lemontart - a call for help with s curve, ui's, and all the cool toys

lemontart is a new CNC project I started on a whim last week and it all fell into place and the first one is hopefully being made NEXT week. That escalated quickly. EEK! I can't share a lot of final details just yet, but I can share the premise.

 

- lemontart is an OPEN SOURCE machine frame design/platform.
- machine kits will be available via miniMonster, but the cad files themselves will be GPL (or equivalent) so you could go about making your own any way you like.
- much like linuxcnc there will be a "main" build, and encouragement for people to make mods and accessories and share them.
- the design I see as a continuation of where the old xzero machines we meant to go before George got sick, but keeping a focus more on wood, vs metal like sorotec went with theirs.
- the first machine is the 57, which is 500mm x 700mm travel and geared heavily toward guitar making. Mainly hardwoods, plastics and light aluminium and brass work. It weighs about 240lbs as a frame, and the better part of 300 lbs built up, so its not shapeoko/altmill class (but also not miniMonster high precision class).
- the price of the kits will be VERY accessible especially relative to their performance.
- the kits will be 100% self assembly. literally a box with every single individual part, plus some special "tools" to make the job easier.
- the kits will come with basically every single parts except electrical. so you need to add a spindle, 60mm servos, wiring, electrical cabinet and a control
- I will be making video instructions on assembly to guide people though step by step, it should take an adept person a day or so to build.

So once these are out and selling/file available I want to work on a matching control and linuxcnc with ethercat is the obvious choice.

What we will need is:
- a nice UI that is preconfigured correctly for the machine/servos/vfd etc. it's own ISO perhaps? Stick the usb drive in, install, select a few options, run. a cosmetic skinning of qtdragon would be a great starting point here.
- jerk control. yup. Been tried so many time, soooo clooose..... but not there yet.

What I want to do is put a bounty on jerk control. I will pay the person that completes implementation of jerk control in a "finished" manner one lemontart machine kit. I don't care if its porting tormach's version, working on grotius's version, or from scratch. It just needs to be done and 100% bulletproof working. As I have said before so many times, it is mostly critical for G61 exact stop moves, and we should not get sidetracked by G64 smoothing things as they already have a degree of their own jerk limiting and linuxcnc's planner (especcially if the new tormach stuff is added) already performs very well (and more than good enough for lemontart).We just don't want the poor thing to shake down the building at 0.5g.

Probably wont be ready for the control phase til early next year, but if these things are in your wheelhouse chime in and give it some thought. 

 

yeah. i perhaps worded this badly.

There's 2 components. getting the basic UI all done up, and then what I guess is a really a wizard, with some preset options for recommended hardware such as jss (stepperonline) drives, delta ms300 spindle, etc

Basically I was a more full features wizard that covers modbus and ethercat. haha.

Thanks

tommylight wrote:

And kudos for sticking with Open Source as it's becoming sickening with all the "Only $17.99 per month" sickness !

 

This is something I hate sooo much. Imagine paying $100,000 for a lidar scanner, and then having to pay $7500 a year for the privilege or reading the files.

I have other motivations here too. As a business, mM might succeed, it might fail, but almost guaranteed in 15 years there wont be any new parts for the machines. The way lemontart is set up, you should always be able to get parts for it, even 50 years from now where were all dead.
this kits is kinda a posterchild for right to repair I guess. Buy, build, mod, upgrade with full support, do whatever you like.

Electrical is an issue, cause everything would need certifications etc. So at least for now, I will leave that to the customer out of necessity.


 

tommylight wrote:

Can i use 5A Sanyo Denki 60mm stepper motors?
 

Of course you can. Plenty of ethercat stepper drivers out there. even 2,3 and 4 motor controls in the single driver...

rodw wrote:

tommylight wrote:

Can i use 5A Sanyo Denki 60mm stepper motors?
 
Of course you can. Plenty of ethercat stepper drivers out there. even 2,3 and 4 motor controls in the single driver...

links to the multi kits with ethercat?

The only hitch on servo choice is there's only 100mm room for the Z motor. A 200w modern servo with a brake fits. a lot of others will be too long.

ihavenofish wrote:

rodw wrote:

tommylight wrote:

Can i use 5A Sanyo Denki 60mm stepper motors?
 
Of course you can. Plenty of ethercat stepper drivers out there. even 2,3 and 4 motor controls in the single driver...



links to the multi kits with ethercat?

The only hitch on servo choice is there's only 100mm room for the Z motor. A 200w modern servo with a brake fits. a lot of others will be too long.

Rtelligent and Leadshine have ethercat dual motor stepper drives. example www.rtelligentglobal.com/ethercat-stepper-drive/  and www.leadshine.com/product/2EM3E-522-14-15-990-69.html
If space is an issue, there is always NEMA 17! there are 3 and 4 motor options I've seen recently but may not have been ethercat

nema17 ha! this is a 300lb machine, nema17 wont be moving it.

200w ac servo is fine for the z. I wouldn't go smaller power. A nema23 stepper would work, it would just be very slow, probably not getting past 1000rpm before the torque falls off too much.