Equipment/Dahlgren Wizzard 2000 ST: Difference between revisions

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This is a project to convert a CNC engraver to also allow it to operate as a CNC pcb drill.

The Engraver is a Dahlgren Wizzard 2000 ST.

It needs

  • Cosmetic cleaning & minor surface rust removal.
  • 3 x stepper motors (NEMA 14 by the looks of it)
  • a way of connecting the steppers to the leadscrews.
    • Hipster has some couplers of a type that are now really cheap on ebay
  • a drill of some kind.
    • Some people are using aero/quadcopter motors. Would the controller handle one ? might need a sensorfull motor
      • Liam said it took a straight DC motor. So proably PWM speed control if that's the case.
  • a way to fix the drill to the x/y platform.
    • Spindle is an interchangable module. Any arrangement with the same OD of housing will fit. Will however need round-profile drive belt and motor pulley. Emco unimat spares may be suitable.
  • chuck for the drill.
    • Collets are much better than a chuck. An ER12 collet chuck would be better than the cheap dremel style, but needs a decent sized motor shaft. There may be something more suitable for auto toolchange (one day)
  • small drill bits.
    • As standard does not take drills but "gravers" that go through the whole spindle for precise depth adjustment
    • It would be nice for it to actually be able to still engrave/mill rather than just drill holes when repaired.
  • some rewireing to fix endstops etc.

At the moment the engraver comes with an embedded computer (386FX!), which powers up and works fine, and is connected to a control board that has 3 x stepper drivers and a brushless dc motor controller on it.

Choices

We've got 3 main choices:

  1. Use the existing controller, but we'd need to give it the steppers and drill that it expects.
  2. Chuck the existing control board and use an arduino or something to talk to the existing drivers
  3. Chuck all the electronics and do it all our selves.

The first may be the quickest, but we'd need to get identical parts - the manufacturer may sell them, which might make them more expensive.

The second will involve some hardware reverse enginerring to work out the pinouts to talk the existing drivers

The 3rd might also be fairly easy - presumably we can use the reprap style electronics with it??

  • Solexious' stepper drivers could be used, though not with reprap controls. Might also be a good target for grbl.

Proposed roadmap

It currently seems easiest, and possibly more reliable long-term, to fix rather than hack. I suggest we go with this until proven otherwise.

  1. Check pinout of control board output. Will provide nessesary info on stepper voltages, wiring and spindle motor control, as well as verify controller function.
  2. Presuming control output okay, obtain and fit steppers, wire in stops, test motion.
    • If controls damaged, then move to other controls
    • Check if brass wheel causes any motion difficulty
  3. Fit new spindle motor (see manual page 26 for stock assembly diagram)
  4. Make spindle bearing and collet holder (see page 25 of manual - this may be very very tricky. Many precision parts)
    • Alternately make missing parts for existing spindle mount. Not much use for immediate goals though.
  5. Fit replacement table
    • Pricing is hard to find, but many engraving machine suppliers sell replacement T-slot tables which will provide an optimum mounting solution.
    • A temporary table made of MDF or similar should be enough to test function crudely.

Pics

Links

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