4x4 Gantry kit - cable carrier install

[Creepy]

Xmas. Slows a fella down.

Back at 'er.

Making a heavy duty hinge for a desktop on the table.






swing-out workdesk with stainless top i got from somewhere for free. Had it kicking around, looks like it would work good, and it does.



I got pretty far into the build without the kit across the border. This is how it arrived.


power supply.




BladeRunner


rear showing outputs to stepper motors.


unpacked kit.




linear rails. extruded aluminum with hardened and ground steel inserts for the wheels. Easy to keep clean and maintain.


You can see the steel guideway here.


packing damage. one of the racks has broken away from the rail. had to weld it back together. Bulltear was notified, as the box was unscathed.


board to install in plasma. Yikes! :o


Z axis with sliding head for Z limit switch.


rear of Z axis

[Creepy]

rack repair and mounting the Y axis rails.

broken TIG welds from supplier.


the welds were less than adequate, and looks like no filler was used.


aligning to weld.


getting this flat and square is pretty important. had to cover everything with nozzle dip so there would be no splatter on the rack.




my knocked down tack welds vs. the broken TIG welds. (these are hidden, and are low enough not to interfere with anything.




installing the linear rails on the table involved drilling and tapping a bunch of holes. I used 2 taps, one got dull by the end of it. the rails can wallow around for alignment.

[Creepy]

Pinion relaxing on the new table. Just like the vet, only better.


really hard limit. I think i will install limit switches down the road. there are tons of inputs on one of the boards for this. looks easy.


Y motor drive plate. the gantry is dual-driven on Y to prevent "racking" of the gantry. ie - so it doesn't go crooked.






rear of X axis on gantry.


overhead view of X axis motor mount on gantry.


Z axis motor mount


floating head on Z-axis

[Creepy]

delete this post, i can't, only edit.

[Creepy]

stepper motor mount hardware did not fit thru. jeez.


this made me nervous.


ah, its not too bad once clamped in the little mill. very easy to drill.


Had to do all 16 holes. (4 in each motor)


I don't understand why these motors have a beautiful micro-finish on the mount surface, yet the mount holes were chewed out by a rat. There were 3 different diameters in each stock hole.

before and after


mounting stepper motors


spring for preload.


There's that repaired rack. It's fine.


installing Z work height switch.


small stuff.


made switch.


attached switch leads to a board in the power supply.


the brown/yellow ones. I didn't need that trailer harness anyway. ;)


lots of expensive things to drill holes in.


computer system. Clean system by a computer buddy for free, for some parts once running.


the scary side lol


had flakey communication between pc and bladerunner. The LPT1 port screws would not engage. What to do?

Head back to 1939 and cut 'em down to size.


I got a real kick out of this, it was 3am, sorta drunk and really tired.


Take that, computer.


communication is now perfect. 8-)

[Creepy]

lots more to post......just zooming the motors around.

It runs mint on jog keys and rapid, but leaps from the track with G-code moves. accellerates to fast.

There must be messed up accelleration/speed value somewhere, assuming shift+axis on keyboard has the same rapid speed values as G-moves.

Any comments on that? It is my major current problem.

the absolute worst thing yet was the Bladerunner DC "off" button sticks, (see last pic posted) and unless you pull it out with your fingernails, it will never turn on. I spent days and days loading software and chasing drivers because of that fawking button. its just a bad micro-switch, but wow, did it ever give me a hard time.

This bladerunner package i got seems to be the "newest of the new" or something, as the manuals fail to identify replacement of a DB9 cable for the interface from power commander to bladerunner with a phone-style cord that has different locations on the boxes, yet the old DB9 ports are still there.
Certainly caused some confusion as the upgrade isn't yet in the manuals from C&Cnc. "WTF is this extra wire?"

The best thing is the overload of web based knowledge on these systems. Cnczone.com, holy frig, its gigantic. New Hypertherm forum in there too, I've got a thread going on wiring the 45.

[jeepsr4ever]

Did you set your acceleration like posted in the forum here?

Now lets go to config and motor tuning. Bulltear tables use a very smooth gear on all axis but not the same size gear or pitch on all axis. For X,Y,A axis the following is used.


1019.1 Steps
1000 Velocity (V can be 1-1000)
30 Accel (accel can be 1-50)

Z axis (torch up and down)

1273.9 Steps
150 Velocity
50 Accel

Some interesting info on the small issues and the motor through holes! 3 different hole sizes isnt right we will talk to our electronics guy.

[Creepy]

The motor holes were chamfered at the motor mount surface, a slightly tapered, rough-finish hole, and was not fully thru. All 4 motors. I would guess the cause as a really dull drill that didn't go deep enough. or the motors were meant for smaller hardware and tapped holes in the brackets.

The motor tuning loaded with the MP3000-DTHC-UB02 profile.
It was the first thing i checked. It is all as listed.

The C&CNC manuals say the step and direction pulse on that page are usually set both to 1, the MP3000 profile loaded 2 and 2.

It does not operate smoothly on either setting. the problem manifests on all 3 axis, less on Z, when using G0. Works fine at 100% manual rapid.

The driver test works fine, "excellent" it says.

[jeepsr4ever]

Try bringing your acceleration down to 30 and your rapid to 700ipm. It could also be a spring issue. Rapiding using the shift arrow wont give you 100% rapids.

[Creepy]

ok, got it to take Gcode. It was the kernel speed! It can be viewed in Mach diagnostics screen, changed in config/ports and pins

I had to go down to 35000Hz to operate smoothly. I was at 60000, very jerky, the jumping i described. then tried 45000 and it was better, but also found a loose set screw on the Y.

Dropped it to 35000Hz and it runs nice and smooth, at 100% feed in G-code. original motor settings.

the driver test worked on all 3 settings.