China CNC 6040 - Setup, Testing & Review

[metalphreak]

Some of this is copy/paste from my blog:

Jan 16th: Ordering
So I’ve just ordered myself a CNC machine from China. It’s a “6040" model (that’s 60cm by 40cm working area) from ebay seller “amonstar”. So far so good. I’ve received a tracking number and the seller was quick to respond to my question about the watercooled spindle motor (needed to know if it was an ER11 or ER16 collet. It’s ER11). Will keep this blog updated with my progress. ETA for arrival is 7-10 days as long as there are no customs delays.
Can’t wait to get it set up  Already have an old PC with a parallel port, 17? monitor and everything else.

Additional Notes: tracking number took 2-3days to update as a valid number with info. This is the item: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/300550896456 ~$1750 delivered

Jan 22nd: Delivery (not quite...)
According to DHL it has cleared customs and is ready for delivery (hopefully on monday!).

Update: DHL passed the package on to Australia Post for delivery... AusPost left a card saying I had to pick it up as it was a 53.5kg package and they would not deliver!

Jan 24rd: Pickup
Drove down to AusPost depot to collect it. It was all in one big box but fit fine into the back of Mum's Ford Territory Would never have fit it in my car.

Click for bigger pics:
          

For the last week I've been a bit sick, but I had time to setup an old IBM/Lenovo desktop PC with Windows XP / Ubuntu dual-boot. I've got Mach3 that came on a cd with the machine (probably not a legit license...) and EMC2 in linux to try. Spent the last couple of days clearing out the store room in our house. Put up some pine shelving to make room on the table

Assembly of the machine is pretty easy. The side rail that the cable chain sits on, as well as the moving gantry part are packed separately in the box. 5 bolts either side secure the gantry and the cable chain is secured via a screw to the side rail. It only took about 15mins to setup including the PC and wiring.

Current Setup:


And a quick video running some sample G-code that was on the cd:



Still need to hook up the VFD controller for the spindle, and work out some kind of water cooling system. There is an included 24v pump that can be connected to the main control box (there's a switch on the front panel to control it) but it looks pretty cheap/crappy. I think the idea is you just run it with a large bucket/container of water or coolant. I've got a spare 2x120mm radiator and some pumps from a PC cooling kit I'll probably use to make a closed loop system with a small reservoir (Swiftech MicroRes).

Will see if I can get my first cut going tomorrow as it was about 10pm when I shot that video.

Some specs of the machine are on that ebay listing. It's not immediately obvious from the wording, but it has a step resolution of 0.05mm which is ~2mil ?? Should be good enough for some PCB stuff. Has a milling movement area of about 60cm by 40cm but the table itself is a little bit bigger. The specs seem to have been copied and pasted from a similar machine or something. Mine came with 3A steppers not 2.5A, and the 1000-8000rpm is for the 200w spindle, not the 0.8kW VFD one which goes up to 24,000rpm

Any questions, just ask. I'll add more info/vids as I go and learn more (i'm a complete noob to CNC atm).

[wkb]

NEAT!

A colleague of mine gave me a EMCO Compact 5 lathe/milling machine a couple of years back.  Used to be owned by his late father who was into building his own clocks.  A very nice present indeed.  No CNC though.  In the meantime I got a large XY table (from China) and moved the milling head from the lathe bed onto that XY table.  A massive steel rod of a hydraulic piston has been converted (on a much bigger lathe  ) into the vertical support for the milling head.

I'll never be a really proficient ME I think, but this kind of stuff is really useful also for the EE-gone-ME-hacker   

[metalphreak]

First cut today. No water cooling on the spindle yet so only quick runs before it heats up at all. I put the cutting bits I used for each one above, except they're on the wrong sides   

[Hypernova]

I like how the test pattern is just the chinese character for "carve"

[metalphreak]

I like how the test pattern is just the chinese character for "carve"

Haha that's cool. I didn't know what it meant  It was just on the CD with the other software.

[GeoffS]

Glad to see you hd no problems with your 6040, I still have to get mine set up properly.
I bought it last year for about the same price as you paid, Mine came via courier, not AusPost, but as I wasn't home at the time, I had to go to the depot to collect. Fortunately it was in two boxes so I was able to lift it. A few months houssitting meant I couldn't get it set up.

Mine didn't ship with the USB sourced 5V cable for the parallel port interface on the controller which caused some problems. This was traced to the low voltage present on the PC parallel port. I ended up using a wall wart 5V supply to fix this.
Mine also had/had a dead controller board for the X axis. As there was no success getting a replacement from the seller, I've decided to use a different controller (Gecko G540) but a lack of workshop facilities has slowed progress to a crawl.

Hope to get it finished soon so I can get it off the kitchen table 

[metalphreak]

Just ordered some bits from http://www.mctinfo.net/

They sell these Diamond Cut multi-flute bits for routing PCBs (de-panelising, cutouts etc) http://mctinfo.net/router-bitscat_20.html

Also grabbed some microdrills (0.8mm 1mm 1.2mm 1/8") from them.

International Postage is capped at $7.95 flat rate which is excellent

I'm considering getting some stuff from CTC Tools like a set of ER11 Collets, but so far all the bits I've wanted to buy will fit the 1/8" collet that came with the machine.

Trying out CAMBAM tonight to cut out a rear panel for my PID Temp Controller project.


GeoffS: that sucks man. Which seller did you buy from? They all seem to just resell random gear so I don't believe any of them specialize in CNC stuff. The ICs on the breakout board all run from 5V, without it, they might still kind of function through voltage leakage from the parallel port I/O. There's a header on the board internally as well so you could wire in a mains supply 5V unit inside. Have you checked for any loose wiring on the motor control board? There's 6 jumpers on mine to set it at 3A, and some dip switches for microstepping (none of it labeled... so I haven't messed with it).

This place sells replacement boards: http://www.carving-cnc.com/cnc-accessories.html Apparently they're the official YooCNC distributor...

If you've already got the gecko stuff you should be set. I've not had any issues with my control box so I won't be replacing it just yet.

[GeoffS]

Thumbs up for CTC, I've bought a fair bit of stuff from them, mostly endmills and inserts for a the lathe and mill.
I bought some ER11 collets from another eBay seller as CTC were out if stock at the time.

I've been on to carving-cnc but for a $17 board, they want $40 to ship it!  They won't use EMS for shipping despite it being slightly cheaper and a lot less hassle than DHL/Fedex.

Are you using Mach 3 to run it all? Try lazycam, it's pretty good.

[metalphreak]

I'm using Mach3 at the moment because it was on the CD, and the instructions for setup were all for Mach3. I've managed to work out what the correct settings are for EMC2 but I keep getting errors in regards to the realtime engine it uses under linux. Might be my PC or the linux setup, but it seems to work fine anyway (not sure if there's any significance to the error then). My mission for the next week is to try all the CAM/Control software 

[GeoffS]

EMC works as long as you install it from scratch, Trying to make it work with an already installed Linux will fail.
Despite being a Linux tragic, I'll stick with Mach 3 as support is fantastic and there are lots of free addons,

Check out the Vectric software. Not cheap but well worth it.

[metalphreak]

Yeah I installed it using the Linux CNC install CD. The PC i'm using only has an 80GB HDD in it which is fine. Installed XP on a 24gb partition first, then LinuxCNC on another 24gb partition, with the rest of the space FAT32 to share files between both OS. XP first, then Linux means you get a working grub boot menu (set to XP default, 30sec menu timeout)

I've attached the settings images I got with my CD in case anyone else needs them. I'll get a screenshot of my working EMC2 settings as well sometime.

It's 320 steps per MM. From what I can tell, they are 10mm ballscrews, 200steps/rev steppers (1.8degree), and 16microsteps on the controller. So thats 200x16= 3200 step per 10mm. This is all the info you need for EMC2. Make sure you change the step pulse to 10000ns (10uSec) otherwise you'll get crappy movement and missteps on the machine.

[GeoffS]

I didn't any documentation or software with mine so thanks.
FWIW, there's a good quick intro to setting up Mach 3 here.

[aluck]

Guys, what are you going to use it for?

[ivan747]

Why does it use a parallel port? Is it just a standard format with a standard port, like gerbers?
A good way to use it on a newer computer is to get a parallel port PCI card. Cheap, generic PCI cards of any kind work OK, but you absolutely have to keep those drivers around because finding them online is like treasure hunting. These cards usually are either fully supported on Linux (and sometimes you still can't get some them to work perfectly) and some just don't. I've had fun trying to make some of them work together with some programs.

[GeoffS]

Why does it use a parallel port? Is it just a standard format with a standard port, like gerbers?
A good way to use it on a newer computer is to get a parallel port PCI card. Cheap, generic PCI cards of any kind work OK, but you absolutely have to keep those drivers around because finding them online is like treasure hunting. These cards usually are either fully supported on Linux (and sometimes you still can't get some them to work perfectly) and some just don't. I've had fun trying to make some of them work together with some programs.

