Your not missing any bolts : Differences Between X-50 Rails (upgrade) and X-35 Rails (standard)
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Hey Craig,
this has been explained here:
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Great to know nothing is missing. Any thoughts on the 2 screws that look damaged or filled? They are smooth on top so not like a tool was broken in it.
Don’t feel worried. Support not only from the community but from Onefinity as well has been amazing! I hate to say it, but this is my luck at times. Murphy’s Law LOL
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Take a small screwdriver or pick and I think you can just remove whatever is stuck in the screw heads. It looks like it could be foam or cardboard. It shouldn’t pose any problems though. I’ve found that when shipping heavier items shippers aren’t as gentile as they should be. But when speed counts careful usually takes a back seat.
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Yep - You are absolutely correct. Ended up being cardboard and foam. Think my frustration clouded my Troubleshooting 101. Thank you!
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Trust me. Once you get your feet wet and start making stuff you’ll just laugh at your start.
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Thank you all!!!
Onefinity support will be shipping out a replacement Z-Coil cable. As such, with my 3rd party Z cable I was able to complete Surfacing Spoilboard and added 1" Square Grids.
And for me, the one I’ve been waiting for since before a decision on which machine to dive into, a test foam tombstone!
Plenty to learn (it won’t stop LOL).
Today was a good day!
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Glad you got it working. “Stuff” happens in production, it’s how it’s handled that makes the difference and 1F support has been stellar in addressing issues.
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Only other issue, may be if you have any signal protection on the data cabling… Have personally seen machines do weird things with unshielded wiring… this was fixed with either replacing with shielded cable(s), or aluminum conduit. The worst instance was when a compressor for air-assist kicked in and the controller/cebles confused the program to the point that destroyed the material.
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Just wanted to +1 this because there’s a lot of information out there regarding stepper / spindle wiring in the context of “as long as it works, whatever”. Most of us out here are machinists, not electricians, so we tend to not even know what we’re supposed to be taking seriously. The quality of our cabling IS 100% one of those things we should be concerned about.
In my quest to find tutorials on upgrading from a router to a spindle, I inevitably stumbled upon the dire need for double-shielded cabling after learning that EMI can get you and others killed. A machine can full-on freak out and go rogue in a blink with just a little interference so shielded cabling is definitely something to seriously consider whenever upgrading steppers / spindles.
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In the default configuration of the Onefinity and appropriate separation of the power cable to the router from the other wiring you should not experience and issue that would need shielded cabling. The problems begin when people add in drag chains where the power cables are now running parallel to the stepper motor wiring, then shielding becomes appropriate. Add in a spindle running at 400hz off a low cost VFD and you have some of the noisiest power causing much higher rates of EMI than the base router. This is why many systems will employ 2 drag chains, one to the left, one to the right… one for stepper motor and control wiring and one for ‘mains’ voltage to the spindle.
As was mentioned, small amounts of induced voltage on the stepper motor control wiring can cause error in accuracy due to lost or additional steps but is usually more tolerant as they operate at 24-48v (36v on the Onefinity). Induced voltages in the control wiring like limit switches and probe wiring can cause the machine as a whole to lose it’s mind as it can run on voltages as low as 3.3v directly connected to the internal microcontroller.
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That pretty much sums up my exact situation, indeed. To mitigate the potential for all that noise affecting operation, I opted for a double-shielded 16/4 cable with drain, grounded to the VFD. In time, I’ll probably upgrade the stepper cables as well to ensure signals are clean.
I definitely should have made the distinction regarding drag chain usage. Thank you for that. At the moment, I’m still kicking around the idea of running the spindle cable and cooling lines down to the spindle from above on some sort of swiveling mechanism. As you’re aware, all but the y2-axis stepper cables are pretty much handled by design so adding a drag chain setup seems almost overkill.
As far as aesthetics are concerned, I do like the notion of a CNC mill having drag chains because it just looks more like a CNC mill but, as far as necessity and function, I’m not at all convinced at this point, after dozens of hours of practical use of the machine, that such a setup is justifiable.
But mitigating EMI from the Huanyang setup is priority-one. I already experienced a X-axis freak out last week during a dry run test of the initial spindle upgrade. That was conducted with temporary cabling just to ensure the delivery arrived intact and operable but just that little test was enough to confirm that EMI is a significant issue that has to be dealt with.
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Interesting that you had an issue with the X axis, that stepper motor wire is run through the steel bearing tube from the left to the right of the machine, I’d expect more of an issue with the Z axis if it was related to EMI from the spindle wiring itself.
I’ve run a HY spindle off a HY inverter for a year now, started out with a 800w spindle and moved up to a 2.2kW when the 80mm mount became available. I implemented use drag chains with the spindle wiring and Z axis stepper motor wiring in the same chain when I got the Journeyman upgrade in Nov 2021 as the overhead wiring system I was using no longer reached. From the beginning I used unshielded 16/4 wire for my spindle and have never had an issue, my spindle housing is grounded.
I’ve recently added in proximity switches for homing connected via optocouplers to the controller which I threw my oscilloscope on because I’m paranoid, didn’t observe any notable induced AC ripple from the spindle which was a concern.
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I attributed the experience to my own failure: I had initially zip-tied the drop cable to the X-axis cable near the X-axis connector. Having them in such close proximity and running parallel was the noob mistake we’re going to make when we just don’t know what we’re doing.
At present, I have the shielded cable with cooling system lines running overhead and far away from all the other cables, mostly because I think that’s how I’m going to run these and not because a shielded cable is going to cause me any particular grief going forward.
