I had a careful look at the manuals for the Redline CNC and it appears to consist of two components:
- Touch panel module which is linked to the motion control box by USB, and DC power harness (mains to DC power supply is in the Touch panel module)
- Motion control box which handles all the wiring to axis motors, limit switches, VFD, etc
I am struggling to see how the E-Stop switch on the touch panel is linked to the motion control box. The DC power cable is via a 6 position Molex connector which
may also carry the E-Stop signal. There does not appear to be any external access to the E-Stop signal from the motion control box, however there are two non-committed pins on the IO DB-25 connector which could be related to E-Stop.
This is an area where Redline needs to address ASAP (may just be a documentation omission, however my engineering brain is looking at "what could possibly go wrong" and seeing red flags). If an additional E-Stop switch is desired (for example a machine guard around the spindle cutter), how would this be wired in?
I prefer to have my E-Stop wiring to be "hard-wired" and not dependent on a micro-controller to transfer the safety state to the final machining and control elements (I was struggling to find appropriate words, an active E-stop signal should "isolate all sources of power to the machine" [axis motors, spindle, compressed air if applicable, etc] - those words are effectively from the machine safety standards / legal code).
The wiring to the motion control box is via Molex Mini-Fit Jr connectors, this is more suitable for OEM systems than machine conversions or custom builds where screw terminals are more suitable. For a predesigned system the cables / wiring harnesses could be cost effectively outsourced. For custom / one-off wiring installations you are going to find more people who can use a screw driver compared to people who can use a crimp tool. For an OEM such as Onefinity, the Molex solution is probably better.
The official Redline documentation does not provide any details for the axis motor connections, there appears to be 4 signals pairs using differential wiring (Step, Direction, Enable to axis motor, Fault signal return). If I had access to the motion control box I could probably figure the pin-out in about 5 minutes. The limit switch connector is not documented but the 3 pin connector has 0V, +5V and Input; a quick check with a multimeter should be able to identify the pins (the 0V and +5V pins should have low resistance between equivalent pins on other axis [test resistance with power removed], the remaining pin must be the input).
(cut street cable, 52 subs off the air) so don't have full access to moderator features to take care of it.