Masso touch Gecko G540 issue

[dean-bledsoe]

I d like to start off by apologizing for the length of this post. I will post the problem first, then my current wiring scenario for reference.

WHEN I START THE MASSO TOUCH AND GECKO G540,THERE IS A HIGH PITCH HUM ON ALL AXES COMING FROM THE STEPPERS. THEY HAVE HOLDING TORQUE, BUT WONT MOVE. THE DRO NUMBERS CHANGE ON MASSO, BUT NO MOTION. I RESORTED TO HOOKING UP A SINGLE AXIS, NO DIFFERENCE, EVEN HOOKED UP AN OLDER MOTOR I HAD, SAME.

I read all the G540 problems on this forum I could find. One gentleman had a similiar problem. Turns out he had the ground from Masso power supply to the wrong pin(supposed to be pin 25) on the G540.

I recently purchased a Masso Touch, (2) Masso homing switches, Gecko G540, double shielded motor cables with molded in DB9 connectors, DB9 pro solderless connectors for each of the 3 axis motors, Mean Well SE-600-48 power supply, Drok buck converter, DB25 to FC26 cable, and a breakout board with terminals for the FC26 cable.

I put the Mean Well SE-600w-48v power supply and the Drok DC to DC step down power supply module in there own enclosure. I made a power cord for the Ac side of the power supply using shielded cable and connected the drain wire to only the wall plug side. I then ran a 4 core plus drain shielded cable from the power supply and buck converter (+\-legs of the 48v power supply and +\-legs of the buck converter, I also attached the drain wire if the shielded cable to the - leg of the power supply) to the Masso enclosure. I terminated the 48v supply lines to the terminals(pin 11 power/pin 12 ground) of the G540. I also turned off the pump charge switch and jumped terminal 10 to 12 on the G540. The G540 is attached to the back of the Masso touch. It s also fused with a panel mount 8amp fuse. The other 2 wires from the shielded cable I ran to the Masso G3 inside, which I also added a panel mount 1 amp fuse to the Masso + wire. I installed the motor cables and corresponding DB9 solderless connectors to the motor pig tails. I followed corvetteguy50 YouTube videos on how to wire the motor leads, since I purchased the G540, motor cables, and motor connectors from him. I also ran a ground wire from pin 25 of my breakout board, back down to the - side of buck converter. I set the converter to 24v and 2.0 amps. I mounted the (2) Masso brand homing switches to the x and y axes. I wanted to use accurate/repeatable switches for accuracy of homing the machine. I didn t know the Masso required homing switches on ea axes, and since the Masso switches wouldn t be in stock stateside til late July, I just used a generic lever switch to home z, and since it would be touched off before machining anyway. I also wired up a simple z touch off plate to be used as a tool setter and probe. I connected the +/-/signal wires to the inputs of Masso. I cut the alligator clip off the touch plate and grounded it to the machine frame. I terminated the puck to Masso input and tied it to power on the Masso via 5.6k resistor. I would also note that my VFD is in a separate enclosure and I installed an EMI filter in the enclosure. The spindle itself has had a ground wire soldered in and connected to the spindle body and also utilizes shielded cable.

 

[tmtoronto]

Are you using resistors on each motor cable? I did not see you mention this.

 

[dean-bledsoe]

Yeah, from pin 1 to 5.

 

[dean-bledsoe]

Ok, I had ordered a DB25 connector with a built in solderless board and it came today. I didn t have much time before leaving the house today, but I did have a chance to connect one axis and the ground cable. That solved the problem of no movement! However it still seems to be way to noisy at idle. In fact the frying noise stops while jogging? I also noticed when I switch the Masso and G540 on(same power supply with buck converter for Masso) it kind makes a flash on the Masso and a squelching sound. I have a separate 24v, should I try that and see if it helps with the noise? Any other ideas? Thanx!

 

[cncnutz]

Hi Dean,

MASSO should not be powered from same motor power supply as the stepper motors.
It is liable to be noisy when the motors are running and it will become an energy dumping ground when the motors decelerate or when you turn the power supply off.
The energy stored in the stepper motors when the power is disconnected has to go somewhere.

Please use the 24Volt supply you have on hand to power MASSO and it's accessories if it is suitable.

I am very concerned about the Flash you saw coming from MASSO. You should not be seeing anything like that.

Where about was the flash that you saw?

Cheers Peter

 

[cncnutz]

Hi Dean,

Just realized that you have the MASSO Touch and I assume that the flash you are seeing is the screen turning on just before the MASSO Logo appears which is normal.

I thought you had a normal G3 and flashes coming from the actual G3 unit itself is never a good thing.

Definitely try the separate power supply for MASSO and see if the strange noises disappear.
Cheers Peter

 

[dean-bledsoe]

The man himself! Huge fan sir. It seems in my effort to cut down on noise(only one power supply) perhaps I ve made it worse? I will try the suggestion of separate power supplies. Thanx Peter

 

[dean-bledsoe]

Ok, I swapped power supplies this am. Still noise as all hell. I beginning to regret switching from UCCNC(cheap power supplies, cheap drivers), big time. I can t understand for the life of me why you would combine homing with tool setter? Why not have this separate? Where I wanted to park my machine so I could load my spoil board was the opposite of where I wanted to touch off the tool. After setting up the tool setter, it s all one big long process and I have to send the machine back to the other side to load. I guess I ll redo my wiring and touch off plate so it can stay on one end of the machine. But the reason I mentioned regretting my purchase is because sometimes my machine stops(no stalling of steppers) as soon as the x home sensor is triggered(homing error), other times it just plows through the x sensor even though you can clearly see it s triggered and crashes(ignores soft limits), yet other times it homes(and touches off on the tool setter plate) perfectly. I ve tried acceleration from 100IPM all the way down to 50IPM. Sometimes as soon as it triggers(expensive Masso homing sensor), it stops immediately and reversed to home, then proceeds to the tool setter. Please help, buyers remorse is starting to set in

 

[cncnutz]

Hi Dean,

The noise must be coming from somewhere so the first thing is to find it and stop it.
I guessing now some sort of ground loop. Do you by chance have the Gecko 48 volt power supply -ve rail connected to MASSO -ve rail.
If you have then remove the link and see if the noise disappears. If that doesn't work we will have to look deeper.