The CNC controller requires step (pulse) and direction signals to each of the stepper drivers, these are supplied via the parallel port.
By format I assume you mean from the PC to the controller? There is none, just the timed pulses that are input to the stepper driver boards  to drive the motor. The software on the PC, Mach 3 in our case, uses G-Code as the input and it creates the necessary output signals via the parallel port. (G-Code is created via a CAM/CAD package).
Parallel ports are pretty rare these days, fortunately the CPU requirements for Mach 3 are not excessive so an older machine will work just fine. [My CNC PC is a Pentium 4]. Most addon PCI parallel port cards will work but there are some chipsets that causes problems. USB to parallel port converters definitely do not work.

[aluck]

USB to parallel port converters definitely do not work.

So all laptop owners are out of question...

Still, my question is - what is it useful for? My irrational part always wanted to get one of those CNC devices, but couldn't get approval from the rational one.

[metalphreak]

So I was reading through my emails this morning and came across this one from Larry Hodson from Midwest Circuit Technology:

Thank you for placing an order with us today. We do appreciate your business.

I happened upon your post in EEVblog Electronics Community Forum. Since you have a new machine I will add a couple of end mills in with your order, you never know when they may come in handy.

Wow. Thanks Larry Definitely putting Midwest Circuit Technology on my preferred list of suppliers.


aluck: you can use it to make many different things. Precision cutting of MDF/Perspex/Aluminium panels, milling 3D objects (well 2.5D on a 3 axis machine), making PCBs through isolation milling, engraving signs, and so on.

[GeoffS]

USB to parallel port converters definitely do not work.

So all laptop owners are out of question...

Unless you've got a REALLY old laptop like mine (2003 vintage). Actually no laptop is suitable due to the power saving features that screw up the pulse timings. The PC I use is an IBM thinkcentre that cost me $60 at auction.

Still, my question is - what is it useful for? My irrational part always wanted to get one of those CNC devices, but couldn't get approval from the rational one.

I'll be using it for wood carving and, if it's up to it, aluminium cutting. I already have a lathe and a mill. The mill will get the CNC treatment one day. The trick is to buy one and then find a use to justify the expense 

[FreeThinker]

+1 about desktop only parrallel port, spent many (un)happy hours trying to get mine to work on a laptop and failed. Ran 'out of the box' on a desktop. TIP. Reformat the hd and install a fresh copy of windows then install mach3. You will have far less problems if you do, windows runs all sorts of junk in the background and this can effect the port timings which is not good. If  you keep the desktop pc running only windows and mach3 you will be sweet. Shout out to the developers of Mach3, a masterpiece in software (and taming windows)

[baljemmett]

So all laptop owners are out of question...

Unless you've got a REALLY old laptop like mine (2003 vintage). Actually no laptop is suitable due to the power saving features that screw up the pulse timings.

One option for laptop owners might be to check whether there's a proper docking station available for their model -- not a USB-based 'port replicator'-type thing, but one of the docks that hooks up to the system bus (typically through a honking great multi-way connector).  The one I have for my few-year-old Dell Inspiron provides a parallel port on the back, which presents as a PCI device rather than USB; the other advantages are that you can configure different power saving for the docked system to alleviate the timing issue, and can leave the dock cabled in permanently just for tidiness.

[GeoffS]

The real problems with laptops is not a lack of a parallel port, my IBM Thinkpad has one, but issues with the power saving features resident in a laptop that affect the timing of step/direction pulses.

[aluck]

you can use it to make many different things. Precision cutting of MDF/Perspex/Aluminium panels, milling 3D objects (well 2.5D on a 3 axis machine), making PCBs through isolation milling, engraving signs, and so on.

Is it suitable for making really big aluminum jars? We need to make waterproof boxes for equipment. Usually it's a cylinder about 8-10 cm in diameter and about 10 cm high with threading on top of it. Then there is a top cover that screws into the cylinder, making it waterproof.

As we do not need large quantities of those jars (maybe we will need up to 20-30 in a month), we are going to make them out of aluminum.

Is CNC a good tool for that? Or should we use an ordinary lathe?

[robrenz]

you can use it to make many different things. Precision cutting of MDF/Perspex/Aluminium panels, milling 3D objects (well 2.5D on a 3 axis machine), making PCBs through isolation milling, engraving signs, and so on.

Is it suitable for making really big aluminum jars? We need to make waterproof boxes for equipment. Usually it's a cylinder about 8-10 cm in diameter and about 10 cm high with threading on top of it. Then there is a top cover that screws into the cylinder, making it waterproof.

As we do not need large quantities of those jars (maybe we will need up to 20-30 in a month), we are going to make them out of aluminum.

Is CNC a good tool for that? Or should we use an ordinary lathe?

A CNC mill is not the ideal machine for a cylindrical object like that regardless of the size of the mill.  Yes it is doable but not economical and not doable on this size machine.  A full size CNC lathe is what you want but with all that said, you need to buy the container you described it will be immensely cheaper.

[metalphreak]

Milling bits arrived from MCT 



All in individually labelled cases which is great. They all have set rings fitted with the bit size labelled (apart from maybe two which have blank setrings) which is something you don't usually get buying from ebay/china.



2.5mm Diamond Cut "Chipbreaker" to be used for routing/depanelising PCBs (also have 1.0/1.2/1.5/2.0mm)



60deg "MIL 8-12 Universal" engraving bit which looks a lot better than the standard V cut bits.


Progress has been slow lately as I've not had much spare time to play with it. I've setup the watercooling system with the included pump. It's just a plastic container with the pump sitting on top, with the tubes feeding in through holes in the lid. It's just a temporary setup for now because that pump is loud and irritating. Sounds like one of those cheap 12v air compressors  Plenty powerful though as I found out when I pinched the tubing, which popped it off the pump fitting, causing a stream of coolant to reach across the room 

[metalphreak]

Getting ready to mill a PCB



1.6mm depth cutout to fit this piece of copper clad board.



Nice snug fit - gently tap it into place with a mallet or a hammer. This stuff is nice and flat. Not sure where I got it from, probably either Jaycar or Altronics.

[SeanB]

If you are wanting water cooling you need to have a tank and a radiator. I had a brass tank made up by a radiator rebuilder, and put a cheap pond pump in it to move the water. The radiator is a condensing coil and fan from a commercial display cooler, bought from the domestic spares place as a new spare part, came with a base panel and a receiver, but I only used the coil and the fan. Fittings and piping are standard 12mm air line ( nylon quick connect hose and fittings) and some antifreeze in the water to combat corrosion.

[metalphreak]

Yeah I've got parts for a proper watercooling setup. 12V Laing DDC pump and a 2x120mm radiator. I was planning on putting it all in a seperate box with a 24v to 12v switching regulator so I can power it all off the main control box. I'm going to have to ditch the included water pump anyway as it seems to have a small leak in it.

[shebu18]

Great stuff you have there. Please post a pic with the finished PCB.

[FreeThinker]

Just a Tip if this is the first time you have milled a pcb. Fix a sacrificial sheet to the bed and run a cut over the full area (just a few thou deep will be ok) then fix the pcb to this and you will get perfectly even depths of cut when you mill. The Z Axis of the mill is unlikely to be perfectly perpendicular to the bed and this will remove most of the error. Good Luck
 <edit> Just noticed the cut out in your baseboard should work a treat <Edit>

[metalphreak]

FreeThinker: yep Seems to have worked well too.

I ended up just using one of the $2 V cutter bits that came with the machine for a test run (incase I somehow ruin an expensive bit...). Played around with the feedrate and spindle speed a bit while it was going, and ended up with some little burr bits. Not sure if its the cutter, feedrate, spindle RPM, but all tracks tested out fine with a meter (ohms and continuity). I didn't have all the right drill sizes so some holes that were meant to be 0.7xx mm were 0.8mm and the 0.9mm ones are 1.0mm. Accuracy seems pretty good though, as the oversized holes still didn't break out the copper pad Next time i'll increase the pad sizes in Eagle as well. The board hardly has an optimized layout as I did it in about 20mins (inc schematic layout). The values I used in pcb-gcode were really just guesses based on the default values. The two USB traces in the middle are supposed to be 16mil.











Drilling the holes took ~3mins including the time to swap the bit twice

PCB was depanelized with one of those 1.0mm chipbreaker bits Like a knife through butter.

Zip attached with Eagle files (V6.0), G-Code, and Gerbers.

[jasonh]

That looks really good, I only tried one pcb on my CNC and it came out good as well.  I am ordering a new laser cutter/engraver next week to get better engraving than my cnc can do, with a 1500x1200mm bed I can't cut out the pcb's but I have seen that I could do pretty large stencils for etching.  Not sure if I will try that though..

    I am assuming you are using computer watercooling radiators?   just guessing based on the 120mm size.   I am using a single 120mm one on a 2.2kw spindle and it doesnt even really get warm.  I have a large gantry so the pump/resevoir and radiator all ride on the x carriage.

[wkb]

Neat!! Can you post a video of the CNC at work?

[metalphreak]

Just took a couple of videos but I need to edit the footage before I upload it.

I also need to build a proper probe interface for touching off the bits to set the Z height. The paper trick is hardly reliable when you are trying to take off a thin layer of copper. First run was a little bit not deep enough. Second run was fine. Had a bit of a mishap when routing out the board as it came loose so I had to redo the board - in the process of doing so I snapped the tips off two V bits as they went too deep (again, Z height setting issue). The breakout board has a pin header for a probe so I'm just going to wire into that, and use a piece of 1.6mm PCB with some crocodile clips.

