Further Adventures with the Sieg KX3 & KX1

Yes I'll have a look for you Sarah probably tomorrow because I've got a virtual pub quiz to take part in tonight!

I hope you enjoy your virtual pub quiz, I hope the beer is not virtual 😉

Best wishes,

Sarah

Try setting it to 5us and the computer will round it down to 4us. They were only rated for 5,000 due to stepping issues. It is down to the PC putting enough steps, both high and low, to drive the spindle at the speed.

Adam, Sarah has a KX1 so should be good for 7000?

Machine yes it will work with good feed rates and tooling but it is the computers that caused the bigger issues we had with support. Entering a 5us might round down because of PC maths working fine while the tuning wizard is open but rounds down when the window closes.

Just put the infra-red tacho onto mine, all very close except at 4000rpm which was a bit off

5K = 5009

4K = 4170

3K = 3030

2K = 1995

1K = 1017

This is the tuning screen settings are as it came to me. click to see larger

Edited By JasonB on 10/04/2020 10:32:39

Edited By JasonB on 10/04/2020 10:36:18

Hi Jason, are you using a USB breakout board?

Yes, mine was one of the last ones Ketan had.

Ah so the step and dir pulse don't matter, as the breakout has an on-board timer, and they only change a parallel port output. The 4,100 is OK, you can try a few about that speed as it might be a tacho blip point, the reason we used to say 100 rpm at 5,000 was fine.

Sarah if you get chance to set the step pulse to 5us you might have to set it everytime you save the motor tuning. Some computers cannot crate the number of steps but if it has worked on that PC might be a simple mater fudging the values to get a clear signal for the drivers and spindle controller.

Posted by Sarah on 09/04/2020 19:37:30:

Posted by Ian Johnson 1 on 09/04/2020 19:34:56:

Posted by Sarah on 09/04/2020 17:46:59:

Hi Ian,

Would you be able to let me have your settings please 😊

The pulse settings changed them selves from 4us to 3us after I increased the velocity, which then put the speed back down. Jus coildnt get them to change back to 4us.

 

Thanks.

Edited By Sarah on 09/04/2020 17:47:44

Yes I'll have a look for you Sarah probably tomorrow because I've got a virtual pub quiz to take part in tonight!

I hope you enjoy your virtual pub quiz, I hope the beer is not virtual 😉

 

Best wishes,

Sarah

Hi Sarah here is a photo of my KX1 Z motor drive settings. (Edited to include the photo above which I forgot to post! )

Steps per = 500

Velocity = 1000.2

Acceleration = 100

G's = 0.0101976

Step pulse = 0

Dir pulse = 0

A little bit different from your settings. No idea if they are the 'correct' settings but they seem to work okay. It's a USB KX1 by the way if that makes any difference?

Oh and I got 25 out of 50 in last night's virtual pub quiz 😁

Ian

Edited By Ian Johnson 1 on 10/04/2020 17:28:57

Another bit of profiling with the work screwed to some scrap for you Sarah. The counterbored holes that will take short lengths of rod on the finished part were used to hold the work with M2.5 cap head screws.

The profile has 2mm radius at each end of the main 25mm radius which was cut at the full 16mm height with one of ARCs long series HSS aluminium specific cutters, this time run at 5000rpm, 0.4mm DOC rouging and 0.2mm finish pass all at 250mm/min all climb cutting

Sarah, is it possible that the pulley settings are limiting the maximum spindle revs. If you are not using the pulley settings anywhere just set the max in all of them above what you are ever going to run at.

Martin C

Hi Guys,

Thank you for the photographs of your spindle settings, your figures are very different to each others and also to mine as well. I've added a photo of mine below. The three machines are:

Steps per.      Velocity.       Acceleration

1.                     120.               4

500.                 1000.2.        100

100.                 6000.            500

A few questions for you if you don't mind.

I understand what 'Steps per' do on the X, Y, Z axis relating to the stepper motors and ball screw drives, but what does it do on the Spindle Speed and why are our three machines so different?

