Best posts made by Guus

In 2016, I bought a Cirqoid CNC milling machine to produce prototype circuit boards. Only 1 month after bought this machine, the manufacturer closed their website and disappeared. I could not get it to work and had other things to do. So it sat in a box for too long. It is build very well. And while looking at the controller it was ahead of its time, unfortunately too far ahead. Here is a video(1) of this wonderful machine. And here a link(2) to the software. And a ,link(3) to the manual. This is not a commercial message! The manufacturer went out of business and I am trying to make it work with Duet3d stuff.

Now I have bought a Duet 3 Mini 5+ and start to upgrade this CNC machine.

There are Magnetic Linear Encoders on this machine. The Osram AS5311(4) High Resolution Linear Encoder are at tiny prints in the machine near the magnetic strips.

On the X axis there is one Nema 14 stepper and one time a Linear Encoder
On the Y axis are two Nema 14 steppers and 2 times Linear Encoders
On the Z axis there is one Nema 14 stepper and one time a Linear Encoder

The AS5311 has SPI and PWM outputs.

The AS5047P is at Your "Duet3D Magnetic Encoder".

Now my questions;

Is it today possible today use the AS5047P chip as a Linear Encoder?.

So NOT at the back of the stepper? I will have to make new PCB's with the AS5047P(5) to be abile to fit into the existing locations on this machine.

Otherwise?

Is it possible to add support for the AS5311 to the Duet 3 Expansion 1HCL?

Bye,

Guus

Links:
sorry, I may not put the links here.

@T3P3Tony The machine uses sturdy spindles and I do not expect any backlash. So once I have mounted the encoder on the back of the steppers, the linear encoders will no longer be needed. All I have to do is to fit end stops. Because the function of end stop was also done with the linear encoders. This way I don't need any new code, or testing new things. I keep 100% to the actual design of Duet3d. I'm learning! Thanks for the support! Up to the next step: ordering stuff;-)

@dc42 I decided not to use the Linear encoder for the time being. I will install end stops. Thanks for the answers.

HHmm. Maybee the linear encoders are only used as end stops.

Question: Can I use the PWM signal from the AR5311 as end-stop signals in RRF?

@droftarts

Here are more photo's. This will explain many questions very fast.

The boards;

MCU board front side

MCU board rear side

Driver board front side with ET4988 chips.

Driver board rear

Bottom with Duet Mini 5. You can see 2 tubes with compressed air and a vacuum pump.

Solder paste head

PnP head The 5the driver is for the motor for positioning

Mill and drill head

This was sold in 2016. It is really not badly designed. But I could not work with the software and never used this machine. Now have to mill small microstrip antennas. And that requires a lot of testing and milling. So this machine would speed up my development time for antennas a lot.

@Guus

@droftarts said in Support for AS5311 High Resolution Linear Encoder:

@Guus The controller board is interesting. It looks like it has an ARM MCU, and the encoder plugs in directly to that. The stepper drivers are standard 'stepstick' plug-in modules, and are probably Allegro A4988 drivers. I'd guess the firmware reads the motor position from the encoder, and maybe adjusts the position, but this isn't quite closed loop, as it's not taking the motor commutation into account, which allows for accurate positioning. The drivers on the Mini 5+, even though in open loop mode, will be nicer!

Interesting that there are 5 drivers on the motor board. I guess it uses three for X, Y and Z. Does it use the driver with 8 output pins for Y? What does it use the other drivers for? I did see it comes with other tools, eg paste dispenser and pick-and-place toolhead, so I assume those.

Ian

There must have been many problems with this early design of the machine. The manufacturer panicked and stopped the production and closed down his company.

By installing a Duet 3 mini 5+ in this machine I have the latest and greatest controller and support!!!!! Thanks!!!!!

I won't be using the linear encoder for the time being. I will install 3 end stops on the machine. And I will install 4 Duet 3 Expansion 1HCL boards and 4 Duet 3 magnetic encoders. This way I will have a closed loop. The machine has robust spindles and I think the linear encoders are no longer necessary. So no new c code is needed.

If this setup is not accurate enough, I will try to figure out how to add the linear encoders to the machine.

Guus