With regards the other issues

• The best time to zero check the cutter reference length is when the machine homes.
  
• You can park the machine anywhere you like and your home position won't make any difference.
  Use the MASSO Parking feature. It gives you 3 ways to park. Press the park button in MDI, Set up a physical park button on your machine and with the press of the button the machine will move to your chosen location or use G30 at the end of your Gcode file to sent it to the park position at the end of your machining .
  https://docs.masso.com.au/supported-g-codes/g30-Move-to-parking-position
  
• I have a video on setting up homing which may help if you haven't seen it. Lowering acceleration will make homing worse not better. Lower homing speed helps but not lowering acceleration and you can't do homing until after you have completed axis calibration.
  

The only noise issue I know of with the G540 was cause by pin 25 not connected to MASSO Ground as you have already mentioned. Please double check that the connector you have is actually connection pin 25 with a meter. Check the continuity of pin 25 all the way back to the -ve rail of the MASSO power supply with a meter.
If you still can't get rid of the noise please send some photos of the wiring and any other information you think might be useful.
If you have to unplug everything from MASSO that is not related to the stepper motors and only connect 1 motor.
Work on one thing at a time or you will get nowhere.
If disconnecting thing stops the noise then add things back one at a time until the noise returns and go from there.

If you work through your issues one at a time you will solve them.
You can even take a short video of the motor noise so we can see and hear it if you want.

I hope this helps
Cheers Peter

 

[dean-bledsoe]

Thank you so much for your patience and I apologize that mine was about to run out. I ve corrected several things, though the noise issue remains. I watched all your Masso videos(and others) while connecting the Masso. I messed up the homing process with soft limits. I have my machine homing at the top of my Z(0) but at the end of my travel on x and y axes. So I had the soft limits dead nutz on top of my homing settings. I have since added unattainable numbers to the positive travel of the x and y axes and the zero of the z axis. I then enabled hard limits so my homing sensors are doing double duty. I ve loaded a gcode and I m fixing to cut some air. I am using the 24v power supply by itself to power Masso and I ve ran a wire from pin 25 back to the ve- on the 24v power supply. I will verify that 25 is the correct pin.after jogging the machine around and adjusting trim pos at idle, it s manageable. To be honest I can t hear it with the door on my enclosure shut. Put it s still not as quit as I would have thought. Especially seeing how about a Mean Well power supply from then(not Amazon knock off). Weird thin is with just the G540 on by itself, it s just as noisy. The thing that bothers me most is when you turn on Masso Touch and the screen flashes and kinda squelches, I can here it in the motors too. When I load my gcode up to run, does it automatically do a probe procedure? In other words I m not, where do I put my material thickness in? On Uccnc I had the probing macro that asked you for the thickness. Thanx for all your help!

 

[cncnutz]

Hi Dean,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you on this .
If the noise you mention is in the G540 when not connected to MASSO then it is not the MASSO / G540 connection causing the noise but the G540 itself.

I did some searching about G540 and motor noise and found several forum topics about motor noise.
https://en.industryarena.com/forum/showthread.php?t=140128&p=1261855&viewfull=1#post1261855

If this topic is to be believed there were changes made to the G540 drives that bring the switching frequency into the audible range to reduce heating on the motor at idle.

Ok, so talked with Jeff over at Soigeneris, and in a nutshell, yes, changes were made to these about 2 years ago. The change was to reduce the motor heat that was produced at idle. The switching frequency is at audible frequencies so you can hear it, but it does reduce motor heating at idle. Depending on the motors, the tone is different on some machines, but you can still hear it.

I was originally thinking that the noise was causes by grounding noise between MASSO and the drive but from your description and what I have read it sounds like the newer G540 drives can produce noise, hisses and chirping noises. The older drives that I have are silent but mine are rev 2 & rev 4 while yours is probably a revision 8. This is something new that I have not heard about before.

With regards probing and being requested for material thickness I can only imagine that you are using the custom probing routine that John Revell and myself worked on for UCCNC and Mach3.
This was an entirely custom probing routine and is not available anywhere else to the best on my knowledge.
MASSO uses an automatic tool measuring setup that will measure the tool length after probing and will automatically work out the tool offset for you. This is how industrial tool changers work although you need to manually change the tool if you don't have an automatic tool changer.

The probing routing available on the F3 screen does however have a Z offset that you can use to define your material thickness.
I am assuming here that you want to measure the zero point from the table top and tell MASSO that the material is 19mm thick.
This is simply done by entering -19 into the Z position box in the probing table. The 3 position boxes tells MASSO what the actual coordinate is at the point it is measured.
If you are measuring from the table surface and the material is 19mm thick then the bottom of the touch off plate is 19mm below the surface or -19. This is what you would enter into the Z position box.
The Z offset value is where you put the thickness of the touch off plate or sensor.
Hope that makes sense.
Once you have started machining MASSO will automatically use this to calculate future tool changes for you and you do not need to probe again until the next project.

Hope this helps.
Cheers Peter