SK Commander VFD Parms

For documentation purposes only

Here's what I have worked out on the Tormach Lathe Control Board so far

Few items to note
24Vdc in > SMPS @ 5Vdc and 12Vdc at U6 for Control Panel
AC in Isolated and switched via relays

Encoder is Differential in to singled ended out direct to Mesa Card
ATC has 9 Digital lines going to it
Drives have Octal Line Driver
VFD has B2 connected but not configured in Parms


See attached for what I've identified

Just wanted to provide a quick update.

I have a Teensy 4.1 setup running FreeRTOS with ChargePump detection and generating the Door and Limit switch input (freq based) working. I'll add MachineOK soon which is really a few items, ChargePump must be there (500Hz), Emergency Stop must not be Tripped, Tormach kills AC power the board for this and it looks like they do a simple peak detector circuit. if Present the Emergency stop is not tripped. so Basically it's MachineOK = ChargePump + AC Detect . I feed this to Enable Steppers and VFD. If not present motion is disabled at the hardware level.

Next will be to hook it up to PP and see if it comes up ok.
Only Signals needed to test are ChargePump from PP, DoorSW, MachineOK and I should have PP able to come out of Reset state. Or that's my hope.

I had some issues with FreeRTOS in that I was doing everything in C++ with Classes and FreeRTOS is not written to support that. I have it working with my TormachBob Class

Hi SM,

I did reverse engineer the TM interface board a few years ago for fun, it is very badly designed. I did it before I had an 1100 and ordered the board as a spare part, I now have three of them lying in my drawer and a clone board in my 1100! I used a PIC for the funny stuff with a bit of code to run the I/O, it is simple enough that you don't really need a PIC.

About a year ago I reverse engineered the SL15 board, pretty much from the same photo as you. I traced out the circuit and all the PIC pins, I made a circuit on some breadboard to generate the signals (555) that PP needed and I could simulate the lathe. It was my intention to make a lathe counterfeit board but I got a side tracked. I might still get back to that for my own lathe, we'll see.

To trick PP into thinking its hooked up all your really need is the DoorSW in which covers door and limit switches when the door is open (1800hz) and a limit tripped 2Khz), MachineOK which really is does it have AC power.. with those the rest is really more about ATC and VFD control.

My desire is to repro the board, do some things safety wise it does not look like tormach does, not enough AC isolation for one and use a processor that allows for allot to more to be done.

it is actually a very basic Bob, the new board features a Mesa Ethernet on board. which is cool as you can do everything in the FPGA device and no micro.

my Door/Limit is working as is the charge pump all done in the processor.

I know that this is an older thread but did you get your S3 upgraded to an S3MX successfully? I've been trying to work out everything needed to do this and Tormach is NOT too keen on straight answers to questions about it. Thanks.

Edit: Sorry, that was for snowgoer540

I did.  I have a spindle encoder, and ClearPath servos.  The spindle is still the Series 3 R8.  I am currently working on interfacing with their component to use the hard stop homing for the ClearPaths.

I think they are more keen on selling new MX machines. For a bit they were saying they were going to offer upgrade kits, but that doesn't seem like it's going to happen.  

EDIT:  Here's a video I made when I first got it going.