Author Topic: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review  (Read 177737 times)

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Offline snoopy

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #100 on: April 26, 2014, 01:04:11 am »
The power supply was a Mean Well brand 6A 24V switch mode supply. At first when I thought the power supply had shat itself it maybe because it was under rated. There were a whole heap of higher capacity PS's on ebay which I was contemplating on purchasing before I found the real cause of the fault which was the bad soldering.

Do you still have the PSU ?  Could you take a picture of the label area?  There are fake Mean Well units out there.

Yes I am still using the power supply after I fixed it because I didn't want to wait another 4 weeks to order another one. I will take the unit apart again and take a picture of the label. I recall Dave saying that Mean Well is supposed to be a fairly reputable brand but this one is anything but as far as reliability is concerned which is a big worry for others with these units.

regards
 

Offline snoopy

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #101 on: April 26, 2014, 01:07:03 am »
I am the lucky (?) ones with the black controller box. It has 2 boards in it and a huge toroidal transformer with 2 outputs. The boards are: spindle control (PWM with external knob) running at 36V I think and the stepper drivers board. There is no high voltage anywhere.

You sound like you have a smaller 3040 CNC with 200 watt spindle motor and built in motor controller. The bigger 6040 units usually have an 800 watt water cooled spindle motor and an external variable frequency drive (VFD) controller which can run the spindle motor up to 24000 rpm.

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Offline snoopy

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #102 on: April 26, 2014, 06:39:11 am »
On the 6040, you'll find that the spindle connection has no earth so there's no earth to the main chassis.
You definitely need to fix this as apart from the noise issue,  the spindle runs at 380V.
 Most of the metal parts of the controller are not connected to protective earth. You may have  addressed this one as you already have the power supply open but if not, it should be fixed too.

Yes I will earth the table to the VFD for safety and it will kill the interference at the same time. Also I will probably earth the 24V negative output supply line in the stepper. I'm not sure if it is supposed to be floating or not but since optos are used to isolate the printer port then  it may not be needed.

regards

 

Offline sigxcpu

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #103 on: April 26, 2014, 06:31:21 pm »
I am the lucky (?) ones with the black controller box. It has 2 boards in it and a huge toroidal transformer with 2 outputs. The boards are: spindle control (PWM with external knob) running at 36V I think and the stepper drivers board. There is no high voltage anywhere.

You sound like you have a smaller 3040 CNC with 200 watt spindle motor and built in motor controller. The bigger 6040 units usually have an 800 watt water cooled spindle motor and an external variable frequency drive (VFD) controller which can run the spindle motor up to 24000 rpm.

regards

Yes, i know. But I remember I've seen 3040 with VFD, too (using the blue box controller).
 

Offline vladoportos

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #104 on: April 29, 2014, 05:28:15 pm »
Hello all,

I have finally received 6040 cnc from ebay ( this one: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131112464114?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649 ) I managed to get it working ( Mostly ) so far I can move it around with keyboard but it sounds horrendous, I don't think it should be like that. The Z axis sounds ok, the Y is the worst. When I move it to one side it vibrate terribly  :'( I will make video tomorrow for better reference. the setting is the same for motors as on first page of this thread for 6040... any idea what I should look at ? ( first cnc so its bit confusing )
 

Offline snoopy

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #105 on: April 30, 2014, 01:44:57 am »
The power supply was a Mean Well brand 6A 24V switch mode supply. At first when I thought the power supply had shat itself it maybe because it was under rated. There were a whole heap of higher capacity PS's on ebay which I was contemplating on purchasing before I found the real cause of the fault which was the bad soldering.

Do you still have the PSU ?  Could you take a picture of the label area?  There are fake Mean Well units out there.

 

Offline snoopy

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #106 on: April 30, 2014, 01:48:08 am »
Hello all,

I have finally received 6040 cnc from ebay ( this one: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131112464114?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649 ) I managed to get it working ( Mostly ) so far I can move it around with keyboard but it sounds horrendous, I don't think it should be like that. The Z axis sounds ok, the Y is the worst. When I move it to one side it vibrate terribly  :'( I will make video tomorrow for better reference. the setting is the same for motors as on first page of this thread for 6040... any idea what I should look at ? ( first cnc so its bit confusing )

If you go to the end of its travel on any of the axis it will make a horrible noise. Lets have a look at your video first.

I see they have incorporated the VFD in the stepper motor control  box. Can you take a picture of the insides of the control box ?

regards
 

Offline David_AVD

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #107 on: April 30, 2014, 02:29:29 am »
The label seems to indicate a real Mean Well, although the input ratings are not the same as the data sheet (3.2A/1.6A in photo vs 2.6A/1.3A in data sheet).
 

Offline snoopy

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #108 on: April 30, 2014, 04:11:42 am »
The label seems to indicate a real Mean Well, although the input ratings are not the same as the data sheet (3.2A/1.6A in photo vs 2.6A/1.3A in data sheet).

