Churchill Computurn 290 retrofit (again)

[Hood]

LED board Mk2.
I made it 2 part due to lack of room at the LEDs, so now have a connection board with the resistors that I will fix into the bottom of the cabinet. I increased the resistance and although it is still bright it is not bad at all. That allowed me to use smaller wattage resistors which is a bonus. The pic makes it look extremely bright but it is not.
Label machine is at the workshop so I will have to wait until tomorrow before I can label the terminals. Then all I need to do is run a new wire then connect to the servo drives breakout boards and configure the I/O in the servo drives software. Not sure if I have any spare outputs on the VFD, if not I may be able to route the current signals via the PLC and make it work that way.

 

[Hood]

Got the LEDs and connection board fitted and wired today.

Well except the spindle ones as I think I will need to pass them through the PLC.

Video showing the axes and turret ones working.

Also milled out the door that covers the Serial port and USB port.

That allows me to have the door shut to keep muck out but at the same time allowing me to connect the USB. I have not got the right angled adapter yet but looking at the clearance of a standard plug I think it should work fine.

 

[RichardM]

Looking good

 

[Hood]

Not having visual indications is one of the things I am taking bad with coming from Mach3 where I could basically add anything to my screen that I wanted.
I like to know if state of the drives, especially the Turret so adding physical LEDs allows me to do that, might not be as easy as it would be with Mach3 but most things should be possible.

The control itself however is great and so far most things are better than Mach3 on a lathe.

 

[Hood]

Did some more crab spikes today, first I have done since the conversion but all went well.

 

[Luke]

Are there any options to add a screen to the existing controller/plc? Does it have any comms ports?

 

[Hood]

No, don't think so. The only ports are the USB and Serial on the front and then all the I/O ones on the back.

 

[Hood]

Meant to say the FlashAir has been working well with the exception of it being slow to open. Not sure if that is due to the way I have my networks set up or not. Hate Windows and Networks,all was simple in XP but W7 is a real PAIN. Yes it may be more secure but for me it is a nightmare and I am always scared to try and make things better as often it takes me hours to get back to where I was

 

[Hood]

Got the LEDs for the Spindles VFD working today. I only had one spare output on the PLC so I decided just to use two relays instead. That is all 4 working now or at least I think they are, can't think of an easy way to fault the VFD so I will just have to assume that the LED will go red when there is a spindle fault.

Was never happy about the dog leg rapids, probably would have got used them eventually but ...

 

[Hood]

Ya beauty!!!!

 

[eSCHEn]

That looks magic does that

 

[Hood]

I brought the FlashAir home with me tonight to try out here, it is lightning fast to open and transfer files so that suggests that it is an issue with the network at the workshop. It could also, I suppose, be because it is plugged into the SZGH controller when at the workshop but as it is WIFI then I think that probably wouldn't make a difference. I will fire up the laptop tomorrow and plug it into that and see if it is any quicker but of not then I know it is a network problem.

Any network gurus here?

What would be the best way to set things up. I have 2 network cards in my desktop, one I have connected to the modem/router for internet access and the other I have connected to a switch which has my Chiron, Beaver Mill, and Plasma connected.

It used to work great when I had XP on all the machines and the desktop but with W7 on them (except the Beaver) it is definitely slower trying to connect to the machines.

Is there a better way to connect everything together, for example should I be using just one network card and have that connected to the switch and have my modem/router also connected to the switch?

 

[eSCHEn]

should I be using just one network card and have that connected to the switch and have my modem/router also connected to the switch

 

[Hood]

I take it you are saying that is the way to go, unless of course you are little Jack Horner

Will give it a go tomorrow and see how much of a mess I can make of everything, Networks and me don't get along very well

 

[eSCHEn]

So there is nothing wrong with how you have it now, assuming it's configured correctly then having the layout you describe is fine. What you can do is simplify it a bit by moving to the one you describe and I quoted. This would expose your devices to the wider WAN but I will assume your firewall is in use on your router and as you'll be NATing that's sort a 'free' bit of indirection anyway.

What are your network settings for each device? Welcome to PM them if you don't want to discuss publicly, not that there's anything massively sensitive in this as you describe.

 

[Hood]

Ha ha you see that is the problem with me an Networks, WAN, NATing etc, means absolutely sweet FA to me

I think at the moment I have the router/modem connected and set up as finding its own address, or whatever it is called.
The switch I have set up to a defined address, I think 192.168.3.1 but could be wrong.

Maybe that is not even what you are asking for

 

[eSCHEn]

WAN == Wide Area Network == "The Internet"
NAT == Network Address Translation == "The thing that changes your internal 192.168.0.whatever address into something that can traverse the WAN"

Finding it's own address is Dynamic Host Control Protocol or more usually, DHCP The opposite of this is called a static address although there are many ways to achieve this so a bit blurry.

What I would like is you to tell me:

• The router or modem or whatever device that gives you internet - what are the LAN (Local Area Network) settings? In particular DHCP range, netmask(s).
• What are the network settings for the Desktop Card 0? Look for IPv4 settings inside of the adapter.
• Same question for Desktop Card 1.
• Network settings (all please) for Chiron?
• Network settings (all please) for Beaver?
• Network settings (all please) for Plasma?

What I'm trying to ascertain is whether your configuration, and in particular your routing, is sane. There should be zero delays in the network stack from a change in version of OS like you describe really. IPv6 is on by default and that can be an erse sometimes but I'd like to know your network first before we start slicing and dicing

Edit - and because I love you and you're awesome, feel free to just send screenshots. It's all the same to me

Also, if you want directions to where to get the data then shout

 

[Hood]

LOL.
Well I am not at the workshop but from memory the card that connects to the router/modem is set up to obtain its own IP Address, in fact I know it is.

The one that connects to the switch is, I am almost certain, set to 192.168.3.1 and subnet of 255.255....... whatever it is by default.

The Chiron, Beaver and Plasma are all 192.168.3.** where the ** is a different number, not sure what that is.

 

[eSCHEn]

Thought that might make you chuckle.

What you describe (assuming the netmask is the same on all) should work fine but it's the double card setup in the desktop that has the spidey sense going.

The only issues with using DHCP without a reservation (baggsying a specific address) is that the address can change and the name resolution (the bit that changes \\hoods-desktop into \\192.168.3.x) is kinda crappy sometimes. There are fixes and workarounds to make your life easier but normally I would always recommend that any device that is 'fixed' in location (like all your kit) or is mobile but needs to be in the same place/address should use a static address.

Usually even on the wee SOHO (Small Office Home Office, ie not Enterprise) routers you can split your IP range into two bits, one for static allocations and another for the DHCP stuff.

 

[Hood]

I will double check everything tomorrow and maybe it would be a good idea to ping them to see. How's that for techtalk