Did a bit more reading around on the subject. Looks like I need to crank up the spindle speed to max, and lower the feedrate a bit as well as adjusting the cutting depth.

[metalphreak]

Part 1 of 3

[wkb]

Thanks mate   

As a side note: although I think H&S has gone way overboard, I would be a bit careful with dusting off that epoxy/glasfiber dust mixture.  It is for sure not healthy for your lungs.

[metalphreak]

Part 2 of 3

[metalphreak]

Thanks mate   

As a side note: although I think H&S has gone way overboard, I would be a bit careful with dusting off that epoxy/glasfiber dust mixture.  It is for sure not healthy for your lungs.

Most of it is supposed to be copper material. In any case I have a dustmask and safety glasses on when milling. Some sort of vacuum setup is in the planning. A respirator mask is very important when milling MDF as the dust from that stuff is quite nasty if you're constantly exposed to it. The drilling and routing doesn't create much dust in the air at all. Most of the chips are heavy enough not to float through the air.

A few basic safety precautions are always a good idea. Going in with a hazmat suit and an oxygen tank would be overdoing it

[metalphreak]

Part 3 of 3

[wkb]

Thanks mate   

As a side note: although I think H&S has gone way overboard, I would be a bit careful with dusting off that epoxy/glasfiber dust mixture.  It is for sure not healthy for your lungs.

Most of it is supposed to be copper material. In any case I have a dustmask and safety glasses on when milling. Some sort of vacuum setup is in the planning. A respirator mask is very important when milling MDF as the dust from that stuff is quite nasty if you're constantly exposed to it. The drilling and routing doesn't create much dust in the air at all. Most of the chips are heavy enough not to float through the air.

A few basic safety precautions are always a good idea. Going in with a hazmat suit and an oxygen tank would be overdoing it

Yeah    Like I said "a bit careful". 

[robrenz]

If you want your machine to last longer, vacuum up the dust right at the work zone, don't spread it around with a brush.  That glass fiber dust is very abrasive and will get into all your slides and screws and spindle bearings and cause you a lot of grief.  If you want your spindle collet taper to stay in good shape you should remove and clean the nut, collet, and taper each time you change a bit.  Dust gets into the grooves of the collet and when you just change the tool you smash that grit between the collet and collet seat in the spindle.

[IanB]

I also need to build a proper probe interface for touching off the bits to set the Z height. The paper trick is hardly reliable when you are trying to take off a thin layer of copper. First run was a little bit not deep enough. Second run was fine. Had a bit of a mishap when routing out the board as it came loose so I had to redo the board - in the process of doing so I snapped the tips off two V bits as they went too deep (again, Z height setting issue).

It seems like the optimum answer here would be some kind of feedback control on the Z height of the milling turret, something like the laser tracking system that DVD read heads use.

[metalphreak]

Keeping the board flat is the most important part. Most of the commercial stuff uses a vacuum table, or a foot attachment around the spindle that pushes the board flat to the baseboard as it moves around. At the moment I have to manually move the Z axis down until the bit touches the board, which is difficult to do accurately by eye. The breakout board in the control box has a probe port which I plan on bringing out to the front panel as a pair on banana sockets. The idea is, you connect the input pin (which is buffered to the parallel port and also tied to +5V via a pull up resistor) to a piece of copper board, and then connect ground to the milling bit. When the bit touches the copper board it pulls the input low and Mach 3 knows its touched. Since the board is 1.6mm thick, you set the Z axis home to the current position minus the 1.6mm thickness, and that's the surface of your actual material you are cutting.

1oz copper board is only 1.4mils thick so even the tiniest error effects your cutting depth. You want to avoid cutting any further into the fibreglass substrate than necessary.

[jasonh]

You will like the touch probe when you have it set up.    I have my entire machine grounded with the BOB and safety earth so I only need to worry about the touch plate and not having to have anything on the cutter. 

    It makes life very easy.  In mach3 you set up the height of the touch probe, 6mm in my case and when it touches it sets z to +6mm.

   oops, re reading you are using mach 3 as well.

   A new machine I will have coming soon has a vacuum pump and table.   

   For those that don't know you do not put your work straight down on to the vacuum table, you have a spoilboard , eg 18mm mdf that doesnt matter if you mark it, cut it etc.

   The vacuum pump actually sucks right through you 18mm mdf and hold the parts tight against that.

[george graves]

subscribed!

[vl400]

How is the CNC going?

Have you tried it on aluminium? Am looking for something to mainly do enclosure cutouts and front panel engraving.

[metalphreak]

I haven't tried aluminium yet, but it should work fine for that Cutting wood and acrylic with 1-2mm passes only shows about 0.2A peak on the motor controller which is ~50W. The spindle itself (800w) is more than capable of handling harder materials and/or deeper passes.

Not really "EE" related, but I decided to make a fan grill design so I can test cutting with acrylic. Turned out pretty well Need to polish the edges and it should be shiny

      

It's actually smoke-grey / clear-black 3mm acrylic, not solid black. Excuse the poorly lit iphone snaps...

[BenGW91]

Hello metalphreak,

I am new to the CNC world but am interested in buying the CNC 6040, but I have a few questions.

How do you set the origin on this machine for each workpiece? - I will be using Vectric cut 2D and 3D with Mach3. Is it as simple as manually controlling the position of the mill bit to the corner of your workpiece before "Zero-ing" the Mach3 software somehow?

Thank you
Ben

[metalphreak]

Hi Ben,

You have two sets of co-ordinates within Mach3: Machine Coordinates and Workpiece Coordinates.

On a machine with axis homing switches (something I will be adding), you can automatically zero the machine coordinates. These are used to basically track the machines position so it doesn't run past axis limits. 

The Workpiece coordinates are set manually to where ever your material is within the machine coordinates. Basically, I just move the machine manually to one corner of the acrylic (or whatever material) and make that the zero/home for workpiece coordinates.

Whatever you set to be the workpiece coordinates will match up with the home/origin within vectric.

I might make a series of videos eventually as there isn't all that much material available for complete beginners. Most websites assume you have a background in machining, milling or woodworking.

Perhaps its time to invest in a proper video camera instead of using my DSLR 

[steve_w]

Do you do this for a hobby or for work?

[metalphreak]

This is just a hobby for me. I'm actually a uni student completing my final year of a BE & BCom in Electrical/Electronic Engineering and Management   

[PeterG]

I might make a series of videos eventually as there isn't all that much material available for complete beginners. Most websites assume you have a background in machining, milling or woodworking.

I would really like to see a series or videos aimed at the total beginner. Even a Beginners Guide to the 6040 usage would be great.

Regards

[metalphreak]

Looking at getting a proper video camera this weekend

Had a go at making a small project box tonight using some smoke grey acrylic sheet. I used Trammell Hudson's boxer script to generate the sides with tabs. This outputs an SVG file which can't be imported into Cambam directly. Easiest solution is to load it up in Inkscape, then export it as a DXF file. CamBam was used to generate the toolpath and GCode. CamBam also has an option to "dogbone" corners so you get a square corner. With the 1mm cutting bit I used, you can barely even notice it

I need to get some acrylic glue to hold it all together. I have an idea to use 4 bolts through the front panel, with threads tapped into the back panel. Then I can glue everything except the back, and still have access to the inside. Hard to explain in words, but basically the bolt "pulls" the back panel on through the front panel. The other option is the bolt and nut approach: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Anything-Using-Acrylic-and-Machine-Sc/ A combination of glued tabs for the main part, and the nut/bolt for access panels is a good compromise.







This box was just to test it out and see how well it works, but its the perfect size for a 2x16 character LCD 

[metalphreak]

Glued just the edges and the top and bottom fit in snugly without falling out

Ordered a Canon Legria HF R36 tonight. Should be here next week and I can start doing some proper videos. Didn't quite have the cash to get a HF G10 like Dave's 

[maxpayam]

I am planning on buying one of this chines machines from eBay.
What would you recommend to choose between 6040 or 3040?
What seller do you recommend?
Is higher price = better performance?

Does it matter if I buy from eBay international or from Europe eBay?

Thanks a lot for your reply

[morales]

I didn't any documentation or software with mine so thanks.
FWIW, there's a good quick intro to setting up Mach 3 here.

Hi, I've been stuck with this machine for about 2months already, and i haven't been able to get it to move. Ive installed Mach3, and i set the ports, and pins, settings, and also the motor turn, But I don't know if thats all the settings i need to change. Can someone please help me get my CNC 6040 router machine running.. Ive use the cnc usermanuel, and set the settings exactly how they tell me, but still no progress....help 

[GeoffS]

Hi, I've been stuck with this machine for about 2months already, and i haven't been able to get it to move. Ive installed Mach3, and i set the ports, and pins, settings, and also the motor turn, But I don't know if thats all the settings i need to change. Can someone please help me get my CNC 6040 router machine running.. Ive use the cnc usermanuel, and set the settings exactly how they tell me, but still no progress....help 

A good place to look is cnczone.com. Here are several threads over thereon the shortcomings of the 6040 CNC routers and how to fix them.
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/chinese_machines/134758-any_experiences_cnc_6040_router.html
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/chinese_machines/157193-experience_carving-cnc_com_6040_router.html

[Devian]

Really thank you for your sharing. Very detailed.

