KVR3500 Mill with GSK servos
09 Apr 2015 06:53 #57640
by dmbgo
KVR3500 Mill with GSK servos was created by dmbgo
Hi thanks for reading this post.
I have a King Rich knee mill KVR3500 with a GSK 980mda CNC controller and a mixture of GSK and Adtech servo drives and motors. I bought the mill just over 4 years ago and at the same time I ordered all of the hardware to convert it to CNC, I took delivery of the mill, unloaded it into the shed and then received a phone call asking me to go camping, which apparently I did.
I gradually came to myself about 6 weeks later in hospital, I had been involved in a head on collision with a semi trailer, I was lucky to live, and now have a legacy of injuries, including a complete loss of memory starting about 3 months before the accident.
I have no memory of what I bought for the mill or why, and the GSK CNC controller has become a bit of a time sink for me. In fact I spend most of my time trying to understand the Chinglish manual and implement what I think they are saying, only to find that I have misinterpreted things, and need to start again.
Needless to say there is no productivity to speak of.
At last in frustration I have decided to retire the 980mda controller, change to an english supported computer based cnc software package and start over.
I have a few computers and things laying around, since before the car crash, I was a computer systems engineer.
I think I can use the existing servo drives and controllers, but I am not sure what else I need. Before the crash I converted my late to CNC using Mach3, stepper motors and a Smoothstepper. This machine is still working well, and I will leave well enough alone for the time being there.
I guess I am looking for some help to establish a starting point, as I said I have a lot of IT gear laying around, I also have break out boards and power supplies etc.
I need to create a check list of parts that I will need, get what I dont have, then start building.
Thanks again
Dave
I have a King Rich knee mill KVR3500 with a GSK 980mda CNC controller and a mixture of GSK and Adtech servo drives and motors. I bought the mill just over 4 years ago and at the same time I ordered all of the hardware to convert it to CNC, I took delivery of the mill, unloaded it into the shed and then received a phone call asking me to go camping, which apparently I did.
I gradually came to myself about 6 weeks later in hospital, I had been involved in a head on collision with a semi trailer, I was lucky to live, and now have a legacy of injuries, including a complete loss of memory starting about 3 months before the accident.
I have no memory of what I bought for the mill or why, and the GSK CNC controller has become a bit of a time sink for me. In fact I spend most of my time trying to understand the Chinglish manual and implement what I think they are saying, only to find that I have misinterpreted things, and need to start again.
Needless to say there is no productivity to speak of.
At last in frustration I have decided to retire the 980mda controller, change to an english supported computer based cnc software package and start over.
I have a few computers and things laying around, since before the car crash, I was a computer systems engineer.
I think I can use the existing servo drives and controllers, but I am not sure what else I need. Before the crash I converted my late to CNC using Mach3, stepper motors and a Smoothstepper. This machine is still working well, and I will leave well enough alone for the time being there.
I guess I am looking for some help to establish a starting point, as I said I have a lot of IT gear laying around, I also have break out boards and power supplies etc.
I need to create a check list of parts that I will need, get what I dont have, then start building.
Thanks again
Dave
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09 Apr 2015 18:59 #57645
by BigJohnT
Replied by BigJohnT on topic KVR3500 Mill with GSK servos
The first place I would start with is the drives, if they are +-10v control a 1.5v battery will verify that they still work. If they are the usual velocity drives then a Mesa 5i25 + 7i77 usually fits the bill. Do you have encoders that feed back position?
JT
JT
The following user(s) said Thank You: dmbgo
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10 Apr 2015 05:02 #57651
by dmbgo
Replied by dmbgo on topic KVR3500 Mill with GSK servos
Thanks for that. The drives and servos are all working, the drives accept step and direction signals etc. The motors all have rotary encoders, so positional feedback is not an issue. You suggested a Mesa 5i25 + 7177, is this an ethernet device? Ob the lathe I I have an Ethernet smoothstepper, which uploads firmware to an FCPGA every time the controller connects to Mach3. This is reliable and I'd like to use something like that, which has the added bonus of positional feedback.
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10 Apr 2015 18:30 - 10 Apr 2015 18:32 #57657
by andypugh
LinuxCNC does not support buffered output devices like the Smoothstepper. The underlying premise of EMC and then LinuxCNC was to run a real-time motion controller on commodity PC hardware.
