Counting circuit built and workign
Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 10:22 pm
All,
been a while since I posted anything. We had some more travel and I was working on trying to figure out how to get a board made quickly. Eventually, I just decided to go to radio shack and get a hole board and solder up a test circuit. I need this to be quick and I couldn't find a reasonable price that was fast. Anyhow, we had off for veterans day so I spent some time then getting this done. This was a LOT of soldering, but I got it done in about 8 hours or so and just started to test it out. It works just fine so far. Now I have to start writing up the code for the mega I had laying around. The first thing I will do is validate that it does indeed count accurately, then make the laser do PPI, then get it talking to the UNO via I2C and get the settings going in Mach 3 to get this all set up right and easy to use. I shouldn't even need to be connected to the mega during PPI operations.
After Xmas I will start to work on the engraving part of this as I have to really push to get some gifts made with this thing.
Here are a couple pics of the board installed in place and the place I chose to put the mega.
The board fit nicely in place. The smoth stepper has a flat 26 pin ribbon cable on it and I used an IDC connector to "listen" in on the signal... much cheaper than getting a DB25 splitter... only $2. I listen for steps, directions, and laser on/off as well as limit switches. The board looks like a rats nest, cuz it kinda is, but it works well for now. If there is interest in the community, I may look to have a few made at the dorkbot place... you have to make 3 at a time.
I decided the best place for the mega was upside down on the bottom of the shelf. I put it up there with studs from RS and super glue. It is convenient and out of the way.
there is a 34 pin ribbon cable that connects the mega to the counter board. At this point, the board only counts x and y pulses, but it will count the full length of both the x and y axis at 16 x micro-stepping. It should have no problem counting up to the 2 MHz pulse freequency that the smooth stepper can go to.
BTW, this only cost me a total of $44 ($28 in parts from digikey + $16 in parts from RS) and it could be done for less. I bought extra parts in case I needed them and if I got a bunch of boards made, it would be really cheap.
been a while since I posted anything. We had some more travel and I was working on trying to figure out how to get a board made quickly. Eventually, I just decided to go to radio shack and get a hole board and solder up a test circuit. I need this to be quick and I couldn't find a reasonable price that was fast. Anyhow, we had off for veterans day so I spent some time then getting this done. This was a LOT of soldering, but I got it done in about 8 hours or so and just started to test it out. It works just fine so far. Now I have to start writing up the code for the mega I had laying around. The first thing I will do is validate that it does indeed count accurately, then make the laser do PPI, then get it talking to the UNO via I2C and get the settings going in Mach 3 to get this all set up right and easy to use. I shouldn't even need to be connected to the mega during PPI operations.
After Xmas I will start to work on the engraving part of this as I have to really push to get some gifts made with this thing.
Here are a couple pics of the board installed in place and the place I chose to put the mega.
The board fit nicely in place. The smoth stepper has a flat 26 pin ribbon cable on it and I used an IDC connector to "listen" in on the signal... much cheaper than getting a DB25 splitter... only $2. I listen for steps, directions, and laser on/off as well as limit switches. The board looks like a rats nest, cuz it kinda is, but it works well for now. If there is interest in the community, I may look to have a few made at the dorkbot place... you have to make 3 at a time.
I decided the best place for the mega was upside down on the bottom of the shelf. I put it up there with studs from RS and super glue. It is convenient and out of the way.
there is a 34 pin ribbon cable that connects the mega to the counter board. At this point, the board only counts x and y pulses, but it will count the full length of both the x and y axis at 16 x micro-stepping. It should have no problem counting up to the 2 MHz pulse freequency that the smooth stepper can go to.
BTW, this only cost me a total of $44 ($28 in parts from digikey + $16 in parts from RS) and it could be done for less. I bought extra parts in case I needed them and if I got a bunch of boards made, it would be really cheap.