[metalphreak]

maxpayam: I don't think many people actually sell them locally. Usually its a "local seller" on ebay and they ship it from hong kong still. The 3040 and 6040 models are basically the same apart from the dimensions. The choice between the refurb DC brushed motors and the proper (new!) water cooled spindles makes up a large difference in the prices. Any of the ebay sellers with decent feedback and some good pictures should be fine. I'm certain they all sell the same kits anyway!

The water pump they include is almost always noisy rubbish. I've still not bothered to make my own cooling kit as the spindle doesn't even get warm with the short run loads I put on it.

[michel pet]

i like to now how big the controller box is.
good some one tel me the lxbxh.

[thakidd]

I want one!

Michel: Here is the link I found off of Ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/CNC-6040-ROUTER-ENGRAVER-DRILLING-MILLING-DEVICE-u-/140584264120?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20bb79a1b8

[JimFouch]

I just ordered mine.  I'm out of the country for a few more weeks, so it will probably make it to my house before I do.

For anyone who already has one, I have a few questions....

It comes with an 1/8" collet, but I should be able to use other size collets as as long as they are for an ER11 spindle,correct? I would like to be able to use up to 1/4" bits. I bought these from eBay...hope they work... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=221017860685&ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:US:3160

What is the size of the t-Slot table's actual slots? I see nuts for 3/8" and some for 1/2" slots. I'm going to want to find some additional clamps.

Are the parts that make up the Y Gantry all made of aluminum? I can't really tell by the pictures. They look like they are, but they could also be wood.

Does anyone have access to an english manual for the VFD?

With a lower feed rate, do you think this unit could cut mild steel?

[ecat]

It comes with an 1/8" collet, but I should be able to use other size collets as as long as they are for an ER11 spindle,correct? I would like to be able to use up to 1/4" bits. I bought these from eBay...hope they work... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=221017860685&ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:US:3160

You should be fine. There are other grades of collets, better balanced for higher speed but for the most part ER11 is ER11.

Are the parts that make up the Y Gantry all made of aluminum? I can't really tell by the pictures. They look like they are, but they could also be wood.

They will not be wood.

Does anyone have access to an english manual for the VFD?

A good place to start: http://www.woodworkforums.com/f170/tips-newbie-huanyang-vfd-users-96380/

With a lower feed rate, do you think this unit could cut mild steel?

Ouch!

These 6040s are just about up to cutting aluminium, steel would be a gamble. Even if the machines frame, screws, bearings and motors could survive, I don't think the spindle has enough power at low speeds and I doubt the spindle bearings would last for long.

Read through this, twice: http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCCNCMillFeedsSpeeds.htm
Download and play with the free trial calculator.

From memory, the forces required to cut steel are TEN times greater then those required to cut aluminium. After reading the above link feel free to come back and correct that x10 figure if I've got it wrong.

[sergiopaschoal]

Some of this is copy/paste from my blog:

Jan 16th: Ordering
So I’ve just ordered myself a CNC machine from China. It’s a “6040" model (that’s 60cm by 40cm working area) from ebay seller “amonstar”. So far so good. I’ve received a tracking number and the seller was quick to respond to my question about the watercooled spindle motor (needed to know if it was an ER11 or ER16 collet. It’s ER11). Will keep this blog updated with my progress. ETA for arrival is 7-10 days as long as there are no customs delays.
Can’t wait to get it set up  Already have an old PC with a parallel port, 17? monitor and everything else.

Additional Notes: tracking number took 2-3days to update as a valid number with info. This is the item: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/300550896456 ~$1750 delivered

Jan 22nd: Delivery (not quite...)
According to DHL it has cleared customs and is ready for delivery (hopefully on monday!).

Update: DHL passed the package on to Australia Post for delivery... AusPost left a card saying I had to pick it up as it was a 53.5kg package and they would not deliver!

Jan 24rd: Pickup
Drove down to AusPost depot to collect it. It was all in one big box but fit fine into the back of Mum's Ford Territory Would never have fit it in my car.

Click for bigger pics:
          

For the last week I've been a bit sick, but I had time to setup an old IBM/Lenovo desktop PC with Windows XP / Ubuntu dual-boot. I've got Mach3 that came on a cd with the machine (probably not a legit license...) and EMC2 in linux to try. Spent the last couple of days clearing out the store room in our house. Put up some pine shelving to make room on the table

Assembly of the machine is pretty easy. The side rail that the cable chain sits on, as well as the moving gantry part are packed separately in the box. 5 bolts either side secure the gantry and the cable chain is secured via a screw to the side rail. It only took about 15mins to setup including the PC and wiring.

Current Setup:


And a quick video running some sample G-code that was on the cd:



Still need to hook up the VFD controller for the spindle, and work out some kind of water cooling system. There is an included 24v pump that can be connected to the main control box (there's a switch on the front panel to control it) but it looks pretty cheap/crappy. I think the idea is you just run it with a large bucket/container of water or coolant. I've got a spare 2x120mm radiator and some pumps from a PC cooling kit I'll probably use to make a closed loop system with a small reservoir (Swiftech MicroRes).

Will see if I can get my first cut going tomorrow as it was about 10pm when I shot that video.

Some specs of the machine are on that ebay listing. It's not immediately obvious from the wording, but it has a step resolution of 0.05mm which is ~2mil ?? Should be good enough for some PCB stuff. Has a milling movement area of about 60cm by 40cm but the table itself is a little bit bigger. The specs seem to have been copied and pasted from a similar machine or something. Mine came with 3A steppers not 2.5A, and the 1000-8000rpm is for the 200w spindle, not the 0.8kW VFD one which goes up to 24,000rpm

Any questions, just ask. I'll add more info/vids as I go and learn more (i'm a complete noob to CNC atm).

! Hello all

I have a CNC6040 identical to that of our friend metalphreak
Unfortunately I am not able to configure Mach3.

Motor Tuning and Setup

Steps per:
Velocity:
Acceleration:
Step Pulse:
Step Dir:

I put the settings:

X: 320 - 2000 - 200 - 10-5
Y: 320 - 2000 - 200 - 10-5
Z: 320-800 - 150 - 10-5

Unfortunately it did not work ...

I wonder other settings.

Follow this guide: http://mambohead.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/CNC-6040-Router-Engraver-System-Installation-Manual.pdf

Could anyone help me?


Thank you!

[obake]

For those who are struggling with mach 3 setup: 6040 CNC (mine had 1.8o 3A steppers & watercooled 800W rotary)
Mine came with instructions as follows:
Motor outputs: (use V for check)
x: V 2 3 X V 1 1
y: V 4 5 X V 1 1
z: V 6 7 X V 1 1

Input signals:
Estop: V 1 10 V X 0  (notice active low checked so the emergency stop is inactive with the button out)

Motor Tuning
X: 400 2000 200 -- 10 3
Y: 400 2000 200 -- 10 3
Z: 400 800  100 -- 10 3

If you can't seem to get your machine to move (but you see the x,y,z numbers change in mach3 when you use your keyboard), it is probably that the parallel port has the wrong address. How do you find the right one, you ask... Go to device manager (control panel>system>device manager). Look for ports & com or something like that. Find your adapter (i had a Rosewill PCIe to Parallel). right click it and go to properties, then the "resources" tab. You should see some little icons and numbers with dashes. the "port address" should be the first part of the top one. For example, mine had (icon) DC00-000(something or other #). So, i changed mach3's port #1 from 0x378 to DC00 clicked ok and bam! it works. (have not tested actual cutting yet)

On a bad note, i seem to have controller feedback whenever I have the waterpump on and the parallel cable connected (causes the steppers to sputter and move). I haven't been able to get rid of it, so I will probably need to run a waterpump another way. I guess I won't be carving tomorrow.

Also, my plan is to run this machine using my Win7x64 LAPTOP & USB!  Insane you say? To do that you would need to convert buffered signals to parallel synchronized pulses that a cnc controller would like, you going to have kernal and OS problems and stuff. Well, someone better than I has already done it. For around 80 bucks, I bought an "rt-stepper" from ecklersoft that is based on linuxCNC and does just that. It should be able to run off of most any LinuxCNC and USB2.0 OS. (so my older XP laptop or desktop, my shiny new Win7 x64 laptop...maybe a even a droid tablet, if you feel risky). To do that, I need to learn how to set up linuxCNC with the proper parameters. Any tips would be greatly appreciated (or if you've done it for this machine, your config.ini).

[metalphreak]

"Spluttering" issues are almost always because of the VFD and spindle having poor grounding. When I connect my depth setting probe, I connect the probe ground to the CNC chassis. If I turn the spindle on, it moves all over the place! Very bad thing to happen when its so close to a work piece. Have yet to be bothered enough by this to fix it 

Mach3 configuration issues are entirely dependent on your PC and how much of the Mach3 manual you have read If you get no movement at all from the machine, it isn't configured properly.

Do note that the Parallel port driver board inside the box needs an external 5V source to power it! There is a DC input jack right next to the parallel port. You should have received a USB to DC jack cable with your machine. This needs to be plugged into the PC to provide the 5V!