So, LinuxCNC runs on a PC running Linux and a real-time Kernel.
The 5i25 is a PCI card (there is an otherwise identical card for the PCIE slot called the 6i25).
The 7i77 is intended for servo drives that take +/- 10V analogue voltage command inputs and receives positional feedback from the motors via quadrature encoders. There is an FPGA on the 5i25 which (when loaded with the 7i77-compatible firmware) counts encoder pulses, handles other IO, and provides the voltage levels. The data is transmitted back to LinuxCNC as numerical values on the PCI bus.
There is a different daughter board, the 7i76 , which uses a different firrmware on the FPGA to provide several channels of step-dir control and 48 general IO pins. (It also has connections for a VFD and a spindle encoder).
If your servo drives can work with +/- 10V velocity commands then the 7i77 is a good fit. If the drives only take step/dir then the 7i76 is not a perfect fit by itself as the 7i76 does not have any encoder channels.
To run a step/dir + encoder system there is the 7i85S but that does not offer the spindle interface and GPIO of the 7i76. As the 5i25 / 6i25 can drive two daughter cards (with a DB25 breakout panel) then the best option for you might be 7i76 + 7i85 for the encoders. (as you have step/dir channels on the 7i76 then the 7i85 probably makes more sense than the 7i85S as then there is the option of connecting expansion IO to the serial channels.
The 7i76 / 7i77 and 5i25/6i25 are available as plug-and-go kits
There _is_ an ethernet option, the 7i76E and that would be a potentially useful option (You would still need/want a 7i85 on one of the expansion headers for the encoder counters). The only problem with the 7i76E is that it is only supported in the development version of LinuxCNC and it requires an RT-PREEMPT Linux kernel. So it isn't at the moment as simple an option as the 5i25-based options and still counts as somewhat experiental.
Just to add more options (as if there weren't too many already) you could use a 7i80DB and any combination of the DB25 daughter cards. And I have not even mentioned the many daughter-cards in the 50-pin family (which can be more flexible than the DB25 family) which can connect via PCI, Ethernet or Parallel port.
Oh, and I almost forgot the non-Mesa options, Pico and General Mechatronics. which are also fully supported by LinuxCNC.
Replied by andypugh on topic KVR3500 Mill with GSK servos
Thanks for that. The drives and servos are all working, the drives accept step and direction signals etc. The motors all have rotary encoders, so positional feedback is not an issue. You suggested a Mesa 5i25 + 7177, is this an ethernet device? Ob the lathe I I have an Ethernet smoothstepper, which uploads firmware to an FCPGA every time the controller connects to Mach3. This is reliable and I'd like to use something like that, which has the added bonus of positional feedback.
LinuxCNC does not support buffered output devices like the Smoothstepper. The underlying premise of EMC and then LinuxCNC was to run a real-time motion controller on commodity PC hardware.
So, LinuxCNC runs on a PC running Linux and a real-time Kernel.
The 5i25 is a PCI card (there is an otherwise identical card for the PCIE slot called the 6i25).
The 7i77 is intended for servo drives that take +/- 10V analogue voltage command inputs and receives positional feedback from the motors via quadrature encoders. There is an FPGA on the 5i25 which (when loaded with the 7i77-compatible firmware) counts encoder pulses, handles other IO, and provides the voltage levels. The data is transmitted back to LinuxCNC as numerical values on the PCI bus.
There is a different daughter board, the 7i76 , which uses a different firrmware on the FPGA to provide several channels of step-dir control and 48 general IO pins. (It also has connections for a VFD and a spindle encoder).
If your servo drives can work with +/- 10V velocity commands then the 7i77 is a good fit. If the drives only take step/dir then the 7i76 is not a perfect fit by itself as the 7i76 does not have any encoder channels.
To run a step/dir + encoder system there is the 7i85S but that does not offer the spindle interface and GPIO of the 7i76. As the 5i25 / 6i25 can drive two daughter cards (with a DB25 breakout panel) then the best option for you might be 7i76 + 7i85 for the encoders. (as you have step/dir channels on the 7i76 then the 7i85 probably makes more sense than the 7i85S as then there is the option of connecting expansion IO to the serial channels.
