Converting K40IV CO2 Laser machine to DSP

[Tech_Marco]

I have done a few testing using a X,Y table salvaged from a damaged D40K laser machine. I found out that in order to get D40K run smoothly, the pulse setting on card should be set to "2.5" and the max speed should never go beyond 350mm/s or it will cause missing steps. Well, when I tried the same machine in China, I could get up to 400mm/s. Possible the machine that I tried today was getting old and bing banged too much. I'll post more info later.

Marco

[TeacDance]

I'm so glad to see that the DSP is working. Great job!

May I ask you a favor. Since so many folks bought this D40 machine and having trouble with it's own software. Many of those folks want to upgrade by installing my DSP. Would you you post the parameters setting here like the pulse, steps, bed size... I'm sure the motor is identical as this D40 was made by ShenHui in China. As matter of fact, I'm testing a card with the D40 X,Y motor rack.

Thank you
Marco

Here is my setup what i use now but i'm not yet try how fast this machine can go.

[TeacDance]

One more thing, please post the wire diagram to the TB6560 driver and the Limit switch as well

Cheers!
Marco

Limit switch i use basic switch another wire is machine ground and second wire go LmtY-/LmTX-. both wire go machine own white thin cable and same cable go motors wire i hope you understand TB6560 my all dip switch all is ON position factory setting what advantage i get if i lift up current 2,5A?

DPS --> TB6560
Dir+ --> Dir+
Dir- --> Dir-
Pul- --> Pu-
Pul+ --> Pu+

Motor --> TB6560
Red --> B+
Blue --> B-
White --> A+
Yellow --> A-

[TeacDance]

Today try how fast machine can go and accuracy and now i very impressive for this machine

Speed test Youtube
Accurancy test Youtube

[Tech_Marco]

Update: For somehow, the machine couldn't run to the marignal limit by using "2.5" on the pulse width setting. Instead, I have to set it to "1.625". Now the laser can run X=300mm and Y=240mm which is the max working area. Plus, the speed limit on each axis is X=300mm/s and Y=150mm/s. Anything over than that will result stall.

Hey TeacDance, I'm wondering is the art work came out in correct size. When you created a 200mm x 20mm rectangle box on the PHCad, will the laser engrave or cut exact size?

The motor driver that I'm using is two 2M542
http://www.lightobject.com/2-Phase-45A- ... -P453.aspx
(note: picture show PSD5042)

Setting:
-Steps: 400
-Current: 1A

For unknown reason, th X step motor is extremly hot but the Y step motor is just a little warm. I have to attaced 4 pieces of heat sink to the X motor as I'm worry that it will get burn out. I checked the specification of the motor online and it's 42BYG 113A. It should be driven by 12V 0.8A 0.9degree per step

But the 2M542 is working with DC24V~32V. Since I limited the current to 1A, so it should be fine for the motor. But I got to find out the reason why motor X is so hot (can smell the heat). Anyway, I'm going to try the TB6560 motor driver see if it works the same

Marco

[TeacDance]

Update: For somehow, the machine couldn't run to the marignal limit by using "2.5" on the pulse width setting. Instead, I have to set it to "1.625". Now the laser can run X=300mm and Y=240mm which is the max working area. Plus, the speed limit on each axis is X=300mm/s and Y=150mm/s. Anything over than that will result stall.

Hey TeacDance, I'm wondering is the art work came out in correct size. When you created a 200mm x 20mm rectangle box on the PHCad, will the laser engrave or cut exact size?

The motor driver that I'm using is two 2M542
http://www.lightobject.com/2-Phase-45A- ... -P453.aspx
(note: picture show PSD5042)

Setting:
-Steps: 400
-Current: 1A

For unknown reason, th X step motor is extremly hot but the Y step motor is just a little warm. I have to attaced 4 pieces of heat sink to the X motor as I'm worry that it will get burn out. I checked the specification of the motor online and it's 42BYG 113A. It should be driven by 12V 0.8A 0.9degree per step

But the 2M542 is working with DC24V~32V. Since I limited the current to 1A, so it should be fine for the motor. But I got to find out the reason why motor X is so hot (can smell the heat). Anyway, I'm going to try the TB6560 motor driver see if it works the same

Marco

i have same problem for x motor when i try to lift current 1,2A y motor is normal temperature so i setup x motor current 0,6A and y motor current 1,2A now is good both

Yes they come right size i try many time cutting rectangle and round object and i get good resolution.

little stupid question, what steps i have now how that calculate?

[Tech_Marco]

Update (8-1-2011:) After fine tuning the parameters on the manufacturer setting, I could get the machine running smoothly. The main thing is the pulse-step width. I was using 2.5 with 2M542 revelution set to 400. But for TB6560, I found the magic number by using PHCad built in pulse calculator. Simply draw something on PHcad say 200mm x 10mm block. Then, start the machine and masure the actual travelling distance. By input those two number into two blank area, it will calcualate the step width in 6 digit after decimal point. Cool, isn't it!

Here is the setting I used DSP + TB6560 driver:

Step unit: X= 12.754875, Y=12.650710
Speed: X=300mm/s, Y = 150mm/s

TB6560 driver:
S1 Off
S2 Off
S3 On
S4 On
S5 On
S6 On

I also found that the size of the image it created bigger than it should if X speed was over 150mm/s. For cutting, I could set it to 300mm/s without a problem. Not sure why would it happen like that. Again, it could be my X,Y table.