I tried cutting steel plate. It works - slowly - but the machine definitely doesn't like it. I will not be trying steel again in the future - it's simply not designed to do it. Aluminium is fine however.

[Virgus]

Hello everybody,
I'm trying to realize some PCBs with Eagle and pcb-code plugin.

I modded my CNC6040 adding three home switches, lights to the power/spindle switches
and the probe socket to do the z probing, and I started milling a couple of rectangles of the same size/depth
of my PCB into a piece of MDF.

The rectangles g-code was created online from the following link:
http://www.daycounter.com/Calculators/GCode/GCode-Rectangle-Inner.phtml

To my surprise if I mill an outline of a rectangle everything is fine, but if I mill a filled rectangle
the x axis gets misaligned at every row, producing an overall misalignment of 2mm over 5cm along the Y-axis.
No problem seems to occur on the y axis alignment. I attach a low-res picture of the two results.

I'm using Mach3 on a Windows PC and I uploaded all configs, nc files and hi-res picture at the following link:
https://www.box.com/s/4avfosq38sitt7go4fh6

I'm stuck as I have no clue of what might cause this, any hint/suggestion will be greatly appreciated!!!

Kindest regards and
cheers from Paris!

[bilko]

Do note that the Parallel port driver board inside the box needs an external 5V source to power it! There is a DC input jack right next to the parallel port. You should have received a USB to DC jack cable with your machine. This needs to be plugged into the PC to provide the 5V!

If the parallel port driver board is opto isolated you will need a separate 5V power supply, maybe from a wall wart. Plugging the cable into the PC USB will defeat the opto isolation and will cause ground currents to flow down the USB cable. This is a possible cause of the 'funny business' when starting the VFD drive.

All ground cables should be star earthed (central earth point), that is machine ground and PC ground should be connected together at one point and then this ground runs to utility ground.

Other potential problems can occur with the over travel limits
Do you have schematics for the parallel driver board that you can post ?

[Virgus]

Hello bilko,
many thanks for your prompt reply!

My CNC6040 is a recent version with the black controller housing, thus no usb cable for the 5v any more.
The board inside the controller is the YOOCNC-NT65-3X (picture attached) but I couldn't find any schematic on the net!

I'll check tomorrow if there's any voltage difference between the PC and the controller grounds.

I just read about the motion mode settings in Mach3 and I'm wondering if anything would change if I set "exact stop" instead of "constant velocity"...

Good night and thanks again for your help!
V.

[metalphreak]

Do note that the Parallel port driver board inside the box needs an external 5V source to power it! There is a DC input jack right next to the parallel port. You should have received a USB to DC jack cable with your machine. This needs to be plugged into the PC to provide the 5V!

If the parallel port driver board is opto isolated you will need a separate 5V power supply, maybe from a wall wart. Plugging the cable into the PC USB will defeat the opto isolation and will cause ground currents to flow down the USB cable. This is a possible cause of the 'funny business' when starting the VFD drive.



All ground cables should be star earthed (central earth point), that is machine ground and PC ground should be connected together at one point and then this ground runs to utility ground.

Other potential problems can occur with the over travel limits
Do you have schematics for the parallel driver board that you can post ?

They don't actually use discrete opto-isolators, but an IC instead. I don't think it's even isolated anyway. USB port ground is mains earth referenced, as is the VFD controller. The 24V DC power supply may not be though. Best option is to just earth everything to the same common mains earth to eliminate issues.

I reckon they were just too cheap to put a 5v regulator on there to power it from the internal 24V DC supply

As the spindle is probably not earthed (and therefore neither is the frame since they are mechanically and electrically connected), connecting the probe ground to it is probably inducing tons of noise. It's a fairly common issue with these that many people have pointed out. Like I said, it never affected me until I wired up my own probe interface (which is not a standard feature even though the board has an allowance for it) so technically there is nothing "wrong" with the design  .

Virgus: the controller you have seems much more integrated (read: cheaper design) than the one I received. All the axis drivers are on one board by the looks of it along with the interface driver? It certainly seems to be missing steps on the x axis there. Could possibly have the settings in Mach3 set too fast or it could be a fault axis driver. Easy way to check = swap the X and Y connectors and run the test again. If the missed step issue moves to the Y axis you know it's the driver Replacement would be a pain though - mine are separate units so I could just replace one (but I haven't needed to).

[Virgus]

Hello Metalphreak
thanks for your comment, you made me google around and I found many posts about TTL ICs on CNC6040 Controllers.

Many others on the net complain about the low quality of YooCNC controllers. Following this
post I bought some 74LS14 ICs to replace the 74HC14 I found on the controller. Hope it won't be necessary though...

Another post said that the z-probing cable might cause interference to the step motors signals.

Yesterday I've milled a PCB and noticed that the lost steps were happening all of a sudden on any axes (the x one is the most common to have some lost steps though) never near a change in speed/direction. First I thought about a possible mechanical problem because of the noise but then I lost a step on the z axe a few seconds after the first one and realized it must be something related to the controller/cables/interferences... or grounding maybe.

By the way, one thing that already improved a little was that I changed motion mode to "exact stop" but I cannot be sure if it's just a coincidence or not.

I'll do the test you proposed and see, I also have to try lowering the speed and unplugging the probe cable to eventually reduce interferences... and check the grounding of course.

Cheers,
V.

[abyrvalg]

Try hooking the machine to a different PC also. We had troubles during our new AMCNC-01 first tests (missed steps, choppy spindle PWM - this can be heard), changing the PC had cured them all (dreaded parallel port power management issue ?)

[gxti]

I don't really understand why, in 2013, devices are still being sold with bitbang parallel control. It made sense 20 years ago but these days a $2 microcontroller with USB or Ethernet could do a far better job and not have so many compatibility issues. Real parallel ports aren't free anymore, and even when you have one it's still bad design to use a general-purpose PC to control big motors in real time.

Seems like an opportunity for a OSHW project to design such an interface and make a lot of noise to get it adopted.

[Virgus]

Yes abyrvalg,
I'll setup and try another PC to see if there's any difference with the parallel port.
Actually the change between 74HC14 and 74LS14 ICs might solve parallel incompatibilities,
hope I won't have the need of doing that anyway...

Yes gxti a usb CNC controller would be great!

Cheers,
V.

[hexpope]

Hi Virgus,

I am the same CNC router box as yourself. And I am having the same problems as yourself !

I will replace the IC's and maybe the capacitors beside every motor input header to a better branded low ESR type, I think the ones that come with them are Chong.

Let us know how you get on with the mods ! If I can't fix the noise and crappy sounds coming from the steppers I am moving over to Pokeys and Postep25 drivers.

 

[Virgus]

Hello hexpope,
I received the ICs a few days ago but I've not changed them yet.

For now I found a compromise: I lowered speed and acceleration and I do several times a homing of the three axes.
Another thing I read is that the probe cable needs to be disconnected during milling to avoid the capture of interferences
but to my experience this seems not to be a big issue: I just keep the probe cable far from the motors cables...

Moreover I tried to minimize the steps loss by optimizing the g-code.
I bought this excellent tool: http://www.pcbgcode.com/PCB-Gcode-Wizard%20homepage.htm
Paul, the programmer, is kind and very helpful as he gave me advises and suggestions!

Reducing the speed and the code to process allows to have no error for small circuits (I do the homing between each milling step just in case) and I postponed for now the ICs change, so I recommend you first to try this and to install the home switches if you have not done it yet
as they're mandatory with the cheap controller we've got.

I'd like to start doing SMD and I cross my fingers that it will work, meanwhile I'm doing small things to gain more confidence
and experience: I had a nice result last week with a 0.1mm cutter bit (see attachment).

Good luck and keep us updated!
V.

[hexpope]

Your work looks ok, but my projects are much larger than that little board, so it doesn't have time to give your work massive error. If you look at the attached picture I will show you the size of the circuit plus drilling I am also using a .1mm engraving tip for traces and two size drills for the job

I use Diptrace + Vetric Vcarve pro and Mach3. I used to use Eagle with the ULP PCB-Gcode and I am aware of the G-code Wizard, but how would it compare to Vcarve ? A CNC controller that actually works doesn't need home switches (Desktop version) If you don't loose steps then it returns to where you started the job from.

My milling speed is 150 mm/min @ 11000 RPM with the bit only removing the copper. I usually do the run twice if it's a tight circuit, second pass at a higher feedrate.

I replaced the Caps with Nichicon low esr types on each axis. I have also metered out the amps the motors are drawing etc, transformer etc etc all looks normal. I think there's a lot of noise as when the machine is working and I move the mouse of the CNC computer it changes the speed of the motors and the noise of the goes to a higher pitch. It stops when I don't operate the mouse. Same goes when the Driver Test from Mach3

I never use the probe and I have milled out a square flat bed for the PCB's to be attached to (When it worked normal)

I get vibrations on the X and Y axis also especially during tuns and slow movement. What are you mach3 settings ?

My motors stall even @ 1500mm / min settings. I have to tune mine down to 480mm / min on all axis or I heard high pitch whines and rattling.

I have took apart the CNC table to check for loose screws etc and can't find anything wrong with it. I also checked the coupling to see if their nice and tight on the motors and they are. The cable use for the motors isn't the best, but I have metered them out and they pass.

