic site, but my german is non-existent, and didn't know what to look for.
Help!!

[DennisCNC]

ejkoeze,
Do you have any pics of the controller you built? or a short video of it runing a motor? Is the GBI file the code for the Atmel?

[H500]

I just built a atmega16 based servo. The PID code is actually quite simple to do. I don't have a real servomotor, so I just attached an incremental encoder to a cheap 90vdc motor.

However, it worked surprisingly well when tuned. The motion feels quite stiff, almost like a stepper motor. Unfortunately, the mosfets fried after a day, so I'm troubleshooting it now.

[ejkoeze]

Movie of a small Alu portal mill running servo's controlled by the UHU Servo controller

http://www.pyromantiker.de/servo/MVI_1052.AVI

Photo's of the latest version







Erik Jan

[GAWnCA]

Movie of a small Alu portal mill running servo's controlled by the UHU Servo controller

http://www.pyromantiker.de/servo/MVI_1052.AVI

Erik Jan

Eric,

By chance do you have the art work or source for the art work for making this controller? It looks great!

[ejkoeze]

Try Post #1.

Erik Jan

[GAWnCA]

Try Post #1.

Erik Jan

Thanks Eric, Got it. Nice work!

[cnc2]

Movie of a small Alu portal mill running servo's controlled by the UHU Servo controller

http://www.pyromantiker.de/servo/MVI_1052.AVI

Photo's of the latest version







Erik Jan

Great job man !

there are two pics showing the bottom side of the UHU board, one of them shows that you have tin plated the high voltage part of the circuit, but in both pictures the copper is "naked" to the air, so are you running the boards with unprotected copper ? or, do they have a transparent protecting varnish on them ?

I'm asking you those questions because i'm about to build three boards and i'm afraid of corrosion issues & shortcircuit.

How should i protect the copper side of the board ?

Sorry for asking you questions about an old post.

Thanks !
cnc2.

[marcgvky]

I am new to this forum, but this seemed like an active thread with smart people, so here goes nothing!

My goal is to setup a small hobby shop, based on the Jet Tools JTM-4VS knee mill and the Jet Tools GH-1440 lathe. Might consider alternative machines.

I am handy and VERY GOOD with computer technology, but have little/no knowledge of how to design, source parts and assemble a cost-effective system. There are turn-key, 3-axis systems for $6,000 US. But I don't have budget for that....

My questions:

1) Is anyone aware of an online resource with a detailed discussion of the components, design considerations, and assembly instructions for a multi-axis mill and/or lathe system?
2) Does anyone have a complete parts and/or assembly list of a proven design that I could implement?

Thanks for your consideration and assistance,

Marc V.

[der_fisherman]

Go onto the web, search with "CNC", look out for sites like "Instructables", YouTube and the like, you will find masses of infos....
More than you can look at in an evening or two...
regards
der Fisherman

[Anantha Narayan]

Hi there! To anyone this may have meaning for.

I am not even sure how to go about interacting on this forum - this is my first attempt at communicating with all those wizards out there in the whole world!

First, what I want.
We have built our first special purpose CNC engraving machine - 3 axis. This is with the help of colleagues. We had no problem in finalising the mechanical design. When it came to the CNC system and its elements, we tried to talk to many persons but no one was available for help. We finally decided to contact Siemens and bought the complete system elements that they suggested. This was very expensive - we tried our best to contact some Chinese or Taiwanese suppliers but did not get any response.
We then got a consultant to interface the Siemens system (Sinumeric 802-D) with the machine that we had fabricated. The problem here has been that the this has been so time consuming. Even more than 10 weeks after all the electronics arrived from Siemens, our machine is still not ready for a trial! I know it will get ready in course of time, but it has cost us a lot both in terms of money and time. I also feel that we may have over-specified the elements in the CNC system.
Our objective is not to build machines for sale or for hobby but for our own internal use. We are a small company needing a lot of 3, 4 & 5-axis CNC milling. We do not have the money to buy the machines on the market for our kind of application. Our objective is the following:

1. Be able to define the specifications of the elements of the CNC system like servo motors, controllers, transducers, cables, connectors, etc.
2. We want to source the individual items separately from different manufacturers at the best prices - maybe even used and/or refurbished items for cost effectiveness.
3. Understand from the suppliers of the elements how they are to be integrated - we would need outside help but do not want to be dependent on their mercy!

