Wednesday 18 August 2021

Recommissioning the Bantam controls - back to life!!

I need to connect up the limit switches first. Here's what I "documented" before I dismantled the bench lashup. It's hardly bullet proof but I think I can figure out what's happening. Recall that the Z limits are the Omron proximity switches, so they need +24V (blue), 0V (green) and two NC outputs (orange and yellow):


For the X limits I have a couple of microswitches. These are pulled up to +24 by the switch

The remaining 2 inputs are the VFD outputs ie the dry contact / relay outputs. I forget - but presumably one is VFD error and the other "spindle at speed"(?). No matter, I can check that later.

All wired up according to what I can make out from the photos. 


I'm doing a partial lashup at this stage, as the cabinet is on the bench. So the connections will not be final for now.


I spotted that The Stupid Fat Bloke had connected the 7i85 board to the PC's parallel output, not the 5i25 connector. They are both DB25 female sockets but that's no excuse. No damage done, though!

Flash up LinuxCNC and open the HAL Show panel. Selecting the X and Z encoders plus the first 6 digital inputs:


And whoopee shit - it's all connected up correctly! Let's try it. Power up the servos and hit the homing buttons. Yes - it all homes OK, which proves out the encoders, limit switches and servos are wired up correctly. Woohoo. That's almost an anticlimax.

I checked the spindle encoder operation yesterday (works fine at the moment) and I'm not planning on testing out the VFD yet, so for now I have a working system. Off to work for the next couple of days, so that's a good point to leave it for now.

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