I have a Pokeys55U already, so I am thinking of ordering the Postep25 boards and dump these YOOCNC cards. They are dirt, and I bet those Toshiba chips are fake and those NXP chips are fake, plus this controller is already a copy of a clone of a clone. God knows.

At least the box and and some of the guts are reusable when I rip out this crap and fit the Pokeys devices.

Unless you have something else to contribute, but I am loosing time and money at the moment because of this.

Just on another note, I done a little bit of SMD work, with very small boards and if everything is fine, you can really make nice boards, but as you can see, even with the small board it lost steps. I can't stand holes not being in the centre, but that circuit worked none the less. and it was double sided hence my big via's so it's easier to solder without a mess with no soldermask. SMT 0805

[Virgus]

Hello,
yeah I wouldn't trust Yoocnc with such a PCB without the groundplane.
As you might have seen from my first post the steps lost by simply milling a flat bed are too many.

I read about a guy who took one month to make everything work correctly and it took to me more than two weeks
to have a minimal decent result with no guarantees for bigger circuits (without ground planes in particular...).
Just mentioning this because if you're loosing too much time with this issue I would suggest indeed to change the controller.

Yesterday I bought some Solder Mask Paint on ebay to try to do some SMD design while keeping ground planes
and keeping milling time low (unless soldering the components would be a PITA) but I'm also oriented in changing sooner or later the yoocnc controller.

I attach you my actual motor configs (all the rest is unchanged compared to the pdf I attached in my first post);
the z motor has half the acceleration than the x,y ones.

I'm curious about the Pokeys solution with Mach3 and the Postep25 boards seem good and affordable, so please keep me informed on how it goes if you'll switch to them!

Cheers,
V.

PS About the home switches, yes I agree with you that a perfect cnc machine would work fine even without them but I have the case when I switched the power switch instead of the motor one while I was looking at the PC and moving my axes and the machine's coordinates messed up. This is just an example where home switches can save your work...

[hexpope]

Hi thanks for showing me your configurations. I presume this is @ 35Khz ? in ports and pins.

I tried those settings, and not a hope of mine running at that speed. Tons of rattling, vibrations and stalling on X and Y axis.

Regarding the ground planes. I do in fact use them all the time (4 spoke on connections), it's just I didn't apply the ground plane in those Diptrace photo's and it' hard to see the spokes on that little board for GND plane, but they are there !

Yes I understand what you mean about the home switches now regarding the unit loosing it's main power etc. Good for that I would gather. I am making the order today for them and I will either PM you, or reply here. I don't want to hijack Metalphreak's thread.

Thanks for the settings ! I will do up a video and post it on youtube and give you a link of what mine sounds like with your settings !!

[Virgus]

Yes 35Khz.

I'm wondering if you got the same motors I have. The labels say: YOC CW5741-2012 1,8° 1,8A for 3020T 3040T

If you've different motors than mine, have you tried the other settings that are available on the net?
Step pulse 3 and Dir pulse 1

When I got the machine i used this settings and it was a mess, so maybe you need other settings than mine.
I also verified that I've got 5 Leadscrew Revolutions per cm and 200 Motor Steps per revolution (1.8° step motor)
so according to what I found here: http://www.aquickcnc.com/tutorials/stepper-motor-calculations/
0.5  x 200 = 100 with no micro-stepping; that meaning that my 400 steps per mm implies a micro-stepping of 1/4
(if I didn't made any mistake...);
You should also check your leadscrews as many others CNC6020 need a setting of 320 steps per mm.

Cheers,
V.

PS Hope Metalphreak won't mind for our exchange here in his thread but I suppose it's better to keep public all these infos as others might find them useful in the future... And this thread on CNC6040 was the one where I finally got my first answers!

[hexpope]

Would you believe it? there isn't any labels on my motors. Notting. I wrote to the to seller and all he replied back to me was this.

Code: [Select]

Engineer said, the stepper motor is 1.8A/2A one. All motors subject to this feature are alternative.
And that's all I know about the motors on the CNC.    But I have the fourth axis motor here and I can see there is actually a sticker on it saying. YOC2012 -TBD-A 1.8° 1.8A. It looks identical to the motors for the XYZ axis

If I use 320 in the steps per min then I loose my scaling. If I measure from point A, then get Mach3 to move the x axis 250mm and then measure it, it actually moves to 250 exactly. So I think I have it right with "400"

Using step pulse etc

3 / 1 is what I usually use. It doesn't matter which setting I use, it's still the same.


eBay auction: #221236714378

[Virgus]

I am on a hurry, so just a fast reply: did you check with another parallel port what happens?

I'm tried at first with an old laptop and after hibernation I had a behaviour like yours (just saw the video),
so I had to restart and shut down everytime. I guess the parallel port was the problem.
Before doing any other test in my opinion you should try another PC if you can...

Talk to you later.
V.

PS BTW same ebay seller, but I suppose different lots of production...

[hexpope]

Thanks Virgus,

I turned it down to 25khz and 1000mm / min on X and Y, 500 mm / min on Z with accelleration on 200 / 200 / 100 Things seeming to be well now, but when completing a 40 min job, I am off on the X axis or sometimes the Y axis by about 0.9mm.

Also, could you test something out for me ? could you reduce your feedrate for X and Y axis and see if your machine vibrates ? I set mine @ 60 feed rate on a job, and wow, the motor stalls and vibrations are through the roof !

[hexpope]

@ Virgus,

I have replaced the BOB and stepper drivers now. I am using the Pokeys 56U with their Postep25 driver boards. All I can say is wow.

I hardly even hear the motors on 1/16 microstepping and I am not loosing steps anywhere. If your problems persist, get a new controller. Mine is USB now. I used the same controller box etc. I didn't even need to drill any new holes.

I just need to set up PWM now for the spindle, as now when the main power is on, regardless of the spindle switch it just goes full power.

Either way, I am really happy with the new stuff from Pokeys.

[Virgus]

Hello hexpope,
I did not have time lately to experiment further with my CNC,
but many thanks for keeping me updated.

Your news sound great and I'm really curious about the details of your new set up
(part numbers to buy, configuration/programming and eventually some photos would be great)
Did you try both higher speed and lower speed with no loss in the motor steps?

The most interesting to me is the fact that everything is working via USB, I'd love to drop parallel port!

Thanks again and talk to you soon,
Virgus

[hexpope]

Hi speeds is no problem and with the new 1/16 microstepping I can move the gantry at very very slow speeds without vibrations etc and loosing steps.

As in regards Part numbers there isn't any other than a few pull up resistors I needed to use for the Pokeys 56U protection.

I am still using the transformer, the spindle board and +24 for the breakout boards.

http://www.poscope.com/pokeys56u

and then the stepper driver boards, I bought three.

http://www.poscope.com/postep25

Be sure to download the manuals to getting a better understanding.

No pictures yet as I am still in the process of finishing off the spindle part with PWM.

regards

[asboyd]

Guys,
Just bought a CNC 3040T off eBay. and still the same no manual no instructions of any kind, however...
For those of you still looking for a parallel interface without a parallel interface, go to www.warp9td.com
They have a USB stepper motion control board for either USB or Ethernet.
I purchased the USB one and it works well with my old XP laptop....

Cheers,

AlexB

[snoopy]

I am planning on buying one of this chines machines from eBay.
What would you recommend to choose between 6040 or 3040?
What seller do you recommend?
Is higher price = better performance?

Does it matter if I buy from eBay international or from Europe eBay?

Thanks a lot for your reply

I just bought a 6040 from a Sydney ebay dealer for $1450 + $30 postage. A week before they were going for $1300 + $800 postage !! I was originally looking at the 3040's for around $1000 but the bigger table on the 6040 meant that I could do 19 inch rack mount stuff. Also the 6040's has a much bigger motor which needs to be water cooled plus the price drop made the decision a lot easier.

regards

[snoopy]

Does anyone know the feed rate and spindle speed necessary to cut aluminium using a 3.175mm tip ?

cheers

[eKretz]

That will depend on your cutter material and feed rate will also depend on what depth and width of cut and number of cutter teeth. If you're using a carbide cutting tool you want to start around 18,000 RPM and if you are taking a fairly heavy cut and have 2 cutter teeth, about 80 or 90mm/minute. Lighter cuts you can increase both feed and speed considerably.

[snoopy]

That will depend on your cutter material and feed rate will also depend on what depth and width of cut and number of cutter teeth. If you're using a carbide cutting tool you want to start around 18,000 RPM and if you are taking a fairly heavy cut and have 2 cutter teeth, about 80 or 90mm/minute. Lighter cuts you can increase both feed and speed considerably.

Thanks for your reply,

I just checked the end mill bit and it is a 3.175mm bit with 2 cutter teeth. If you were cutting 3.175 mm thick aluminium would you cut the whole piece in one go or would you do it in layers because I have the option of layering the cuts so I could cut 1mm depth at a time etc.

Also what do you suggest setting the Z-axis feed rate to ?

regards

[GeoffS]

Even a 1mm depth of cut on a 6040 is expecting a lot.
I wouldn't go more than .5mm per pass. Spindle speed should be around 11000rpm.
Slow on the feed rate and use something like WD-40 as a coolant.