The 7i76 / 7i77 and 5i25/6i25 are available as plug-and-go kits
There _is_ an ethernet option, the 7i76E and that would be a potentially useful option (You would still need/want a 7i85 on one of the expansion headers for the encoder counters). The only problem with the 7i76E is that it is only supported in the development version of LinuxCNC and it requires an RT-PREEMPT Linux kernel. So it isn't at the moment as simple an option as the 5i25-based options and still counts as somewhat experiental.
Just to add more options (as if there weren't too many already) you could use a 7i80DB and any combination of the DB25 daughter cards. And I have not even mentioned the many daughter-cards in the 50-pin family (which can be more flexible than the DB25 family) which can connect via PCI, Ethernet or Parallel port.
Oh, and I almost forgot the non-Mesa options, Pico and General Mechatronics. which are also fully supported by LinuxCNC.
Last edit: 10 Apr 2015 18:32 by andypugh.
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13 Apr 2015 04:12 #57730
by dmbgo
Replied by dmbgo on topic KVR3500 Mill with GSK servos
Thanks again
I have had very good success with theethernet smoothstepper on the lathe, although I originally had a lot of issues with electrical noise causing interference from the VFD. I guess the ethernet version is more resistant to electrical noise. For that reason I would like to use an ethernet device on the mill, although I'm not sure how an ethernet connection can be "real-time"?
Cheers Dave
I have had very good success with theethernet smoothstepper on the lathe, although I originally had a lot of issues with electrical noise causing interference from the VFD. I guess the ethernet version is more resistant to electrical noise. For that reason I would like to use an ethernet device on the mill, although I'm not sure how an ethernet connection can be "real-time"?
Cheers Dave
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13 Apr 2015 18:20 #57742
by andypugh
If you want easy and well-supported then I think that a PCI card or a parallel-port controlled solution will be easier and quicker to get going (Both Pico and Mesa do FPGA cards that use the parallel port as a real-time data link, this should not be confused with the standard P-Port "breakouts" that just buffer the individual pins.)
If you do want to use an Ethernet solution then you need to run the "uspace" version of LinuxCNC
wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Uspace
This uses (I think) RTNET to give realtime parallel port control.
There is a thread here about using the 7i80.
linuxcnc.org/index.php/english/forum/9-i...bian-uspace-and-7i80
Hopefully all the possible problems are solved there and it will be easier for you
Replied by andypugh on topic KVR3500 Mill with GSK servos
For that reason I would like to use an ethernet device on the mill, although I'm not sure how an ethernet connection can be "real-time"?
If you want easy and well-supported then I think that a PCI card or a parallel-port controlled solution will be easier and quicker to get going (Both Pico and Mesa do FPGA cards that use the parallel port as a real-time data link, this should not be confused with the standard P-Port "breakouts" that just buffer the individual pins.)
If you do want to use an Ethernet solution then you need to run the "uspace" version of LinuxCNC
wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Uspace
This uses (I think) RTNET to give realtime parallel port control.
There is a thread here about using the 7i80.
linuxcnc.org/index.php/english/forum/9-i...bian-uspace-and-7i80
Hopefully all the possible problems are solved there and it will be easier for you
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13 Apr 2015 20:19 #57748
by alan_3301
Replied by alan_3301 on topic KVR3500 Mill with GSK servos
If you are going to leave it as step/direction input on your servo drives, you might be fine with a regular parallel port breakout board.
It would depend on the max step rate you need, which would depend on your max rapid speed, and your drivetrain ratio.
If you need faster then the parallel port can provide, and still want step / direction then the 5i25 (or 6i25) and 7i76 would probably be best.
If your servo drives have encoder outputs and feel like doing analog input, then the 5i25 or 6i25 and 7i77 would be best.
I would not go with ethernet just because it is what the smoothstepper used, I think you will get easier support and find more similar setups if you go with the 5i25.
It would depend on the max step rate you need, which would depend on your max rapid speed, and your drivetrain ratio.
If you need faster then the parallel port can provide, and still want step / direction then the 5i25 (or 6i25) and 7i76 would probably be best.
If your servo drives have encoder outputs and feel like doing analog input, then the 5i25 or 6i25 and 7i77 would be best.
I would not go with ethernet just because it is what the smoothstepper used, I think you will get easier support and find more similar setups if you go with the 5i25.
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