Hmm that could be the clue because it is only a 145 watt supply.

It is probably a fake or copy with crappy quality control. I note that on ebay the genuine Mean Well supplies were always much more expensive than the run of the mill clones. However the supply is running reliably now and hope it doesn't give me any further trouble but I bet you others may have similar issues.

regards
« Last Edit: April 30, 2014, 04:14:49 am by snoopy »
 

Offline vladoportos

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #109 on: April 30, 2014, 11:39:53 am »
Hello all,

I have finally received 6040 cnc from ebay ( this one: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131112464114?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649 ) I managed to get it working ( Mostly ) so far I can move it around with keyboard but it sounds horrendous, I don't think it should be like that. The Z axis sounds ok, the Y is the worst. When I move it to one side it vibrate terribly  :'( I will make video tomorrow for better reference. the setting is the same for motors as on first page of this thread for 6040... any idea what I should look at ? ( first cnc so its bit confusing )

If you go to the end of its travel on any of the axis it will make a horrible noise. Lets have a look at your video first.

I see they have incorporated the VFD in the stepper motor control  box. Can you take a picture of the insides of the control box ?

regards

I will check and try to make picture from inside. I was playing with it today trying to figure it out but no luck. I also noticed when I go to Mach 3 setting and try to set steps per unit. That option where you tell the Mach3 to move 10mm and than in next dialog you tell it how far it actually went.. I can't get it to move correctly ! I tell it to move 10mm it moves 7mm, ok it change the motor setting, than I tell it to move 20mm it move 11mm its inconsistent every time. Are there some gears inside the stepper motor ( maybe stupid question ) if yes I think thats what is broken on X and Y, the frame looks solid and the screw is not bend ( that I can see ), next I try to switch Y motor which sounds ok to Y axis and see what it does... here is the video:

http://youtu.be/Njwm0PYIGQQ
 

Offline andtfoot

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #110 on: April 30, 2014, 12:00:34 pm »
If the stepper motors have trouble moving, and even go backwards sometimes, check the wiring to the motors themselves.
I had really bizzare results like that when I had a pair of wires swapped between motor coils.
 

Offline snoopy

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #111 on: April 30, 2014, 12:20:33 pm »
Hello all,

I have finally received 6040 cnc from ebay ( this one: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131112464114?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649 ) I managed to get it working ( Mostly ) so far I can move it around with keyboard but it sounds horrendous, I don't think it should be like that. The Z axis sounds ok, the Y is the worst. When I move it to one side it vibrate terribly  :'( I will make video tomorrow for better reference. the setting is the same for motors as on first page of this thread for 6040... any idea what I should look at ? ( first cnc so its bit confusing )

If you go to the end of its travel on any of the axis it will make a horrible noise. Lets have a look at your video first.

I see they have incorporated the VFD in the stepper motor control  box. Can you take a picture of the insides of the control box ?

regards

I will check and try to make picture from inside. I was playing with it today trying to figure it out but no luck. I also noticed when I go to Mach 3 setting and try to set steps per unit. That option where you tell the Mach3 to move 10mm and than in next dialog you tell it how far it actually went.. I can't get it to move correctly ! I tell it to move 10mm it moves 7mm, ok it change the motor setting, than I tell it to move 20mm it move 11mm its inconsistent every time. Are there some gears inside the stepper motor ( maybe stupid question ) if yes I think thats what is broken on X and Y, the frame looks solid and the screw is not bend ( that I can see ), next I try to switch Y motor which sounds ok to Y axis and see what it does... here is the video:

http://youtu.be/Njwm0PYIGQQ

That sounds real bad.

Have you setup the correct stepper motor parameters ?

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/china-cnc-6040-setup-testing-review/msg87759/#msg87759

regards
 

Offline ecat

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #112 on: April 30, 2014, 12:55:13 pm »
I can't play the video right now but usual problems stem from micro-step setup, bad wiring as mentioned above and the infamous 'missing steps' problem which can be due to driving the motors too fast or controller problems. If all else fails Google '6040 missing steps' (minus the ' quotes) for an interesting afternoons worth of reading.
 

Offline snoopy

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #113 on: April 30, 2014, 01:06:16 pm »
 

Offline vladoportos

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #114 on: April 30, 2014, 01:13:07 pm »
Hello all,

I have finally received 6040 cnc from ebay ( this one: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131112464114?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649 ) I managed to get it working ( Mostly ) so far I can move it around with keyboard but it sounds horrendous, I don't think it should be like that. The Z axis sounds ok, the Y is the worst. When I move it to one side it vibrate terribly  :'( I will make video tomorrow for better reference. the setting is the same for motors as on first page of this thread for 6040... any idea what I should look at ? ( first cnc so its bit confusing )

If you go to the end of its travel on any of the axis it will make a horrible noise. Lets have a look at your video first.

