Gecko wiring

[cnc-maker]

NEWB ALERT ... LOL

Hey guys, whilst waiting for my Masso to arrive I am going over the wiring to try and get it all sorted in my head.

Would just like to confirm for the Gecko G203 Vampire drive (they say these things are un- killable, but they haven't come across my wiring abilities yet).

Any way the Masso wiring diagram shows to take the common wire from the Vampire drive to the Masso power supply ground.

I notice the Masso unit has lots of pins marked Ground. I take it, the common can go to any of these plugs marked ground or is it preferable to go direct to the power supply ground plug. I know its a stupid question; but I would rather look like a dill on here than smoke up my new Vampires or Masso.

thanks in advance

 

[breezy]

@cnc-maker

When you are referring to "power supply ground plug" do you mean PS -ve, not the AC earth?

You can connect your various -ve wires to the "ground" pins on the MASSO.

I would create a -ve busbar and run all connections to it (star connections), this way if for some reason there was a heavy current draw between components you won't "smoke" the MASSO, just my personal opinion.

Regards,

Arie.

 

[cnc-maker]

OK, so this is the diagram Masso supply for wiring a G302V.

https://www.masso.com.au/masso-documentation/?section=gecko-203v.

It shows to connect the Gecko driver common wire to Neg pin on the Masso power connector.

By this i take it means the Negative coming from the 24V power supply going into the Masso unit.. so NO ... NOT Ground like i suggested in my first post.

PS: told you I would be testing out my Vampires claim to having eternal life

 

[breezy]

This photo is Bicton Men's Shed installation, you can see between the MASSO and power supplies there are a series of connector blocks.

Yellow/Green, Red & Black are used for AC power.

Blue & Grey are for 12v and 48v DC power with the two Grey sections connected together, for all -ve connections.

With the G2 version of MASSO there were no extra "ground" connectors, so all -ve/common/ground wires had to be connected together somewhere, hence the "busbar".

This setup has since been rehashed, VFD removed, power supplies moved over and the connector blocks rearranged.

It doesn't matter electrically where the -ve/common/ground wires are connected physically, it is just a case how to achieve it, so that is easy for you to install and in the future to troubleshoot. The only thing that you don't want to do is connect through a component, ie don't rely on a component to complete a power circuit for another component, it might let the magic smoke out.

Have a look through the forum for photos of member's installation and use that information to plan your build.

Regards,

Arie.

 

[cnc-maker]

Thanks Arie

so DC, Neg, Common and Ground ALL mean the same thing??

I thought Ground meant to Earth it out to the chassis box etc. Can the Ground for DC power go to the same point as Earth for AC power.

( I should have just gone with a G540 LOL. )

I guess I will just follow the wiring diagrams to the letter in blind faith, even if I don't understand why its telling me to do something.

 

[breezy]

Quote from CNC Maker on January 26, 2020, 7:00 am

so DC, Neg, Common and Ground ALL mean the same thing??

The terminology "Ground" comes from the early days of radio when one side of a high voltage transmitter was physically connected to ground and the other to the antenna which was insulated from ground, at the other end of the radio system the receiver was grounded, with an insulated aerial connected to the input, so earth and air completed the signal path. Hence one side of the internal circuitry was referred to as "ground". Since then we have moved on and there is no need to earth/ground DC circuitry, but the naming convention still continues.

I thought Ground meant to Earth it out to the chassis box etc. Can the Ground for DC power go to the same point as Earth for AC power.

Yes, "Ground" means to connect to a earth rod, somewhere in the AC electrical supply system.

No, DC should NOT be connected to a AC Earth point. Modern DC PS are double insulated from the AC supply. Connecting any part of the DC system to an AC earth can result in a dangerous earth return path.

I guess I will just follow the wiring diagrams to the letter in blind faith, even if I don't understand why its telling me to do something.

It can be confusing when manufacturers refer to the -ve side of the DC circuit by different names. Just work on the basis that all -ve points of a DC circuit connect together and none of them connect to a AC earth.

Regards,

Arie.

 

[cnc-maker]

Thanks, that clears up a lot of confusion.

So just to confirm, no part of the DC system, either the Neg, also called common or Ground should be connected to the AC chassis earth or AC chassis ground.

Why then, does the Masso come labelled with numerous plugs labelled Ground, technically shouldn't they be called Neg or Common????

Also, with regards to shielded cables for motors, is it in fact correct to attach one end of the shielding to AC ground, on the chassis.

A huge thank you for all your help on this

 

[breezy]

As I said before

It can be confusing when manufacturers refer to the -ve side of the DC circuit by different names.

MASSO have chosen to call those extra -ve connections "ground", but a better name would be "common".

Regarding shielded cables the shield should be only be connected at one end to AC earth. The purpose of this is to "ground" any Radio Frequency signals that may be radiated by the wires inside the cable.

Regards,

Arie.

 

[testyourdesign]

@cnc-maker

I started out with Gecko G201's on my first CNC router build almost 20 years ago. They are very robust drives and worked very well for my application. It might be a good idea to post some photos of your wiring once you have it done so that we can help you further if needed.

Cheers, Stephen Brown

 

[cnc-maker]

Thanks again guys,

Stephen, funnily enough I had exactly the same idea, I have purchased my enclosure, just waiting for all the other bits to arrive. But considering its Chinese new year, everything is in go slow mode.

Once i have it all together I will post pics..... for you to chuckle at ..

 

[cnc-maker]

Received my Masso and have it all wired up and relieved to say everything seems to work as expected. No magic smoke so ill take that as a win.

Looks like my expensive new 20mm Y axis ballscrew has a bend in it though, as rapids over 5000mm/min start the machine shaking.

The X axis I can get 12K/min although its too scary to be running any axis at that speed on a bench top machine .

Things I would love to see upgraded are a decent G code editor and Feed rate overide on the F11 key that goes over 100%,

anyway just wanted to say thanks for all the help you guys offered

In the end it was just the terminology that was confusing me

 

[breezy]

@cnc-maker

Looks like my expensive new 20mm Y axis ballscrew has a bend in it though, as rapids over 5000mm/min start the machine shaking.

That's bad news.

In the end it was just the terminology that was confusing me

Just glad we were able to help you to understand the terminology and that everything has worked OK.

Regards,

Arie.