[kgoods]

First I want to thank all the people who have posted their knowledge and experiences with these machines. There is no way I would have got my machine running without you guys. As is normal, mine didn't come with any software, documentation, nor any support and the electronics are mostly crap, although I got lucky with the mechanics on mine, accurate and smooth.

I got mine running pretty well and did some small projects but when I decided to get my spoilboard in order I started to run into issues. When surfacing the spoilboard (1 inch winged cutter with a .900" step over) it could not get through the entire board without pausing then taking off again. Problem was mach3 would continue during the pause and it would lose position. The motors were not skipping steps it would just pause for 2-3 seconds then run again.

So I did some tests and it seemed to happen after ~13-15 minutes of cutting. So I thought maybe a overheating problem. Added fans and monitored temps... nope. So then I thought maybe the USB was doing something goofy so I insured that there were no interruptions in the USB stream. Still no dice. I spent a full 5 days testing and trying different things only to come to the realization that if I need a dependable machine I was going to have to upgrade the electronics.

I decided to go with ethernet and new drivers since I didn't have any problems at all with the original VFD.

I shopped around and once everything was considered (things like replacing the pirated mach3, etc.) I'm cheap so I decided to go for the new AXBB-e and UCCNC to drive 4 new StepperOnline DM 556's. This was cheaper then going with the smoothstepper and mach3/mach4. I also decided as long as I'm at it I might as well get a 36v power supply for the drivers and maybe get a little more speed out of it. I also had to pick up a small 3A 5V supply to supply the 5 volt side of the AXBB-e. I left the original 24V supply to take care of the 24V side of the AXBB-e.

Now the problem was the enclosure. Like I said, I'm cheap, so I decided since I couldn't fit all the new items into the existing (beige) box I'd just build a new enclosure out of plywood. I liked the cleaness of the box and the control layouts so I wanted to keep that part of it if I could. Scratched my head for a couple days and came up with a design that I thought would work while letting me keep as much of the existing hardware as possible and save some work to boot! Did I mention I'm lazy too?

The design I came up with just requires the bottom of the original enclosure to rotate 90 degrees down and adds some real estate to allow the new items. The nice thing about this approach is most all the cables and ribbon that attach to the front and back panels still reach without having to build all new cables (I had plenty of wiring to do already and didn't want to have to create new panel mounts etc... it's that lazy thing again).

The attached pictures hopfully show the whole idea behind my approach. There will be a filtered 24volt fan in the front cover towards the right blowing in with the existing fan in the top exiting hot air. I'll use a larger fan in the front hoping to get a little positive pressure to keep everything clean inside. The left side of the front cover will have a plexi window so I can check LEDs easily without having to remove the front panel.

I intend to do a youtube video once I get it running 100% and will post here at that time. I still have to do some cofiguration in UCCNC since my mach3 import didn't work. I think this is just as well though because I don't really trust that my mach3 setup from the BitSensor board would work anyway, might as well set up the UCCNC config from scratch to insure everything is correct. Pin setup for the BitSensor didn't seem to matter in Mach3 I believe all axis's were set up for port 0 and pin 0, don't even ask me how that even worked, just another one of those things I don't trust.

Sorry about the long post but I wanted to give the full background on this to set up my question.

I'm down to wiring up the VFD. It was working fine turning spindle on and off (once you turned it on manually once per session), and adjusting the speed. I'd like to have this functionality under UCCNC as well. I will initially run it manually to get everything set up but I'm hoping someone can help get it wired correct for UCCNC spindle control.

I've included a picture of the BitSensor card and the control bus of the VFD.

The way it was set up originally:
VFD --> Bitsensor card
10v --> 10v as far as I can tell this is 10 volts from the VFD to the 10v input on the bob (BitSensor)
AVI --> AVI this I assume is the variable 0-10v control signal
COM --> ACM this is the common gnd - on the bob the ACM was jumpered to the DCM (analog common to digital common)
FWD --> Out2 This is the control signal to start the spindle - as far as I can tell this is a 24v line.

Here's my issue and question.
Issue1: In order to connect it the way it was I would have to common the 5v gnd (the 5v is the common to the 0-10v AO1 pin) to the 24v gnd on the AXXB-e thus breaking isolation. I don't quite understand isolation so while I believe this would work, not sure if it's a good idea. Help?
Issue2: I guess I could wire up a relay for the spindle start but it seems like I would need another 24v supply to keep the isolation. However, if I go with the relay I'm thinking maybe the 12v pin on the far right of the VFD control bus may work for the relay side of the circuit saving me from having to get another supply.

Question: Which would be better and why? If the relay is the way to go does it seem plausable that the 12v at the far right end of the VDF control bus is meant to be the power to all the digital pins? (All the pins except the AVI pin) And... if that's the case why was the FWD pin wired for 24v to begin with? I'm l a little confused here...

Thanks for any help you can give, I've exhausted every resource I have and have spent days searching without any clarity.

Ken