Rise Of The Machine - CNC Router Upgrade - Part 1

Before/if getting into a bigger project, I'm taking a new stepper drive through setup and test run.

[oscartattoo]

"If anyone would be interested in a video about..."

Yes.
The answer is yes...

[guitarchitectural]

Of all the amazing things you do, I think I'm most impressed by the fact that you plugged in the USB on the first try

[BPollard]

I think forward is in degrees Fahrenheit and reverse is in degrees Celsius. Gotta keep those units straight with the spin speed, less we have another Mars crater.

[SteveSummers]

Yeah Tony, any video from ya any time;-)

[veryoldpotato]

I have absolutely no intention of ever building a CNC machine. But I would watch an hour long TOT video on how to build one without a second thought.

[PracticalRenaissance]

I can think of a couple things you might be doing with this motor/spindle, and I'm excited about any of them! Having done a CNC milling machine conversion myself, I'd love more "basics" videos on the hardware side of things; there is a plethora of information out there, but its rarely well produced, concise, or up to date. If I'm being honest though, you could make videos about recycling cardboard and I'd still watch.

[DIYBuilds]

I would love to see videos with your take on it tony

[KingNast]

Even non-patrons get to watch this one 17 years before it was filmed

[nic_muses]

You're too close to the maximum voltage! When a stepper & driver are connected to a load and you decelerate the load, that energy has to go somewhere. It comes back (through the driver H-bridge body diodes) and appears on your power supply rails, raising the voltage. Industrial servo drives sometimes have breaking resistors specifically to deal with this. Big linear supplies with lots of output capacitance can absorb some of this into those caps. Switchmode supplies have less output capacitance and your output voltage will rise. Get too high and you'll blow out the MOSFETs in the drivers. I'd want a power supply voltage of 55 to 60 V for motor drivers that have a 70 V maximum input.

The natural (mechanical) resolution of a stepper motor is its full or half step resolution (200 or 400 steps per revolution, normally). That's too coarse for most jobs so we microstep them. Microstepping works best at some integer multiple of the natural resolution of the motor. Some drivers let you do non-integer factors but those settings are not as good as the interpolation gets complicated and wonky.

With these encoder-backed steppers, they're driven more like a brushless motor and the natural resolution is the resolution of the encoder (usually 500, 1000 or 2000 lines), or the 4x multiple of the number of lines (for reasons to do with how the quadrature signal off the encoder works, having two signals, each of which sees two edges for each encoder line) 72-point-whatever sounds like a terrible resolution to be running the motor at and the driver is probably trying some heroic interpolation to make that happen for you. (and probably failing, which is why your reverse rotation is wonky)

Preference would be to set the motor resolution to match its natural encoder resolution (or, failing that, an integer factor or multiple of it). Your limitation there, especially if you're intending to use this motor as a spindle, then becomes maximum pulse frequency. Mach 4, the SmoothStepper, your cables and the driver will each have some maximum frequency they can support and the weakest link in your chain dictates your limit, probably at around 1 MHz. The natural resolution of an encoder backed motor is much higher than an old-fashioned stepper, plus you need higher frequencies when running as a spindle instead of a positioning motor. RPM * 60 * steps per revolution = pulse frequency and you can soon find yourself in radio frequency electronics territory. When that happens, you need to drop the microstep resolution at the motor, but please do so at a nice integer of the encoder.

[alelalle]

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Love you tony!

[joesosnowski]

Yes I would love your take on the hardware. Just got hired on as a machine design engineer about a month ago. Fully inspired to go for it by you!

[tomcarney]

Absolutely yes to the in-depth stuff. Some people get this stuff right away, some people, like me, need it “overexplained” and you are an expert at that.

[AsdfCableGuy]

The amount of videos lately has been incredible, and no they do not lack quality!

[jonsey]

Once in Guatemala my jaguar took me by Cosmo Spacely's place and I remember distinctly ole Cos told me that this this go around all I had to worry about were three dimensions. Later, if my heart weighs less than a feather then I may have to deal with more but...
Wow Mr.T. not only can you have me all agreeing with things that I totally don't understand but I enjoy it thoroughly! Man, if you don't teach something to someone as a profession it's a shame. You have The Gift! Your little stinger at the end about most of us already knowing what... Brotherman, I wouldn't bet on what the entire machine does. But ya know what, I completely dig having you explain it. Thank you Sir. Most sincerely, thank you!

[Falney]

CNC light dimmer switch control for setting up the mood on the nights you get some alone time with the lathe? I mean with Mrs Tony

[davidduffy]

Dear This Old Tony, whilst your vids, your knowledge base has gone from strength to strength my neuro issues have deteriorated inversely to your progression. Tony, I hugely appreciate what you do and how you do what you do. David

[daviddoodle]

We need that basics video from you. Your explanations are brilliant.

[andrewracho]

I would love to see your take on building a cnc. I would also love to see some ferrules on you 70 volt wires. Some people will say you shouldn’t use them on terminals like that, but they can help to prevent stray strands causing nasty shorts. Like Boss Hogg wearing Daisy Dukes nasty.

[fartzinacan]

6:25. A ToT DIY CNC lathe video, on say an older Jet 9x20 metal lathe or variant for instance, would be amazing. Totally picked that size by random.

[Andrewlang]

Any videos you make, regardless of the content, is always informative and your spin makes it a fun video to watch. You could make a video about painting a fence, and I’d laugh and probably learn something.