Why are the Velocity and Acceleration figures also so different for the three machines?

I removed Mach3 and the Sieg setup files from my PC, then installed them again to make sure I had the default setting. If I go into the Motor Tuning screen, don't change anything and exit by just closing the X on the top right of the screen the Step Pulse won't change from 4us. However if I go into the Motor Tuning screen and click on the OK button to leave the screen, then when I go back into the Motor Tuning screen again it has changed to 3us. It will retain a value of 3us and 5 us.

When it does change the Step Pulse to 3us, or a value of 5us, this changes the value for the X, Y and Z axis as well and changes how the axis are driven. Will driving the X, Y and Z axis at 5us cause any problems?

I can match the measured and demanded spindle speeds if I do change the Step Pulse to 5us, but I'm wary of changing bits I don't really understand.

Thanks for the video's and pictures of your work on your machining, giving me a good idea of what to do. I'll post some of mine soon hopefully.  I wouldn't have thought of fixing a bit to be machines to the side of a chunk of aluminium, it will make a bit I need to machine a lot easier thanks.

I appreciate your help, hope I'm not asking too many questions, I'm just eager to learn.

Best wishes,

Sarah

Edited By Sarah on 12/04/2020 09:38:58

Edited By Sarah on 12/04/2020 09:41:50

Sarah, going by what Adam (Son of the late John Stevenson) said both mine and Ian's are connected by USB so our speeds are controlled differently to your earlier parallel port machine which is why I have nothing on the spindle screen and would think Ian's would be the same though he only showed the X axis..

Hi Jason,

I think Adam said the timing was controlled differently, but are the Steps Per, Velocity and Acceleration still adjustable from the Motor Tuning screen? I've been doing a lot of reading on line but not found enough out unfortunately.

I've got a friend getting me some aluminium offcuts from work which will be very useful for mounting bit to 😊

Regards,

Sarah

Hi Sarah, if you have a parallel (25 pin D connection) Then the pulse will matter as it is common on all motors, USB have in B type and us an internal timer to control the pulse.

The SIEG needs about 5us step pulse for the spindle to drive the motor tacho controller, the Axis motor drivers will run on a smaller step pulse but as they are all the dame value setting it to 5us will be fine. Some computers even needed 6 or 7 depending on the motherboards.

Below is the spindle tuning picture from the old web site for support, so are what the machines are set at and the one you need to change shown using the formula.

(Required Vel) = [Required RPM] X [current Vel] / [Measured RPM]

So if you are setting the speed to 1,000 and getting 1,234 RPM with the default 4,000 Vel you set it to 3241.49 Vel
3241.49 = 1000 * 4000 / 1234

Hi Adam,

What effect does varying the Steps per value? I can understand it's use with stepper motors, but not with a brushless motor.

Regards,

Sarah

It was found to be 350 for best results, the velocity is the one important for the spindle. Lots of testing was done with these machines and each one from Arceuro was calibrated to allow a quicker setup by the users.

The actual values are regardless it is the ratio between them that matters. Think that for each 360º the computer sends steps, it is not just how many steps are sent but how fast the amount are sent too. But we are not sending steps but a Voltage that the controller uses to drive the motor at a set speed, they is also a in-built tacho that will increase or decrease the current to keep the speed constance. So at the end it is not the number of steps sent per revolution but the rate at which they are sent. So we pick a nice number and then how fast we send them and balance the ratio between them, in this case 350 x 4,000 or 35 x 40,000 or 3,500 x 400. The computer will have limits so we picked the mid ground that most PC's would work with.

Edited By Adam Stevenson on 12/04/2020 13:16:52

Hi Sarah I just realised that I gave you the Z axis motor info not the spindle motor info duh!

So here is my spindle motor info for my KX1

Steps per = 1

Velocity = 120

Acceleration = 4

G's = 0.0004079

Steps pulse = 0

Dir pulse = 0

Same caveats apply, they work okay on my machine and I am useless on computer stuff!