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I’m slowly working on the machine this week and I’m at the electronic part. I have a few question, summarized below:
I have wired all the motors to the respective terminal blocks. Had some issue with the twisted one but done it also. Anyway I found that the Y axis need some effort to move, while the X axis is much easier. The stepper are not blocked as they won’t move at all, but just have some very little “stoppage” sometimes. Is that a problem or nothing to worry about? I checked the wiring 4 time and all seems in the right place.
I bought the DeWalt 611 spindle, I have to connect the red and black zip wire anaway? I have wired on the X axis terminal block just to be sure but the instruction talk about just RED and BLACK wire, and I have BLACK and RED/BLACK together. The wiring scheme is still the same?
I haven’t soldered the limit switch because I haven’t understood HOW to solder the. Instruction say to cut 2x12 feet and 6 feet of the black/white and then to solder on the switch marked 'NO and 'C. But there’s no mark on my 3 switched. Or at least, I can’t see them. Anyway, Is that a problem and I have to go back and solder them or can I solder them later?
How much the DW611 spindle need to ‘go deep’ into the spindle carriage? On the instruction seems to be higher than I made but in that case the yellow button on the side of the DW611 will be under the spindle carriage and of course the router bit will leak out of the spindle collet. How I need to set it?
On the wiring step they say I can skip the “Solder pins into the gShield” IF not have bought limit switches (that of course I HAVE) AND/OR PWM spindle control, that I’m not sure I have. I need to do this step or not?
Thanks to all who will help me and sorry for the long story.
Not sure what you mean by “stepper not blocked as they won’t move at all”.
If you can move the each axis but it has “sticky” spots along the way then it is most likely the V-wheel adjustments.
Not if it’s the wire for the spindle.
You can do it later. Some switches have the NO NC C indicators molded into the plastic which makes them hard to see. (you still want to run the wires through the drag chain, but leave them loose at the switch end).
To use the homing switches you do have to connect the wires to the gShield. You can solder them into the pin connectors supplied by Inventables. You can buy screw terminal blocks to solder to the gShield, or if you don’t plan to use the Inventables electronics case you can get a screw terminal shield for the Arduino to place between the Arduino and the gShield.
With the Dewalt you only need the PWM connection if you want to use an external relay to turn the Dewalt on and off via G-code.
Yes, the Y axis have both those “sticky” spots along the way where they seems to strain to go on, but just need a little more effort to go on. I’ll check the V-Wheels (I assume I need to set the eccentric nut).
Instruction say to wire that red and black wire if I have a 24 or 48V spindle. I have wired it just into the X axis terminal block and run it through the drag as they say, nothing more. I guess I can leave the other end untouched, right?
Ok for the limit switch, I’m gonna check the mark tomorrow with a magnifying glass.
Ok so I have to solder the pin, seems nothing hard to do. There’s a pic of the PWM unit? Just to see if I have it or not. But I pretty much understood his function, and I guess I don’t need it for the moment.
PWM is a function of the Arduino. The pin is an output that normally goes to the the 24 volt power supply to vary the speed of the 24 volt spindle. Since you don’t have that spindle you don’t really need the PWM signal for the DeWalt, but some people use it to control a relay to turn the DeWalt on and off via software.
I decided to assemble the machine in the slowest time possible to make things really at the best.
So I noticed a sort of sloppy movement of the Y axis on the left side of the machine. I solved it by setting the eccentric nut on the respective plate, so that gave me a question: How much “tighten” the V-Wheels need to be on the Makerslide?
I now setted all the eccentric nut (both Y axis, X and Z) as thighten as possible without blocking them. Is that correct?
You should be able to rotate the V-wheels with two fingers with moderate effort. If it’s easy to rotate them with two fingers they are not tight enough. If you can’t rotate them with just two fingers then they are too tight.
Watch each wheel as you move the axis back and forth. If any V-wheel doesn’t turn the whole way then it is too loose. Tighten a loose V-wheel a little and then move the axis again to make sure that it rotates for the full length of the movement.
I guess I have solved this. Was just a V-Wheel really loose that forced me to re-check all the other, but now Y axis (and also X and Z) ar very solid.
I can move all the axis (except the Z of course) with moderate force. Tomorrow I’m going to re-check again the waste-board assembling because I don’t have the correct screw to attach the waste-board to the machine (it need (8) M5X8 and I have (8) M5x12 pan head self tapping screw) so I assume I have used the screw that I need now in a different situation or they have sent me the wrong amount of screw (In fact I had 2/3 screw code mismatch). But I guess I can buy them locally. (Or simply shorten the 8 screw that I have as the are the same diameter that I need)
I will also take advantage of the situation to check the sqauarenes of the waste board.