By the way, the X motor get just a little warm (no more burnning hot) after changing the driver current setting to 0.6A.

[Tech_Marco]

Update (8-2-2011): Good news, I have converted the D40K to DSP control with the original power supply successful. With the original power supply, the minium powe setting is 75%. Lower than that may not be able to 'wake up' the laser tube. Plus, each 1% increment is so significant. The output from 75% is much lighter than 76% and so on. I think that is the issue of the power supply.

For the limit switch, I installed two mechanic type proximity switch. Bummer, it took me 4 try to install the X switch properly as I oversighted the the size of the laser head mount. In the first one, the X hit the bar before it could reach the X sensor. Then, the next 3 try the Y slammed on the bar as the laser mount slammed on the Y sensor before X sensor could be reached.

I was doing this conversion for fun so I didn't really taking so much thought when installing the HOME switches. But for you folks, it's very important. Since D40K is pretty small and the useful area is very limited, approximately 300mm x 220mm working area. The way I did wasted about 25mm on the X and about 5mm on Y. To be able to use all area you can get from the machine, I suggest you guys putting the limit switch on the panel side if you can't get someone to route a nice mouting kit on the rack it self (my partner is very busy recently, so he couldn't make some

Anyway, I'll post some pictures tomorrow. It's 11:00PM now in the West Coast. It took me 2hrs for the conversion. It seems not much but don't forget that I spent last 2 days for playing the DSP and a X,Y table. So, I got pretty solid understand how to do connections. The fun part is how to hook up the DSP card to the power supply as it's not the same as other PS that I used to deal with. I need some minor 'surgery'. Got to say I'm smart in this part. Slaute to myself

Good night folks

Cheers
Marco

[TeacDance]

TB6560 driver:
S1 Off
S2 Off
S3 On
S4 On
S5 On
S6 On

I also found that the size of the image it created bigger than it should if X speed was over 150mm/s. For cutting, I could set it to 300mm/s without a problem. Not sure why would it happen like that. Again, it could be my X,Y table.

By the way, the X motor get just a little warm (no more burnning hot) after changing the driver current setting to 0.6A.

Hmm s1 and s2 what they do i have both on position 100% should i change that to off position?

[Tech_Marco]

On for specific motor and it's not usual. So you should turn it off.

[Tech_Marco]

Update ( 8-3-2011):

Picture time!

[TeacDance]

Update ( 8-3-2011):

Picture time!

Cool picture what is good basic setup to making picture like that boat.

Power
Scan gap
Engrave Mode
Dot size

[Tech_Marco]

Power: 75%
Scan gap: not sure
Engrave Mode: X swing
Dot size. 0.5

However, I found a problem to use the original power supply. I could get 20% power without changing the pulse rate on the power. Even though I increase it to 150,000, I got somehow 50% of power. The DSP cart came without the analog output so I guess that's the reason. I make a few cutting on a 3mm epozy glass and it took 2 round to cut it through. I'm pretty sure if I can get full power, I should be able to get the cutting through 1 shoot. See attached images. Still cool though!

Next thing to do: install the chipset for the DSP (customer card for diagnostic) and try again. Wish me a good luck!

[TeacDance]

Power: 75%
Scan gap: not sure
Engrave Mode: X swing
Dot size. 0.5

However, I found a problem to use the original power supply. I could get 20% power without changing the pulse rate on the power. Even though I increase it to 150,000, I got somehow 50% of power. The DSP cart came without the analog output so I guess that's the reason. I make a few cutting on a 3mm epozy glass and it took 2 round to cut it through. I'm pretty sure if I can get full power, I should be able to get the cutting through 1 shoot. See attached images. Still cool though!

Next thing to do: install the chipset for the DSP (customer card for diagnostic) and try again. Wish me a good luck!

75% to paper?? i use 10% and it's almost go trough can i somehow to adjust power??

can i check some how simple at my power control work right?

in manufacture parameter what should be laser parameters?

PWM Frequency
MAx_Power

i have now 20000 pwm and 98% power, what they should be? now what i have is factory parameter i'm not touch that pwm chould i

good luck for you next mission

Remember fly between mission :)

[Tech_Marco]

Remember that your PS is a PWM power supply but the original PS is not. Anywa, after the Analog Circuit ICs installed, it didn't help too much. But and but... I found a problem that caused the problem. But Smart Marco is here so he found a good solution.

The issue is that the "TH", the TTL leve High singal was low. Instead of getting 5V, it only provide 3.8V, which is not high enough to give out a full power. What I did is to install a voltage booster (convert as low as 1.2V to 5V) to boost the Level High from 3.8V to 5V. After that, the machine output 15mA which is very closed to 40W laser machine. Then, I found a VR on the powe supply and I could increase the output from 15mA up to 25mA(too much for a 40W tube).I decided to set it up to 20mA max.

Now the DSP could output as low as 20%. But interesting though. Once it's 65% or up, the output is preety much the same, giving the max of 20mA. And I found that cutting power between 16mA and 20mA seems not much different.

Now, I need to run a couple test to confirm my finding. Feeling good!

Marco