@servant74 Thanks for the link to the refurbished UPS site. That is awesome
Glad to help. UPSs have saved lots of $$ in electronics for me from power dips and spikes over the years. I am a believer in them from experience, not just sales blurbs. Just think of them as the best power/surge protectors you can get. … One friend (lives in a rural area with poor power) has a 10KW UPS at his house in the basement wired in. Basically what a small computer based company would have. Wonderful if you can afford it.
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I’m experienced in CNC on multiple platforms. The best machine I own was very expensive and it uses the same parts as other systems. The difference in cost is the software development and sensors, that machine has never done anything it wasn’t directed to do. That said all other CNC machines I’ve interacted with at some point either minor or majorly had errors in motion. The most common result is a mirror image of what the machines thinks the direction of an axis and it runs into a side and continues to try until something physically stops it. Running into a barrier, falling off something and so on. I’ve seen others machines catch on fire, with flames. I’ve read of people who lost there house or business. So I say this with the most respect possible, don’t ever leave a CNC machine unattended.
Everyone’s Level of attended is probably different. For me I have some cheap $30 wifi webcams that watch most everything and alarms as in smoke and motion. So I won’t say I don’t got to the bathroom or get a snack. However I have slept next to a 3D print many times. I wouldn’t go to the 7-11 and back and in my case it’s on the opposite corner.
I probably have some built in shop gene - My grandfather was a Head Machinist for Hughes Aircraft. My father a Block Welder. I gauge a good day as keeping all 10 fingers and all 10 toes. Things with humans and machines can go sideways so fast. It’s that if I step away and a neighboring child were hurt I wouldn’t ever be the same. So I either pause if possible or stop my process if need be. For myself the cost is too high if someone could get hurt.
I know people and business that leave their 3D printers running and go elsewhere and I’ve been told I’m a stick in the mud. I however have never needed to say I’m sorry. To the best of my knowledge we are both in America so it is your right to choose how you operate a CNC machine.
Rock on.
Side note - When I built my son a soldering station a added a relay controlled power strip and a foot switch so he could never walk away and leave it on.
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Your second request to have a job finished alert - this should be available by seeing the end of the G code. This could be added as stated in the firmware. For me I’d interface the older
esp2866 Wifi module - You could have it post to a webpage or send and e-mail or text over the web.
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13678
this might help-
https://diyhacking.com/esp8266-tutorial/
That one is $7 ish , but I see them for under $2 when googled, they are a 3V processor and you could use resistors to deal with the 3-5V logic bridge, so some coding and under $10 could get you there.
This could come from GroundControl as well. It’s probably running on a networked box, and it knows when the end of the file has been reached. Maybe the firmware would respond to a gcode M2 or similar with a message that triggered GC to send “That’s all, folks…”
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If there’s a 1% chance of burning your house down then on the average you can push your luck 99 times, and then die when it sets your house on fire and kills you in your sleep. Only you can decide if it’s worth it.
I might go a couple rooms down the hall and watch TV, a little harder since we’re broadcast-less cord cutters, no commercials) but that’s about the limit of my risk tolerance. The smoke detector is in the hall
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I had an old pickup like that! Liked to leak fuel onto the V6 manifold and occasionally set it on fire from plug wire arcing. The burn marks on the hood should have been a clue when I bought it. “But it was cheap”
Couple gallons of gas, quart of oil, and charge up the fire extinguisher
I’ve been to a number of fatal fires for my day job, maybe a bit too sensitive on the printer fire thing
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Sorry if I pushed one of your buttons. I didn’t mean to do that.
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Nah, moose are known for rambling on. It’s more of a campaign than a button
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I slept on the floor next to a laser cutter last night! Somehow I thought I was the only one who does that…
(I use “slept” rather loosely, I took short (15 minute) “naps” while things cut - between changing out laser jobs and kitting parts - until 3 a.m. when I had to finally call it quits and go sleep inside…)
A machine that is using lasers and fire to literally vaporize wood in a “controlled manner” can go south real quick. I’ve never had a real laser fire but I know it happens, even a small “contained” fire would be expensive and bad.
Anyway, good post. Thanks for sharing!
-Logan
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My best functioning CNC machine and first I own is a commercial Laser Cutter. For the first year I walked around saying “burn it” I took all kinds of free sample stuff and tossed it in the laser to see if would cut or etch. Man it’s like 10 years old now. My tube is down and currently I’m in between jobs so I can’t afford the $1500 to recharge my tube. Sigh
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@Mattintx Wireless ‘toys’ in a room full of machines with brushed motors will sooner or later bite you where it hurts most.
I would advise not to do this. If you manage to suppress all the radio noise that the router and the vacuum cleaner throw at you then it could work, maybe if you are lucky it even will work without noise suppression, though all the ‘smart’ switches are not smart enough to figure out when you are loosing a few fingers and the machine might just decide to chew off the rest of your arm when it does not receive a E-stop command.
A 15A will work fine on a resistive load, however for switching an inductive load (anything with a big hungry motor) it would make sense to go a bit bigger to be able to handle the peak current and also the induction spike when switching off is something to keep in mind.
If the gear has a soft start then this could eventually not be an issue at all.
I have seen quiet a few Fotek SSR’s in a carbon-black coat. (EDIT: most of those where the 16Amp ones, not sure if they are more likely to fail?)
Also: not all SSR’s are suited for PWM. Read the datasheet for more info.
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Best purchase I made for my first DIY CNC router: http://www.vhipe.com/product-private/SuperPID-Home.htm
It’s a few bucks, but worth every penny.
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I see, this reminds me of the BOSCH POF 1400 ACE, that router has a Constant Electronic speed control (Bosch speak for closed loop-ish)
However that router is not at all a good option when it comes to z-axis automation…
RomanLini’s SuperPID has been around for a while and has an excellent reputation. There’s a long topic on CNCZone
Regarding semi attended machines in the home and their fire risks, I try not to venture far, and I value at least a little noise from small machines so I can hear if it’s acting normally. To further help catch issues, I have a Z-Wave enabled smoke detector over the equipment, set up as a scene to cut power using an appliance switch upon alarm trigger. Z-Wave will retry sending across the entire mesh network until delivered, which should be enough to overcome brush noise.
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You may find router operations will mimic smoke to a detector. Mdf dust certainly does.
Thanks for that info. I have yet to build my Maslow, it’s stuck in the queue behind another project. Will have to figure out something else, but hopefully I will be able to come up with a decent enough dust control system that mdf dust will stay tamed.
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So, is there a GPIO pin that is activated while the router should be on? There are plenty of low voltage triggers, and I picked up one and I expect either that the platform supports turning on and off the spindle, or I will write the code to do it and make a pull request.
Am I duplicating work that has already been done?
It’s not a question about safety, its about a system that does what people want. If you cut something that you didn’t intend to, it the operators fault.