Neosec

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About Neosec

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  1. Ah, good to know. I'm running the steppers at 1000 steps/rotation and the positioning interval is ~400 steps. I think an error of 4-5 steps (~.01 inches) would be acceptable. If not I'll look into some Hall effect switches. Thanks for the heads up.
  2. Very good, thanks. I suppose I was considering running to the other end of the axis for the purpose of testing the end switch to be sure it's working. A sort of initialization self test. Thanks for the info about adding a home switch. I guess I can stack the switches and just bend the lever arm of the home switch so it engages a bit before the E-Stop switch.
  3. I've been building a contraption with linear rails and stepper motors. It has an X, Y, and Z axis. I'm using Velocio PLCs to control the motors which seems to be work well so far. I understand these are not very common and my question are related to general motion control, not Velocio programming specifically. Since I'm new to PLCs, programming, and stepper motion I thought I'd ask for some input instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm to the point in the build where I'll be adding emergency stop/limit switches and am wondering how to go about writing the program; if there's an "industry standard" way to go about it. I figure the PLC will check to see if any switch is active. If one is, drive the motor away from it till it's inactive and store the location. If one is not, drive the motor until a switch activates then back off a until it's inactive and store the location. Drive the motor to the other limit of the axis (the number of steps should be known) to activate the switch, back off and store location. Rinse and repeat for the other axes. Is my approach about right?
  4. Just an update. I've purchased 3 nema 23 stepper motors w/ power supply and stepper motor drivers. The ACE11 runs a motor just fine and is easy to program. I suspect I'll use Mach 3 also but it's too early to tell. Rumor has it that the ACE22 and above will get a firmware update to run 3 motors at the same time. My ACE 11 only runs one. I've also ordered linear rails and drive parts. in the coming months I hope to get a machine working. Thanks for everyone's input.
  5. I ordered an ACE11 to evaluate. We'll see how it goes.
  6. Well, that rules out Omron. This is just a hobby level project and is quite small at that. There's no factory and no employees and no net profits, so there's no no way I'll be spending thousands on software. I'm wanting to build the entire machine for less than $1,000. I could do the job of the PLCs with an Arduino or PIC µ-controller, but I've built enough of those sort of projects to know that they become junk when I don't feel like supporting it any more; because no one can. That sort of a build is too proprietary. I'd like to build my first machine that uses COTS parts and can therefore be serviced by others; and therefore saleable/transferable.
  7. Thanks for your input. The Velocio products look interesting, mostly because of the free software and cheaper price point. The Omron looks good too, but I haven't looked into the software for programming it yet.
  8. Hi all, I'm considering building an automated machine and started a thread about the project over at CNC ZONE because I thought I might be able to do the motion control (relatively) inexpensively using Mach3 and a Stepper kit from ebay. Here's a link to the thread if your interested. http://www.cnczone.com/forums/general-cnc-machine-related-electronics/264180-cnc-software.html From my last post... Some of the members over there suggested PLCs might be the way to go, and most recently using both PLCs and CNC. I'm ignorant enough about PLCs (and CNC for that matter) that I don't know where to start or what questions to ask. One thing I've noticed is that getting all the PLC modules and the software looks to be pricey. I would appreciate any input that the community here can provide. Thanks Neo