This is part 2 of the RoboElectronics X2 CNC controller project.
Now that the power supply for the stepper motors is inside the controller enclosure lets go on.
The rest of the electronics placed in this controller need some power to.
Therefor I have placed another switching power supply 12V 8,5 Amps.
This will power the secondary side of the XD14 breakout board (See part1).
But as I told you the breakout board is isolated, so also the PC side needs some small power.
So I had to place a USB connector in the back panel of the CNC controller.
You can also choose to place the breakout board directly on the back panel of course.
In the front panel will be a power switch, but this switch can only transfer 6Amps of current.
The solution to this is to use a SSR (solid state relay).
This is basically a normal relay but without moving parts ‘solid state’.
So with a small voltage and current I can now switch 24~380Vac at 60Amps.
I will use 2 SSR’s as I will also start and stop the spindle (kress 1050FME) from the software.
Here you can see the two power supply’s the two SSR’s and the shunt for the panel meter.
Now it’s time to introduce you to a new feature… And again just an extra, and not needed to run CNC.
The PoKeys55T from poscope.
PoKeys55 is an easy-to-use USB device that combines standard keyboard and joystick simulation,
and does not require complex programming knowledge.
Pokeys55 provides 55 digital I/O (5V tolerant), 5 analog inputs (10-bit) and 1 analog output (10-bit).
All the I/O is controlled by the provided software.
PoKeys55 can be used as industrial or CNC control, custom joystick or keyboard or data acquisition board.
Why do I use this? Well because I already know I will make a pendant in the future.
And I will use is to drive a 4×20 display in the front panel.
What will the display show? Don’t know yet 🙂 but I like the extra’s haha…lol
For more info on this part, and the datasheets etc. checkout the poscope website.
I routed out a piece of acrylic and mounted the breakout board and the PoKeys on it.
This way I could place it on top of the SSR’s to save valuable space in the way to expensive enclosure.
The display that the pokeys can drive must be one of the HD44780 chipset.
I will use a 4 row 20char display, blue LCD 4×20
Mains power connector used is type Neutrik NAC3FCA and Neutrik NAC3MPA.
The mains power out for the spindle is the Neutrik NAC3FCB and Neutrik NAC3MPB.
That’s it for part 2, in part 3 I will be making the front and back panel for the enclosure.