[MrBean_pm]

Hey Thomas,
I am in Melbourne, but no issue to have them shipped.

I will start to strip down the machine over the next weeks and design my parts, get back to you, ok? Cheers for the feedback, much appreciated, Mate.

edit: My plans to use the Granite Devices Argon drive controllers still stands, as they are nice and compact, very powerful, and I know the configuration software very well. With that said, Tianyu from DMM Tech confirmed last night that the DYN3 drives I have, also are able to spit out quadrature incremental signals to drive my 7i77 Mesa board....

My servos came with proprietary 14-bit serial encoders, that feeds into the DYN3 drive controller.....luckily there is an on-board conversion to output the correct signal train for use with MESA and other breakout boards...

I have any requested pricing from Tianyu for the incremental encoders they sell on their site, and whether they fill fit mechanically on my 86M-DHT-72 servos...they are affordable enough, and if they fit, I will get them and use the Argons...otherwise, I might have for sale 3 brand new never used DYN3 controllers with the 750W servos....and I will source servos with quadrature encoders to directly interface with the Argons elsewhere...

More to come.

Beano

[Tkamsker]

Hi why dont you use ioni and ioni Cube if you go Down the granitedevices Route ? And of course we Can Ship to Australia but maybe someone is closer to you WHO Can Do the Parts


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[MrBean_pm]

Hello Thomas,
I have two 4x Cubes and 8x IONI Pro controllers.....but to get the maximum speed from the servos, I want to use the Argons......but I have options, so no worries I will consider what is the best way to go, the Argons have larger footprint overall, but have integrated HV PSU, and only needs a small external psu to drive the logics on the Argons - the IONI Cubes are quite a bit smaller, but need an external PSU for both the logical circuits and HV rails....

I do have a 1000W MW SMPS handy as well, and overall, the 4x Cube and quad IONI Pros might be a better bet......let's see, hopefully the lower voltage on the servos wont limit me speed-wise though....IONI Pro accepts up to 55VDC input, on my servos, it will reduce the speed from the rated 1,500rpm at 150V to approximately 500RPM at 50V.

I will revisit this, just lucky I have enough controllers to choose from - I still have 3x brand new DYN3 DMM Tech units here as well, but they are rather bulky, and won't have as easy and flexible an interface as the Granite Devices units...

Wrt bearing blocks, I will come back to you, thanx again for your support!

Cheers,
Beano

[MrBean_pm]

Computer and OS update:

OS and CNC Control Software
First of, I had to decide between a dated Mach3, a new and yet to be proven Mach4 (I have a license for this already), and LinuxCNC.

With a good background in the Linux world, I decided to give this a go. Of course, we are all aware about stuff like latencies that can impact on the RTOS-nature of LinuxCNC, and as such, one has to do a careful study of which hardware will work best. Please note this selection is not based on anything else at this point other than trying out LinuxCNC, if you're happy with Mach, use it, I will try Mach4 if/when has better peripheral support.

LinuxCNC main website -> LinuxCNC
Main Forum lives here -> https://forum.linuxcnc.org/forum/index
Tested motherboard list -> LinuxCNC Documentation Wiki: Latency-Test
Computers Forum here -> https://forum.linuxcnc.org/forum/18-computer

Computer Hardware
Due to many years in industrial automation, I have build up an impressive selection of SBC, mini-itx and other industrial computers.

Although I have none of those older LinuxCNC recommended systems, I was sure to find something that will work. Due to the modern Intel architecture, and embedded SMI controls, older systems will often give better results than more modern systems, you can read more in the links above.

1) First off, the Lex Twister CI963A -> TWISTER System
I have 3 of these systems, and it was quick and easy to install LinuxCNC and test for latency - all 3 gave really good numbers, and would make for a good candidate for this venture. They also have onboard PCI slots, which supports my MESA 5i25 card without problems.





2) I also have 3x BCM MX965GME mini-ITX motherboards -> http://www.bcmcom.com/bcm_product_mx965gme.htm
A 3 are running Core2Duo T7200 processors, 4GB of ram, as well as 4GB high-speed CF cards. LinuxCNC installed pretty easily onto the CF cards, but, latencies were not to good, with the notorious spikes every so often, indicative of the SMI mucking around wrt to the interrupts. So, ruled out, to be used somewhere else.





3) Next up, 3 separate Commell motherboards:
LS-570E -> http://www.commell.com.tw/product/network/LS-570E.HTM
LS-573 -> http://www.commell.com.tw/product/SBC/LS-573.HTM
LS-373 -> http://www.commell.com.tw/product/SBC/LS-373.HTM

I have tested the 5.25" LS-570E, it is a nice board, supports 24V DC input power, but latencies are also a bit iffy, with occasional spikes. Thus it is ruled out.





I am yet to test the LS-573 5.25" board, but I suspect it might suffer the same fate - will do so over the weekend though.