I see they have incorporated the VFD in the stepper motor control  box. Can you take a picture of the insides of the control box ?

regards

I will check and try to make picture from inside. I was playing with it today trying to figure it out but no luck. I also noticed when I go to Mach 3 setting and try to set steps per unit. That option where you tell the Mach3 to move 10mm and than in next dialog you tell it how far it actually went.. I can't get it to move correctly ! I tell it to move 10mm it moves 7mm, ok it change the motor setting, than I tell it to move 20mm it move 11mm its inconsistent every time. Are there some gears inside the stepper motor ( maybe stupid question ) if yes I think thats what is broken on X and Y, the frame looks solid and the screw is not bend ( that I can see ), next I try to switch Y motor which sounds ok to Y axis and see what it does... here is the video:

http://youtu.be/Njwm0PYIGQQ

That sounds real bad.

Have you setup the correct stepper motor parameters ?

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/china-cnc-6040-setup-testing-review/msg87759/#msg87759

regards

Yea its setup exactly the same I just double checked it. it might be wrong wiring from factory ( as it come pre build, I just attached motors ) or I don't know what ...
 

Offline snoopy

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #115 on: April 30, 2014, 01:57:21 pm »
Hello all,

I have finally received 6040 cnc from ebay ( this one: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131112464114?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649 ) I managed to get it working ( Mostly ) so far I can move it around with keyboard but it sounds horrendous, I don't think it should be like that. The Z axis sounds ok, the Y is the worst. When I move it to one side it vibrate terribly  :'( I will make video tomorrow for better reference. the setting is the same for motors as on first page of this thread for 6040... any idea what I should look at ? ( first cnc so its bit confusing )

If you go to the end of its travel on any of the axis it will make a horrible noise. Lets have a look at your video first.

I see they have incorporated the VFD in the stepper motor control  box. Can you take a picture of the insides of the control box ?

regards

I will check and try to make picture from inside. I was playing with it today trying to figure it out but no luck. I also noticed when I go to Mach 3 setting and try to set steps per unit. That option where you tell the Mach3 to move 10mm and than in next dialog you tell it how far it actually went.. I can't get it to move correctly ! I tell it to move 10mm it moves 7mm, ok it change the motor setting, than I tell it to move 20mm it move 11mm its inconsistent every time. Are there some gears inside the stepper motor ( maybe stupid question ) if yes I think thats what is broken on X and Y, the frame looks solid and the screw is not bend ( that I can see ), next I try to switch Y motor which sounds ok to Y axis and see what it does... here is the video:

http://youtu.be/Njwm0PYIGQQ

That sounds real bad.

Have you setup the correct stepper motor parameters ?

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/china-cnc-6040-setup-testing-review/msg87759/#msg87759

regards

Yea its setup exactly the same I just double checked it. it might be wrong wiring from factory ( as it come pre build, I just attached motors ) or I don't know what ...

The other thing I was going to ask is that when the stepper motor controller is switched off do the stepper motor shafts move smoothly and freely when you rotate them by hand ?

Also you need to have a look at the parallel printer interface board inside the box. If it is just a simple board that does not use any opto isolators for the parallel printer interface then you may have a lot of trouble with it with earth loops and TTL compatibility issues.

regards
 

Offline ecat

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #116 on: April 30, 2014, 02:21:44 pm »
Watched the vid... Ouch!

What microstep settings are you using? Usually this is set with little switches of jumpers on the controller.

Just to double check, you have "Set Default Units for Setup" set to mm ? Edit: I don't use Mach but since the graph says mm I guess you have it right.

You can try setting
Velocity = 80
Acceleration = 10

to see what happens. Also try increasing Step Pulse and Dir Pulse. Basically we are slowing the machine down to see if we can find a noise free (non-skippy) setting, we can work back up from there.

« Last Edit: April 30, 2014, 02:27:48 pm by ecat »
 

Offline vladoportos

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #117 on: May 01, 2014, 11:54:52 am »
Hello,

Yes its in mm it was the first thing I set and never touched that again :)

If I slow the velocity down a lot it moves much better ( I didn't measure yet if it keeps the distance correctly / constantly )

I took out all the motor and made video without them being attached. I can rule out the frame, it moves smoothly if I turn the shafts manually.

Check the video... I bet that this motor behavior is not normal at all, either all 3 motors are busted or the controller if crap.. I haven't opened it yet, but I will this evening and post a pictures...

