Hi ozzyrob,
What I am about to say now, will sound utterly ridiculous at this point
That being said... Up untill 4 days ago I never opened any document about linuxcnc nor schematics.
I was saving up till I had real time to get this under control... Point being in about 1 month from now I need to be able to reprogram 3 old robots with complete new drivers and connected to linuxcnc. That means I am studying 12 hours a day and I am busy 24 hours a day with this quest. Impossible? Well I know how I sound, ridiculous, but I mostly do exactly what I say I will do in the timeframe I give myself. I do a lot of things but never something I don't fully understand.
Knowledge of electronics. Let's say really limited but on the other hand, I am reading schematics, resistors, voltage regulators, diodes, capacitors,... Let's say I start to know their working quite well, it's self study, so many times problems come up that might be really simple if you know the exact questions to ask and that's many times the real problem.
I have a small jobshop, running a 4 axis CNC machine (mach3... And I hate it). So I know gcode, solidworks, solidcam, and studying mastercam as we speak. And on the bucket list this month is postprocessors development. I know c++, not saying I am a good programmer, but I easily and quickly read through code and know pretty well what it will do. I have basic knowledge of Linux, but rapidly expanding this basic knowledge.
My goals are as simple as all above
, ... I need to be able to make anything I want spin and turn on linuxcnc. That's why my posts on the forum jump from left to right. The answers here come too slow to continue on 1 particular thing
not wanting to say anything bad, this is a niche thing with limited amount of people, I am already superhappy I get feedback every time. Cause it helps out a lot.
I want to experiment with different drivers and difficult connection before I attempt to connect my working machine with el5-d1000 drivers to linuxcnc. Cause the jobshop can not be down for several days. If I than encounter problems I need to be able to handle them quickly without help.
So I ordered tb6600 6 drives in case I fry some. Ordered Mesa boards 6i25 and 2 7i85s for current machine. Ordered 2 different basic breakout boards with optocouplers. Bought 2 other second hand old computers in case I manage to fry the motherboard. Bought more electronics than fit in my drawer to be sure I have all I need when I need it .
Now learning the entire manual of linuxcnc by heart. Cause I am going to need that knowledge too.
The one important thing I haven't been able to find is what voltage should be on the parallel port when you tests axis in the stepconfig. Cause that is the only way to know if that parallel port is still working correctly. The wiki page on parallel port seems to be able to push my pins to 3.3 volt. So I guess it works but in a testrun in stepconfig the voltage goes to 0.07. which seems low to me.
So till now, wasn't able to get any motor working in linuxcnc. On the other hand i do understand the working of a steppercoil and the stepgen sequence needed to make them spin.
Well I guess I told enough ridiculous things now... But I am dead serious on how serious I am about linuxcnc.