The odd-one out here is the small 3.5" LS-373, without a full-size PCI slot - it does have a mini-pci and pci-express mini slots on-board, as well as dual Intel 82574L lan ports, which are well supported in Linux world.





I have on order a MESA 7i92 controller card, as with my 5i25, it will seamlessly link with my 7i77 MESA breakout board, so no issues - it is a LAN-based unit, which will require me to run the LinuxCNC with Pre-Emptive patch enabled kernel, but no biggie, and I suspect it will be a very powerful combination, married to this LS-373 board. If the latencies prove to be acceptable, I will use this one as the final choice.

It also has an on-board LVDS interface, which will be handy to interface directly to one of my LCD LVDS screens, without requiring external DVI/VGA controllers.



4) Last, but not least, the Wade 8011 Industrial Board -> http://www.portwell.com.tw/download/.../WADE-8011.pdf
An exceptional powerful modern mini-ITX board, married to an E3 1245 quad-core Xeon cpu.....low power, modern C206 chipset, and a host of other features....if the above LS-373 doesn't work wrt latencies, I will settle on this little monster - latencies are acceptable, and I can also run the 8i92 MESA card on one of it's intel LAN ports. It is stable, fast, modern, supports ECC ram, and has a fully configurable BIOS, including disabling SMI, hyper-threading, even multi processing can be turned off. Nice.

I am currently testing it, and irrespective of load, the latency numbers stabilise at 11,600 ns for the Servo Thread, 12,550 ns for the Base Thread. I am not looking to achieve the lowest latencies per Se, but rather no spikes under load. Above numbers are with the system working really hard, Youtube vids playing, GLXGears running, surfing the net, etc....if I do basic tasks, the numbers drop well below the 6,000 ns level.

At this point, my logic is dictating the use this board. I will update by the weekend.





As a last note, and to avoid having to many different PSU's and other supporting infrastructure around, I wish to power the PC motherboard with 24V DC as well......as such, I have opted to use one of my M4-ATX-HV DC-DC psu's....I have 4 lying around -> http://www.mini-box.com/M4-ATX-HV

They are beautiful little units, and plenty powerful for this application.





More to come, apologies for the wall-of-text, but the above might give those of you without much computer experience, helpful info.

Cheers,
Beano

[MrBean_pm]

Hello Guys,
Due to the fact that I will use either my Argon or IONI drives in this project, I have up for sale 3x brandnew DMM Tech DYN3 drive controllers, as well as 3x 750W servo motors, look a few pages back for photos.

It would be best if someone from Australia would be interested in these, as shipping might be expensive....

Let me know if there is interest, otherwise these will go towards a router I might do next.

For the Mill project though, I will prefer to do my own solution, as per the above. I am just about to order 4x MiGe 100ST-M03230 servos with 5k PPR encoders from Lisa Zhan in China, they should arrive no later than end of next week.

Next up I to have a think about my final direction wrt the ball screws, I am tending I the direction of custom Hi-Win units, based on my specification, utilising custom bearing blocks, as opposed to the factory units.

Cheers,
Beano

[pippin88]

What sort of damage for the DMM gear?

[MrBean_pm]

Hey Bud,
Let me have a think and update over the next day. Where abouts are you in AUS?

[MrBean_pm]

As mentioned earlier, I am still running some latency tests to determine which of my mini-ITX and SBC computers will be the best for LinuxCNC use. I thought I had it down to the Portwell Wade board, but further testing this weekend might just persuade me to use the next one.

Currently under testing is the Commell LS-573 mentioned a few posts up - well, I am pleasantly surprised. The BIOS have the ability to disable Multicore Processing, with it enabled, the Latency test numbers were into the 12,000 for both Servo and Base threads, which ain't bad anyway, as I have the PC working really hard with all sorts of tasks running.

But, disabling it, gave me some pretty decent results, again with a lot of activities running in the background....this PC will not be doing anything else than serve as a LinuxCNC box, thus the numbers will be significantly lower for both threads, but good to know it will handle the CNC functions without any hiccups.

What makes this board a good candidate is that it sports onboard RS485, which means I can do away with the GRanite SMV2 dongle and connect directly to the 4xCube. Further to this, it will also accept a 24V power source if making use of it's DC input socket, yeay!! No additional converters.......

Below screendump will give some idea of how good this little gem is. I will also feedback in the LinuxCNC forum about my results...

[MrBean_pm]

A quick snap of the little beast in it's test environment - not very scientific, I know :lol:

ps: Please note I am running an 'Apple' Core2Duo on this, hence the weird part number. But it does a great job, especially at 3.06GHZ. Ram is a single stick Elpida 2GB DDR3-SODIMM.

The board in the PCI slot is the MesaNET 5i25 FPGA SuperPort.....although I might end up using the Ethernet version, the 7i92 with this build, let's see. I have one on the way, should arrive on Monday this week.