I have said a lot for a first post. If anyone responds, I shall give a lot more info about us and what we have done so far. I am 64 years old and head a group of engineers who are doing this more for the challenge and the opportunity to learn.

Looking forward to someone's help.

Anantha Narayanan
Hyderabad, India

I am new to this forum, but this seemed like an active thread with smart people, so here goes nothing!

My goal is to setup a small hobby shop, based on the Jet Tools JTM-4VS knee mill and the Jet Tools GH-1440 lathe. Might consider alternative machines.

I am handy and VERY GOOD with computer technology, but have little/no knowledge of how to design, source parts and assemble a cost-effective system. There are turn-key, 3-axis systems for $6,000 US. But I don't have budget for that....

My questions:

1) Is anyone aware of an online resource with a detailed discussion of the components, design considerations, and assembly instructions for a multi-axis mill and/or lathe system?
2) Does anyone have a complete parts and/or assembly list of a proven design that I could implement?

Thanks for your consideration and assistance,

Marc V.

[centaur]

I just built a atmega16 based servo. The PID code is actually quite simple to do. I don't have a real servomotor, so I just attached an incremental encoder to a cheap 90vdc motor.

However, it worked surprisingly well when tuned. The motion feels quite stiff, almost like a stepper motor. Unfortunately, the mosfets fried after a day, so I'm troubleshooting it now.

Hello H500 - What interests me here is the ATMEGA16 chip. The servo controller designed by Chan (SMC) is based on the ATINY2313 with a 16Mhz crystal. It has a limitation in that a 1000 line encoder limits the max motor speed to less than I need. I am wanting to get 2000 rpm with a 1000 line encoder and I wonder if what you have with the ATMEGA16 will do this. If so, are you willing to share the code for the ATMEGA16? Please email me so that I don't have to search the posts daily. Thanks,
CENTAUR [email protected]

[smarbaga]

hello
amongst the pass word, user name, internen connection, worm, working out of town, mouse clicker just don'y work stuff, i hope this one works.
i would really like to connect to this thread
lets try this one ..........
attaching a pdf as well. i think this is what knocked me off.

EDIT :
sorry for the extra post but it was the only way i could see if i could write to this thread. , looks like i finally can.
i am thinking about the attached design. ( a new thread , if interested )
thanks garry

[spotlite]

hello
amongst the pass word, user name, internen connection, worm, working out of town, mouse clicker just don'y work stuff, i hope this one works.
i would really like to connect to this thread
lets try this one ..........
attaching a pdf as well. i think this is what knocked me off.

EDIT :
sorry for the extra post but it was the only way i could see if i could write to this thread. , looks like i finally can.
i am thinking about the attached design. ( a new thread , if interested )
thanks garry

Looking good!
I love PIC MCU's. Some specs?
Is the code available?
WHo is developing this wonderful project?

:-)

[H500]

Looks good, Erik.

[DennisCNC]

Thats HOT!!!

[ejkoeze]

Call that hot? Look at this

This is when a servo blew up.



For those that cannot read the dials
200VDC and 12,5A (2500W).

Servo blew up since it wasn't made for this amount of power but I have seen guys running a Bridgeport with 1KW servo's on it. This only requires different parts (IGBT) and other diodes in the output stage.

Erik Jan

[Chris D]

WOw, this is fantastic. I checked out the website for this guy, however, I can't figure out how to order the chips (or programming) or whatever it is in order to make these. Did you just send him an email or something to get the chips?

Chris