[Dougal]

You might want to look at this isolator board as an alternative.
http://www.reprap.org/bin/view/Main/Opto_Isolator_1_0
It's only a 4 channel board but you can always use 2 as they are quite small. The opto used on these is very fast and can drive reasonably high loads so would be ideal for things like step & direction.

They actually give the circuit diagram for it on that page and you can buy a kit. If you did that, you could leave off the connectors and solder wires straight into the holes on the PCB if you prefer.

Crap, I just ordered the other one.

Are these self-powered devices?

[striplar]

Don't worry, the other one is just fine.

[striplar]

Sorry, I didn't read all your last message.

The inputs to the isolator board are driven by whatever you connect them to. In this case you presumably want to drive outputs from the CNC Brain so you connect the inputs to the pins you need to isolate. The outputs use a common +ve voltage to pull up the output pins. If you scroll to the bottom of this page...
http://www.industrologic.com/uob8man.htm
you can see how it hooks up.
You have to supply this voltage.

[Dougal]

Sorry, I didn't read all your last message.

The inputs to the isolator board are driven by whatever you connect them to. In this case you presumably want to drive outputs from the CNC Brain so you connect the inputs to the pins you need to isolate. The outputs use a common +ve voltage to pull up the output pins. If you scroll to the bottom of this page...
http://www.industrologic.com/uob8man.htm
you can see how it hooks up.
You have to supply this voltage.

Thanks, that cleared it up for me.
I didn't count the pins first time, now I see 33.

I still don't see how there can be soo many different pieces available for these mills, yet no-one puts together a complete kit. There's a major business opportunity for someone selling complete bolt on and plug in kits.

I can buy a CNCfusion ballscrew kit, but I have to workout my own limit switch mounting etc. Some standardisation and integration would go a long way.

[striplar]

It something I'm looking closely at for the CNC Brain but it's far to immature to risk doing anything yet. There's an industrial version under test so I want to see what that offers.
Another issue is what machine to make kits for. The most obvious is Bridgeports but I think there are quite a lot of detail differences even between those.
Then there's the price. Most people doing this won't even spend the money on servos and always seem to want to do it for next to nothing. I guess if they could afford it, they would buy a CNC machine from a mainstream supplier. For companies like Gecko this offers a good opportunity but I think the only commercial opportunity for someone like me is to sell some standard interface electronics and leave the rest to the user. There are a lot of clever people out there who seem more than able to sort out the mechanicals but who run a mile when it comes to electronics. That's a pity because it's nowhere near as difficult as it appears. Hopefully the Wiki when it arrives will give enough detail to allow more home grown electronics.

[Dougal]

I've talked to a few small machine-shop operators and full CNC scares them, but the ability to even have a powered x-y feed for facing off plates etc they see massive appeal in.

I guess it depends on your target market. Hobby guys have a lot of time to practise and learn, industrial guys want production to pay the bills ASAP.

[LUCKY13]

Dougal do you have Mach3 installed on your computor also? When I had a CNC brain on order I played with the software a lot. I had a problem on one of my computors that the only way I could cure it was to uninstall Mach3 and the CNC Brain. But it took a little bit more than that. I had to go in the computor and do a search for CNC Brain, and SafeGaurd Robotics. When the search found these extra files & folder ( this was after I removed it already) I deleted them. Then I went into the registry and did the same thing. After that ( and only after that ) did I get the software to work again. BTW it was having a jogging problem, it might be worth looking into this. Even though this was in Demo mode only it was still screwing up. I never did figure out why it did this but the only cure for it was deleting everything and just removing the software would not get all the files and folder.




Jess



I hope Bruce gets this worked out.

[Dougal]

Dougal do you have Mach3 installed on your computor also? When I had a CNC brain on order I played with the software a lot. I had a problem on one of my computors that the only way I could cure it was to uninstall Mach3 and the CNC Brain. But it took a little bit more than that. I had to go in the computor and do a search for CNC Brain, and SafeGaurd Robotics. When the search found these extra files & folder ( this was after I removed it already) I deleted them. Then I went into the registry and did the same thing. After that ( and only after that ) did I get the software to work again. BTW it was having a jogging problem, it might be worth looking into this. Even though this was in Demo mode only it was still screwing up. I never did figure out why it did this but the only cure for it was deleting everything and just removing the software would not get all the files and folder.




Jess



I hope Bruce gets this worked out.

Hi Jess

Thanks for the tips. I don't have mach3 installed and I haven't been back to this problem for some weeks now. I need to get back to it soon. I have an optoisolater which I need to install as well.

Cheers
Dougal