[abyrvalg]

hexpope, what are your steps from DipTrace PCB project to G-code? I see you've mentinoned Vcarve, but can't find any PCB-related feature description on their site.

[snoopy]

Even a 1mm depth of cut on a 6040 is expecting a lot.
I wouldn't go more than .5mm per pass. Spindle speed should be around 11000rpm.
Slow on the feed rate and use something like WD-40 as a coolant.

Thanks Geoff

I will set the feed rate at 100mm/min but what about the plunge rate ? Is there any rule of thumb ? I thought 30mm/min might be right. What do you think ?

regards

[ecat]

Is there any rule of thumb ?

Probably, but it depends upon:

Cutter/drill type: HSS, carbide etc and the number of flutes.
Cutter/drill size.
Material: Even if you are cutting aluminium you should be aware of the different grades.
Available spindle speeds and if you have sufficient torque available at any given speed.
The alignment limitations of your machine and how well it will hold tolerance over the time it will take for the job.
The capabilities of your CnC machine: Rigidity and speed for each axis given all of the above.

Useful reading... maybe even some some useful software:
http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCCNCMillFeedsSpeeds.htm
http://www.hsmworks.com/docs/cncbook/en/#Ch03_CuttingSpeedsAndFeedsFormulas
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cnc-machining/online-cnc-speed-feed-calculator-242061/ - this is the thread for ...
http://zero-divide.net/index.php?page=fswizard - this could be very useful, I've not tried it.

Okay, please read, or at least scan through all of those links. It's a lot to take in but I'm not asking that you know it all - I most certainly don't - just that you are aware of what you are trying to achieve and more importantly what you should try to avoid when you start up your machine.

Now, the  important questions:
How much time have you spent playing with your machine?
What did you do to determine the accuracy and repeatability of your machine?
How did you determine the safe maximum speeds of your machine?

I was lucky, my machine started as a simple manual milling machine so I was able to spend hours listening to the noises it made and actually feeling the vibrations as I cut and drilled holes in stuff. No plans, no design just playing around and squaring up reality with the little machining theory I knew. Time well spent.

Get a rough idea of the upper and lower limits you should stay within. Make some test cuts with the tools and materials you are using. To this day I hate CnC drilling, but drill some holes remembering the basic rules of peck drilling (eg, http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cnc-machining/peck-drill-depth-rule-thumb-124486/ maybe start with 1xdiameter to be safe-ish). Never be tempted to use a milling tool in a drill chuck, ever! Listen to your machine, feel the vibrations lol.

[sigxcpu]

I've got myself a 3040, the cheapest version with delrin (teflon?) white nuts (let's not talk about the unobtanium 1204 delrin nuts). I'll replace them with ballscrews once they'll die. Anyway, there are no issues with lost steps even at large speeds (the whole desk that holds the machine shakes like crazy). Initially it had the classic X-axis lost steps that were easily fixed by adding filtering capacitors to the Toshiba drivers inside the controller.

Yesterday I've replaced the whole Mach3 computer with a small Arduino Pro Mini running GRBL and feeding step/dir on all 3 axes. It works perfectly and the real gain is that I feed the job using Universal G-Code sender right from my Mac instead of taking care of a dedicated Windows computer.

If anyone is interested, I can provide more details.

[snoopy]

Is there any rule of thumb ?

Probably, but it depends upon:

Cutter/drill type: HSS, carbide etc and the number of flutes.
Cutter/drill size.
Material: Even if you are cutting aluminium you should be aware of the different grades.
Available spindle speeds and if you have sufficient torque available at any given speed.
The alignment limitations of your machine and how well it will hold tolerance over the time it will take for the job.
The capabilities of your CnC machine: Rigidity and speed for each axis given all of the above.

Useful reading... maybe even some some useful software:
http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCCNCMillFeedsSpeeds.htm
http://www.hsmworks.com/docs/cncbook/en/#Ch03_CuttingSpeedsAndFeedsFormulas
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cnc-machining/online-cnc-speed-feed-calculator-242061/ - this is the thread for ...
http://zero-divide.net/index.php?page=fswizard - this could be very useful, I've not tried it.

Okay, please read, or at least scan through all of those links. It's a lot to take in but I'm not asking that you know it all - I most certainly don't - just that you are aware of what you are trying to achieve and more importantly what you should try to avoid when you start up your machine.

Now, the  important questions:
How much time have you spent playing with your machine?
What did you do to determine the accuracy and repeatability of your machine?
How did you determine the safe maximum speeds of your machine?

I was lucky, my machine started as a simple manual milling machine so I was able to spend hours listening to the noises it made and actually feeling the vibrations as I cut and drilled holes in stuff. No plans, no design just playing around and squaring up reality with the little machining theory I knew. Time well spent.

Get a rough idea of the upper and lower limits you should stay within. Make some test cuts with the tools and materials you are using. To this day I hate CnC drilling, but drill some holes remembering the basic rules of peck drilling (eg, http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cnc-machining/peck-drill-depth-rule-thumb-124486/ maybe start with 1xdiameter to be safe-ish). Never be tempted to use a milling tool in a drill chuck, ever! Listen to your machine, feel the vibrations lol.

Thanks

Excellent resources. I have already started reading

regards

[snoopy]

I've got myself a 3040, the cheapest version with delrin (teflon?) white nuts (let's not talk about the unobtanium 1204 delrin nuts). I'll replace them with ballscrews once they'll die. Anyway, there are no issues with lost steps even at large speeds (the whole desk that holds the machine shakes like crazy). Initially it had the classic X-axis lost steps that were easily fixed by adding filtering capacitors to the Toshiba drivers inside the controller.

Yesterday I've replaced the whole Mach3 computer with a small Arduino Pro Mini running GRBL and feeding step/dir on all 3 axes. It works perfectly and the real gain is that I feed the job using Universal G-Code sender right from my Mac instead of taking care of a dedicated Windows computer.

If anyone is interested, I can provide more details.

I had the power supply go in mine. There was no blown components as I first suspected but the board had lots of dry joints. The unleaded wave soldering was of very poor standard so much so that two heavy duty bus links had arced on their joints and eventually went open circuit. You could literally see the carbon around the joint where it had arced (see pictures below) I had to re-solder every joint on the board with led solder and take out the heavy duty links and literally file the ends down in order to make a proper joint. In fact one link just dropped out when I applied the soldering iron to the other end of it. How these supplies ever worked properly is beyond me but I bet there are a lot of dodgy supplies in these machines 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.

Once I fixed the supply I also observed another strange behaviour with the VFD on minimum speed when the Y-axis stepper would start to chatter slightly which meant some cross talk from the spindle motor into the stepper circuit. When I earthed the table the chatter would stop. I also note that the 24V floats with respect to the power supply chassis so I'm wondering if tying the negative side of the 24V to ground will fix this problem rather than have me earth the table. When I get a chance I will experiment with this as I feel this could be causing problems with a lot of other users. I note that some people have gone to the trouble of rewiring the steppers and spindle motor with shielded cable and earthing the steeper motors, but I am wondering if tying one side of the 24V rail to earth will cure all of these problems ?

[GeoffS]

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.

[sigxcpu]

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.

[David_AVD]

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.

[snoopy]

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

[snoopy]

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

[snoopy]

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

[sigxcpu]

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).

[vladoportos]

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 )

[snoopy]

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.

[snoopy]

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

[David_AVD]

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).

[snoopy]

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

[vladoportos]

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

[andtfoot]

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.

[snoopy]

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

[ecat]

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.

[snoopy]

This might address a few of the issues

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/chinese-machines/147999-help-6040-yoocnc-losing-steps.html

[vladoportos]

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 ...

[snoopy]

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

[ecat]

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.

[vladoportos]

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... )

[snoopy]

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

[ecat]

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.

[vladoportos]

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

[snoopy]

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

[GeoffS]

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.

[vladoportos]

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...

[ecat]

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.

[GeoffS]

Have you checked out the Mach 3 forums?
Quite a few hits there for WIn7 and PCIe parallel ports.

Before investing a USB based controller (such as the Smootherstepper), it might be worth while making up a simple test jig to provide the necessary STEP and DIR signals to the controller. That will eliminate the PC as a problem.

[Fred27]

I can't watch the video at work, but will have a look when I get home as I have a similar TB6560 board controlling my little Proxxon MF70 mill.

I find a good setup for Mach3 is an old Dell PC (because they usually have a parallel port built it) running XP 32-bit. You can normally find a cheap second hand one from the era where XP 32-bit was the standard preinstalled OS.

[snoopy]

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...

The only difference with your setup and mine is that my VFD controller is a seperate external box and I can turn it off completely from the mains. Can you do this with yours so you can isolate that as a source of interference ?

Also i believe there is a program in the mach 3 directory which can check your PC for its performance at different frequency rates. I can't remember what it is called but it is worth running to make sure it is not a software issue.

regards

[vladoportos]

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.

Thanks I will download and try it. I'm not worried much about linux as I'm linux administrator by trade

Its windows 7 32 bit that is running it now.

I can turn on and off the spindle separately from motors, also water pump have its own switch.