In this video, the setting of step. pulses, velocity, acceleration and so on is setup to the values from manual ( also here on first  page of this thread ), last motor in the videos end is motor from Z axis hooked to lead from Y axis and its behaving the same as the X and Y motor, what leads me to the assumption that the driver is bad ( or I'm very unlucky and all 3 motors are... )


 

Offline snoopy

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #118 on: May 01, 2014, 01:05:16 pm »
Because it is common to all motors I would start at the power supply and make sure it is a clean 24 VDC when the motors are running.

regards
 

Offline ecat

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #119 on: May 01, 2014, 01:30:40 pm »
Time to pop the cover off the controller box and start the google hunt I'm afraid.

The scope of possible problems is large:

PC setup
Parallel port setup
Windows setup
Software other than Mach running on the PC including virus checkers.
In slightly older PCs even the chipset on the motherboard has been known to cause problems, eg the CPU is fast enough but the motherboard imposes large and/or variable interrupt latencies.
CPU speed.
Insufficient RAM causing Windows to occasionally, or frequently access the hard disk.

Wiring problems: shorts, breaks or sometimes just incorrectly connected at the controller.
Controller problems: This guy added a buffer http://www.homediystuff.com/fixing-a-chinese-made-cnc-stepper-motor-driver-board-tb6560-chips/ , others I seen needed to add resistors somewhere (I wasn't paying attention) and quite a list of other "fixes".
Power supply problems, as snoopy points out. A common problem could also be PC, Mach, interface cable or controller based.

I would not despair yet, many people have had many issues so there is a lot of information out there. Reading it will take some time.

 

Offline vladoportos

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #120 on: May 01, 2014, 01:42:42 pm »
Here are pictures from inside: http://imgur.com/a/Y9dVU

PC is brand new 2 core Intel Celeron G1610, 4G ram, no antivirus just win 7 and mach 3. LPT port card is this one: AXAGO PCEA-P1.

I'm quite desperate, I think I will look for alternate driver, maybe something for USB with internal gcode interpreter ( Any suggestions ? )... I needed to do some cutting and got a science project instead :)
 

Offline snoopy

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #121 on: May 01, 2014, 02:01:38 pm »
Here are pictures from inside: http://imgur.com/a/Y9dVU

PC is brand new 2 core Intel Celeron G1610, 4G ram, no antivirus just win 7 and mach 3. LPT port card is this one: AXAGO PCEA-P1.

I'm quite desperate, I think I will look for alternate driver, maybe something for USB with internal gcode interpreter ( Any suggestions ? )... I needed to do some cutting and got a science project instead :)

That controller board looks identical to mine and my one works but that doesn't mean there is not a problem with yours.

Also does Mach3 work with win 7 because I thought it only works on win XP ?

Also is your parallel port set to ECP in the BIOS ?

regards
 

Offline GeoffS

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #122 on: May 01, 2014, 02:10:08 pm »
Mach 3 and Win 7 (32 bit) will work together OK.

On my original controller, I had a 5V plug pack that connected to the breakout board to provide a 5V level for the parallel port. Not sure if this one needs that.

I ended up fitting a Gecko G540 and a 48V power supply. Much more reliable - but then the spindle broke and I haven't gotten around to fixing that yet.
 

Offline vladoportos

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #123 on: May 01, 2014, 02:10:36 pm »
Here are pictures from inside: http://imgur.com/a/Y9dVU

PC is brand new 2 core Intel Celeron G1610, 4G ram, no antivirus just win 7 and mach 3. LPT port card is this one: AXAGO PCEA-P1.

I'm quite desperate, I think I will look for alternate driver, maybe something for USB with internal gcode interpreter ( Any suggestions ? )... I needed to do some cutting and got a science project instead :)

That controller board looks identical to mine and my one works but that doesn't mean there is not a problem with yours.

Also does Mach3 work with win 7 because I thought it only works on win XP ?

Also is your parallel port set to ECP in the BIOS ?

regards

It should, I went by this page: http://www.cncrouterparts.com/mach3-cnc-control-software-p-165.html

Regarding the BIOS setting, I don't know but will check today. Although I don't know if it will be there as the parallel port is PCI-e card, I will check...
 

Offline ecat

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Re: China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review
« Reply #124 on: May 01, 2014, 02:13:45 pm »
Also does Mach3 work with win 7 because I thought it only works on win XP ?

Certainly Win 7 64bit appears to cause problems with the parallel port driver. I abandoned Mach3 in less than a day iirc, the older PC I was using was much happier under LinuxCNC.

Now, LinuxCNC is an option and I've found it very reliable - 16 hour runs without a hiccup - but it's not quite as user friendly as Mach3. I think there is a bootable DVD version available so no need to install anything on the PC. Let me check this out...
 

Edit:
http://www.linuxcnc.org/index.php/english/download/21?task=view

Live CD, just download, burn the image - possibly to USB flash - and boot. If nothing else you should be able to manually step the motors to confirm any Windows+Mach3 issues before splashing any cash.

« Last Edit: May 01, 2014, 02:20:57 pm by ecat »
 


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