Re: Trouble with Servo controller (new box and software)

It took a little doing to get my G320's going also. Here are the
steps I would recommed :

1. Hook up motors and encoders only.
2. Power the system up.
3. If when the fault light turns off the glitch a little bit then
sit there, everything is hooked up right. If they "run away" sway
your A and B on your encoders.

Next is your step and direction. Keep in mind when measuring these
that they are galvanically isolated from the motor connections. This
means that the ground on your parallel port is not connected to the
ground on the motors. Use a ground from the P-port to measure them.

Also, they step and direction use something called an optical
isolator. this means they flash a tiny LED at a receiver and this
causes the pulse to get into the servo drive. Because parallel ports
are able to sink current better than they source you will want to
connect +5V to the common side and whenever the parallel port puts
out a 0V pulse the light will turn on. It is important that the +5V
you put on the common side is referenced to your parallel port. This
means that the ground for your +5V must be tied to the ground in your
P-port.

The diode pictures on the gecko case have a triangle pointing to a
perpendicular line. You want the 5V on the flat side of the triangle
away from the line (current flows with the arrow) and your parrallel
port lines on the side with the line. Another thing I found out is
if you are using a laptop it won't put out 5V, but 3.3. I would
recommend a PMDX board to level shift this for you. It can be done
other ways, but htis is the simplest.

HTH

-Erik Reikes

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@y..., "mueller914" <mmueller@n...> wrote:
> With no motors(power or encoders) or the PC connected, I am getting
5
> to 7v from the outputs of the Encoder plugs: Enc+, Chan A and Chan B
> (box has three gecko 340's)
>
> All three "fault" lights turn on
>
> If I plug in the power and the encoder connectors from the motors,
> nothing happens until I toggle to engage, then the motors will spin
> and continue to turn until I kill the power to them. Unpluging the
> encoder does no good.
>
>
> I am trying to use TurboCNC and have it setup like this:
> X= 2 step/3 dir
> Y= 4 step/5 dir
> Z= 6 step/6 dir
>
> If I measure the voltage directly from the PC cable going to the
> servo box, I get 5v at 2, 4 and 6
>
> When the cable is plugged into the servo box i get 2.5v at pins 2,
4
> and 6 on the inside of the servo box. It makes no differance if
servo
> box is turned on or not, I get the same reading.
>
> Also, i get a 10v reading from the servo box "motor power" outputs
> when nothing is hooked up, the voltage drops to near zero if I
leave
> my voltage reader hooked up for 30 seconds or so.
>
> Does this sound like hardware or software issues?
>
> Thanks
>
> Mike Mueller