[vladoportos]

Interesting development, I tried the linuxcnc, well the setup wizard so far, and got the motor moving in better manner however there are some parameters that I don't know. I'm using this so far:



which seems to work, it still makes a strange noise from time to time... but what should be the Leadscrew pitch value or Driver Microsteping ?  Only think I know is Motor steps per rev. from manual is 320...

Velocity and acceleration is how fast it can go that can be tuned out

Any ideas ?

Also I noticed one thing, from time to time the controller stop responding, in windows I had to disable and enable ltp port and it start working again, in linux reboot... :-/

[ecat]

Didn't notice this before but that 320 steps per revolution looks wrong!

From your ebay link there is a close up of the stepper motor label that clearly shows 1.8 and the degrees sign. 1.8Deg per step is industry standard and gives 200 full steps per revolution.

Full steps = number of steps with microstepping set to 0 or none.

Your microstep setting is set by little switches on the controller board, a typical value would indeed be 4.

I cannot remember if the LinuxCnC 'Motor steps per revolution' should be set to the native full step value (200 in your case) or the Full step value multiplied by the Microstep count (200 * 4 = 800 in your case). Try both.

If all is well maybe Mach3 will play ball too

The Leadscrew pitch of the 1605 screws on your machine is 05mm. if I remember the naming convention correctly.

So, one full rotation of 360Deg requires 200 steps of 1.8Deg (multiply as necessary for the microsteps (think of them as sub steps) ) which results in 5mm linear movement of the attached bearing.

Velocity and Acceleration you can take from previous posts in this thread or experiment to find values the machine is happy with. If either is set too high the motors will miss steps or maybe the machine will shake itself to bits.

[vladoportos]

Thanks ecat, yes it seems to work better... however its loosing connection to controller and I have to reboot the pc ( same is happening in win and linux ), I have ordered new board with integrated cpu but it have parallel port integrated, I want to rule out the pci-e parallel card...

[vladoportos]

Hello all, me again. I have found the issue !  it was the PCI-e parallel port card that was causing it, for further reference try to avoid "AXAGO PCEA-P1".  I basically bought new PC for 200Eur this time with this configuration:

MB: GIGABYTE E350N with integrated CPU and most important integrated parallel port on MB
RAM: 4GB
Cheap SDD 32G as harddrive

I did some test with linuxcnc config wizard, and man ! what a different sound to the motors, smooth not trying to shake it self apart, even the measurement travel distance is matching ! I can't spell out how happy I am 

Not sure if I'm going to use Mach3 though, that linux cnc looked much less intimidating

You were all so supportive, thanks !

[ajb]

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

Definitely a fake.  I've never seen an enclosed Meanwell supply that had green mask on the top of the PCB or one of those CE stickers, and the G1 series including the S-145 was discontinued in 2009--so even if it were a genuine Meanwell, it'd be around 5 years old.  The S-145 is replaced by the NES-150.

http://www.meanwell.com/news/eg1.htm

[velimir]

The blue box between the computer and cnc machine, does it have any affect on the capacity of the machine in the way it works.
And also what could cause the machine to skip or jump while it is working and mess up my work. Is it the code or the mach 3 setting?

[snoopy]

The blue box between the computer and cnc machine, does it have any affect on the capacity of the machine in the way it works.
And also what could cause the machine to skip or jump while it is working and mess up my work. Is it the code or the mach 3 setting?

If it doesn't have opto isolators then you could have problems with noise from your PC. Also I found that earthing the frame of the CNC table using the safety earth stopped chattering noise in the stepper motors.

regards

[metalphreak]

For what it's worth, I kept getting periodic interruptions and missteps when using Linux CNC on the PC i'm using. Mach3 under Windows had no issues, so it was more than likely a linux driver issue.

[Sabre]

A bit of help please. I am setting up my new 6040z-S65J Christmas gift today, but am having some issues.  I can get the motor to spin, (found out by trial and error) but can not get any of the X,Y or Z to move. I have everything plugged in per the labels on the cables and figure if something was plugged in wrong, I would at least get some movement.
I can get everything to move easily using the stepper knobs, so I doubt they are bound up. I have checked the connections and all seem snug. 
Missing something simple I am sure, but this is my first time setting one of these up and figured I would ask before charging forward. 
No manual provided. Just one folded page with some basic info and photos.
Software disk appears to be a copy of Mach3, not original. No instructions, just hit the exe and let her load up
Any help figuring this our would be greatly appreciated. Photo of controller and motor attached. All 3 motors are the same.
Thanks in advance

[David_AVD]

Sounds like you'll have to work out how to setup mach3 software.

[andtfoot]

If the stepper motors are still easy to move when you have everything connected and powered up, then they probably aren't getting power.

Is there a high pitch squeal from the motors when sitting idle? Is there any difference between when the e-stop switch on the controller is off or on?
Did the disk come with any .xml files as well?

[Sabre]

Hello All,

  Not a good morning so far here in Texas. I removed the software and reinstalled the newest version of Mach 3. Followed the information provided page by page and still not getting the unit to work from keyboard.

 I proved that while the controller is powered OFF I can move the motors easily by hand. When I turn the controller on, it becomes difficult. That being said, I think the power to the motors is working. I can test, ramp up and slow down the spindle from the control box. but not the keyboard. Have tried the settings that came with the unit. Some slightly different settings that a member  provided and another slightly different set that I downloaded via the internet. All have the same results. We have replaced the keyboard, verified the manual e-stop is disengaging and that the software e-stop is turned off, not blinking.

When using the keyboard, the numbers on the screen do not move, though I think that they did using the older version of the software that came with the unit, before I deleted it and downloaded the latest. At least with the latest files, I have move files to work with. I ran the driver test and that worked well.

Just seems like i am missing something simple, but I am at a loss as to what that may be.  Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Sabre]

Well I did say the solution would be simple.  I deleted the MACH3 software and then reinstalled it WITHOUT the cable connected to the controller. Once completed, I rebooted the PC to make sure the settings stuck, then turned off the unit. Plugged in the controller tot he PC and then rebooted. Now i have keyboard control. 

[cncjerry]

I use both Mach3 and LinuxCNC so if you get stuck again send me a PM.  I've had problems with Mach3 for some reason over the past year or so but can't seem to correlate it to a version change.  Every now and then it's like the Mach3 pulse driver (can't remember what it is called, but it is used for timing), goes to sleep.  When it happens (using the jog keys on the keyboard to move the motors) the motors move very slowly, maybe one pulse every 5 seconds.   Rebooting fixes it.

Something else to consider.  If you get random extra pulses or missed steps, check your grounding.  I've had a hell of time with a high speed spindle because of the electrical noise generated back up thru the motor to the power supply.  Using ferrite clamps helped, but what fixed it was either lifting the ground (dangerous) or moving the motor power supply to another outlet on a separate breaker.  The way I tested it was to zero the table, holding dial indicators to the x,y,z and spinning the motor up to speed.  Prior to separating the grounds I could see x and z axis moving.  This depends on the breakout board, drivers, power supply, etc, of course but it was a bear to track down initially.  If you haven't, I would ground your table, power supply frame, etc to a cold water pipe.

I use Mach3 on my two stepper driven mills and lathes and linuxCNC on the larger mill with servos.  I found linuxCNC's constant velocity path engine to be better than Mach3 and more programmable.  Also, if you have any backlash in the system, linuxCNC backlash was far, far better than Mach3, at least the version I use.  The problem with Mach3 was that the backlash take-up was done at high speed sometimes stalling the steppers.  I disabled it because the .002" backlash I had on those machines wasn't worth worrying about.   I since moved to zero backlash nuts on both.  Other than that, not much difference.

Jerry

[Sabre]

Thanks for the Info Jerry. Taking your advice, I have added separate circuits and will work on grounding this weekend. i have water lines 10 feet away, so no issue there.

I have moved past the original concern in a since, but being new to CNC  I now have have another similar one.  I seem to be able to control everything, X,Y and Z from the Mach 3 software, but I cannot get the spindle to turn on, or spin via the Mach 3 software. I can get it to run through using the controller box and small dial which has a built in VFD.  See photo  My question is, how do I get the spindle to work using the MACH3?  I watched a video someone posted and learned how to turn the controller ON and OFF and ideally, switch it to software control. I can do all that, but still no joy when trying to use the MAch3 to turn on the spindle. I feel i am missing something........  ??

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions you all can offer.

[metalphreak]

The VFD spindles usually have RS485 connections for remote control. You'll need to wire up some sort of USB to RS485 adapter into the VFD unit to do that. None of the chinese models that integrate the VFD controller into the box make any allowance for an external connection that I've seen. There might be a start/stop control line that you could hook up to the parallel port? If you go the RS485 route, you can control start/stop/spindle speed etc (anything you can do from control panel basically).

[Dennis0212]

Hello, I come from germany and my English is little.

I have SXCNC 6040z 4axis. I have Mach3 with Spindl connect. You must inside the controller to 10v and GND this on the Whitebox. Then the youtube video for setting the whitebox. And in MACH3 you must output settings and PWM Mode with freq. 810!

You can On / Off and Speed Setting no Direction then this is for EnablePin use. Or you can Jumper EnablePIN and then Direction Relais from Enable PIN.

Dennis