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This project will be a new Mill Console to house all of the mills electronics, switches, power supplies, monitor, keyboard etc.
The only components not included will be the actual Windows PC.
I want to keep it separate so that I could easily upgrade the PC down the road.
I'll be using some stripped frames from a few old towers that have piled up over the years.
Finished dimensions will be about 24x21x14.
I'll still use my original control panel with it, but probably change some of the switches.
I want to add a Manual Pulse Generator too.
The joystick is nifty but the MPG will be more useful.
All of the panels on the face will be removable so that I can change my mind
and reorganize the switches and such if necessary. It's bound to happen.
I've been putting this off for a while because the details weren't coming.
Usually ideas will just come to me while driving home, just before bedtime, dropping a deuce, etc.
I'll make notes and figure it all out later.
I mull over a few options but If I don't like any of them, I just wait.
Eventually it just hits me. and I get to work.
Time to get to work.
I have a video showing the cutting of the keyboard and monitor panels using the flood coolant for the first time.
Went OK, does need a tweak or 2 to the strainers, they clogged a little.
Shows the benefits of the extra capacity of the X and Y travels.
Later Hoss
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Finally got around to finishing the face frame. I'll make individual panels for the switches etc. that will mount onto this frame. Used some .190 x .750 6061 and riveted the half laps together. Now to mount the frame to the old PC cases. Later Hoss
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A little more progress.
Have the basic frame made, now to button it up with some sheet metal
from the old PC cases and aluminum plate.
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Rank: Administration
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Posts: 46
Points: 47
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Rank: Administration
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Rolling along.
All buttoned up now.
Next is the fun part, throwing all the electronics in there.
Later Hoss
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The old control panel is dead and sacrificed for the new console.
Cut it up and yanked it's guts.
Still using the electronics to allow a bunch of toggle switches and keygrabber
to control a lot of the Mach 3 buttons.
Started playing around with Screens 4 from Machsupport.com
Figured out how to edit the standard screen set to let me program hotkeys
for any of the buttons on the screens.
That way keygrabber can be used to remap them for the console buttons.
Found a program called screentweak from a guy on the mach yahoo forum files section.
It will show you what buttons on the Mach 3 screen have keyboard hotkeys.
Showed me a few I didn't know like Block Delete or M1 Op Stop.
Screens 4 will let me assign hotkeys to anything and add buttons too.
Crap, I might need to order more toggles.
HossP.S. This video shows a little about the Hotkeys Mach 3 uses for the buttons and how to modify them. Hoss
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Just about have the switches wired up.
Wired them all up to plugs of one sort or another so that I can remove a panel
and unplug from a harness.
Soldering all those little pins is a pain.
Hoss
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Got power!
Made a buss board from an old cdrom case.
Put in terminal blocks for 110 VAC, 5 VDC, 12 VDC and 40 VDC also a separate
12 VDC for the C6 board.
Have the main power switch connected too, might replace it with a key switch
to make it cooler.
Can kill all power to the console with one switch at shutdown.
Now that power is hooked up the leds are working for all the switches.
Got around to making a little progress video of the console.Mill Console Progress
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To Infinity and Beyond!
Switches are coming together.
I have 31 switches available on the USB game controller circuit boards
but I'm only using 22 for the console, for now.
Don't think there's much else to control in Mach 3.
Here's a couple more videos.
Mill Console USB Controllers and Switch Panels
mill console MPG panel buttons
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getting closer.
Plodding along, The USB boards have some extra juice now.
Wired them up to 5VDC since the USB can't provide enough on it's own.
Assigned most of the switches with Keygrabber.
Video - mill console progress usb and keygrabber
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I have a Brain!
A Mach 3 brain to be exact.
The MPG Panel has a step mode switch and a port selector switch
but for Mach 3 to be able to use them it has to have a Brain to control the MPG.
Watch the tutorials here.
Cnc4pc is where I got my MPG and they have a few Pendants that also use it.
I borrowed the sample brain with the MPG2.
I needed to do a little brain surgery to get it to work with my setup but once you get
playing around with the editor, it's pretty easy.
Brains are pretty amazing stuff.
I made a video showing what I modified but it's too big for Youtube,
I'll have to split it and upload them later.
Watch the end result here.
MPG Under Brain Control
Also Here's the 2 videos for setting up the MPG with the cnc4pc brain in Mach 3.
MPG Brain Setup Part 1
MPG Brain Setup Part 2
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Getting close to the end!
Wired up the spindle circuit board and the new C6 board from Cnc4pc today.
Had to play around a little but the C6 board is working perfectly and NO sparks!
The new board is bigger than the old board I fried, has a couple relays on this one.
Made sure I used a separate 12V power supply to power the C6 this time.
Set up the Mach 3 parameters as written but had to make an adjustment.
I wasn't getting any speed change(output voltage) when I lowered the RPM.
The C6 was outputting 10.7 Volts to the spindle board no matter what.
After some experimenting, figured out that the velocity setting in the motor tuning config was off.
The recommended setting is Max or 1500.
I lowered the velocity, after several tests, to 190. Works perfect now.
Yours may vary.
I have the spindle pulley 1 set at my max of 6100 RPM.
That output 98.5 Volts to the motor.
Then I set the Spindle Speed in Mach 3 to 3050.
I adjusted the Velocity down (several times) until it output about 49 Volts to the motor.
Double checked that 6100 RPM still put out 98.5 volts and that's it.
Good to go!
Here's the Video of the end result.
C6 Setup and Demo
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I made a wiring diagram to show how I hooked up the C6 and the replacement spindle circuit board
with a manual / PC selector switch.
Original circuit boards should use P1 and P2.
Hoss
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