[MrBean_pm]

OK, decided to start another test on this one, the baby-brother to the 5.25" SBC Commell LS-573 I have tested yesterday, which as you may recall, gave excellent Latency results.

This time, it is the smaller 3.5" SBC, Commell LS-373, which doesn't have a full-size PCI slot - it does have a mini-pci and pci-express mini slots on-board though, as well as dual Intel 82574L LAN ports, which are well supported in Linux world. With the absence of a full-size PCI slot, I will not be able to use the Mesa 5i25 card, but, I can use the ethernet-based 7i92, without a problem.

It means I will have to revert to a pre-emptive LinuxCNC build, but no dramas, this is easily accomplished. Results should be better even as the bandwidth is significantly higher.

I have tested this board a week ago, and whilst the results were quite good, I was not completely happy with it. After tweaking the BIOS on the LS-573 yesterday with excellent results, I decided to replicate those setting on the LS-373, as it indeed is a smaller version of the 573.

I am even running the exact same Mobile P processor on it Thus a great opportunity to do a direct comparison under the same conditions.

For a refresher, here is the link to its place in binary world:

LS-373 -> COMMELL LS-373 Intel Core 2 Duo 3.5" Miniboard

Below the Latency results, under duplicate conditions of the LS-573....if anything, I am actually subjecting this one to more stringent testing, and it just feels a bit better than the 573, especially wrt graphics performance in this single-core environment - I have disabled multi-core processing in the BIOS again, enabling it easily doubles the Latency!


Quite impressive, and I might finally select this as the LinuxCNC controller PC - due to it's very small footprint, as space is at a premium in my controller panel....just one more test to come later this week, on the last of my industrial boards, the Commell LS-579D.

[handlewanker]

Hi Beano.......just read through all the posts......way above my head....wow you have patience to wait that long for a CNC solution.

I bought the Skyfire SVM-0 mill.....complete set-up running out of the box etc..... and am playing with it while doing the learning curve dance prior to doing a metal cutting act.

True, I did have to wait 2 years for the arrival, but as the prototype was well documented and the delays that occurred from Skyfire's workshop relocating added to the wait, eventually the dust settled and I now have it in my garage with my other toys.

If you don't start actually stripping your mill down and making some alterations mechanically.......before you trip over your beard....LOL.....it'll become a retirement project......the longest trip starts with the very first step.

Best of luck with the build.........I'm in Melbourne too and Dandenong is my home patch.
Ian.

[MrBean_pm]

Ha, good to hear from you! I was meaning to contact you and see how your machine was running, I followed the saga in the SkyFire thread.

I an just not sure I want to send that much money over and without knowing if/when one will get the goods...

I live in Doreen, but work in Vermont some days, would luv to pop over one Saturday and have a look at your machine. The SkyFire CNC sure is a sexy beast, I luv the looks.

Let me know, and we can exchange info via PM.

I am just sorting the controls out, got the circuit breakers in today, and by the weekend I should have good progress with fixing the components to the control panel back plate, etc....once this is out of the way, I will strip the machine to take measurements for the ball screws et al

Catch ya soon, thanx for looking in!

Cheers,
Beano

[handlewanker]

Hi......cool ....I'll PM you when OK as I have a clean up program in force, mainly a bathroom and laundry reno that is behind schedule as I'm lazy and get sidetracked easily.......LOL.....these CNC things etc.

The mill is up and running now, but not cutting as I'm practicing G code and am just getting things together for the eventual cut and slash etc.

I'm running Mach 3 on an Acer Veriton L670 G computer with Win7 32 bit and USB....64 bit doesn't work for this mill op system.

I had to look up the location for Doreen as I misread it first time and thought it was Doveton....just down the road from me.......your loc is out in the bundu a bit....at least 40 Km
Ian.

[MrBean_pm]

Ha, all good Ian, I know how these things go :lol:

When you're ready, no dramas!

40km is nothing, I drive more than that one way to work in Vermont.....you know how it is with distances in our neck of the woods, lol.

Take care bud, catch you one of these days!

Cheers,
Phillip

[Fastest1]

Thats a bicycle ride!

[MrBean_pm]

True :lol:

[MrBean_pm]

Wiring and Schematics
To be continued.

I am starting with the basic wiring diagrams - as always, I try and minimise the amount of interface boards needed for any application, even though I have a MesaNET 7i77 Daughterboard which can sit between the 5i25/6i25/7i92 (choose your pick) FPGA Anywhere IO card and the IONI 4x Cube, I would luv to connect the 7i92H (in my case) directly with the IONI Cube.

It will depend on your circumstance and what hardware you use, but in my case, a direct interface is possible, even preferable. Find attached the pin- diagram how to accomplish this. I will post a main layout overview later.

Cheers,
Beano