Re: [Emc-users] Minor issues with my re-power project and a Gecko G540

[Stephen W. P. <sp...@so...>]

Michael Jones wrote:

>Last night I finished the wiring phase of my project of replacing the  
>old Chopper Drivers and Vexa steppers on a D&M4S mini mill with a  
>Gecko G540 and KL23H284-35-4B stepper for the Z axis and 2  
>KL23H276-28-4B steppers for the X and Y axis.
>
>EMC picked everything up quite nicely - I still have to sort out the  
>charge pump.. but that's just details..  
>
Did you start with the G540 sample config?  I'm pretty sure I included 
the charge pump in there.  (I just cleverly added a link to the 
G540.stepconf file to the wiki after noticing that it isn't included 
with EMC2:  
<http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?Advanced_Configuration>  )

>I'm quite impressed with the  
>G540 and the new steppers.. they move FAST and QUIET.  The previous  
>incarnation of the system was moving at a top speed of about 9ipm for  
>cutting and maybe as fast as 15ipm for rapids (and that was on a good  
>day)  The new system is running up to 60ipm for rapids!
>
>All went VERY well with a couple of minor issues:
>
>1) Moving fast is not an issue..going slow is.   I haven't completely  
>narrowed down where it starts having issues.. but it's around 5-10 ipm.
>  
>
What goes wrong?  Vibration, stalls, loss of position ...

>	(Kind of off topic for this group.. but.. I'll throw it out there  
>anyway)
>
>2) In the previous incarnation I was using a Campbell break out board  
>with the old chopper drivers and a 4 channel solid state relay to  
>control the spindle on/off (with plans for some other things like  
>vacuum pump and swarf-sucker)  The Gecko 540 looks like it grounds the  
>output channel instead of sending a + signal to the output channel.    
>My Relay has only 1 ground, and 4 inputs.  Is there a realistic way  
>that I can control this relay or do I need to just go get a couple of  
>single channel relays and rework it?
>  
>
Well, until you add other things to it, just connect the G540 to the 
ground pin and connect one of the "inputs" to +12 or whatever it needs.  
Later, when you want to add other devices, you'll have to replace it or 
use some extra circuitry on the G540 output.

- Steve