Eric, I have two red lights on the controller box, rotary servo power and servo senser. I just got to this point, but I thought I’d post just in case I can’t find the solution. Thank you very much for getting a new z axis sent out so quickly.
After I hit the reset button and jogged around abit they all have red lights on so maybe that’s correct
I had the same issue. Call avid support before you try this to confirm. On the board inside the control box that connects to the outputs, there are sets of 3 pins with jumpers spanning between two of them. They told me to move the jumper connected to the A-axis to the other orientation, spanning the middle pin and the previously un-jumped pin.
I also am waiting on a new z-axis - I am guessing the retrofit didn’t work for you either? Did you figure out what was wrong with it?
well thanks for the info greg, the instructions referred to a jumper several times about the rotary axis but it was never clear what to do, so I will try that jumper. Do you have anything on your cnc12 screen that moves the A axis?. As for the Z there was not enough room to install the bearing and break on the ball screw, I was quite surprised when they offered to send me a new one.
Now I need to figure out how to work my ATC spindle with this new system, any ideas?
You might consider looking at the Centroid Community CNC Support Forum. I don’t know how the Avid CNC12 setup is different from the ‘stock’ Centroid CNC12, but what I’ve seen seems mostly cosmetic in the sense that the guts of the system is still Centroid CNC12. Features like ATC are well supported in Centroid CNC12.
I’ll be interested to see how different the Avid and stock CNC12 differ as things evolve. I’m particularly interested to see how upgrades are handled by Avid. Centroid’s process is pretty clunky.
Hey @Bstanga red = “good to go”
Those red lights are tied to the “HLFB” signal of the Clearpath motors. HLFB stands for “High Level Feedback”. When the motors are in a fault state those red lights are OFF. When the motors are an “all systems go” state those red lights illuminate.
“All systems go” only happens after homing is done.
The fault signals all share one input on the Acorn, so if you are missing a motor in your system (like you don’t have a rotary) you need to jumper that motor’s HLFB signal so your control doesn’t think you’re constantly in a fault state. So a jumper set to the 1 state = that fault signal for that motor is bypassed. We ship the controllers with the A signal bypassed by default as most people don’t have a rotary.
Not only did we do a lot of cosmetic change, but we extensively customized a lot of the macros that are in CNC12. The wizard is also something we built in house to help you get your machine setup much more easily. We have/are working with Centroid really closely to get some of our improvements rolled back into Centroid’s CNC12 version as well.
The new touch plate utility is just one thing we worked on together.
We have worked really hard to make that a whole lot better. It starts with our Profile Manager that allows you to swap to different Centroid profiles at will. We also have the ability to do “delta” updates to profiles, so if we make some tweaks to CNC12 we can issue a software update that you just apply over your existing install to get the updates.
If there is a major revision from Centroid it’s likely that we’d have to ask users to move to a new profile, which is another advantage of the Profile Manager: You can install a new profile without losing your old one. Great for migrating from an older version to a new version in a non destructive way.
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That sounds great Eric! It’s so good to see Avid bring fresh perspective and capabilities to the Centroid ecosystem.
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Hi Eric, i just got my Ex controller set up as well, everything is fine except im still missing the z axis cover material as the one sent was the same length as the previous. That aside, i just got my rm70c from cncdepot with the plug and play control box, in the wizard which spindle should i select, the “generic” or one of the other spindles? If i choose generic, is there any addidtional things i have to configure? I cant get the spindle to start. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
Lucas
I would use the 8.7 option. That will get your RPM settings where they need to be.
And just to add on to that… the spindle settings are pretty basic:
Any spindle you choose will enable the “spindle start” relay which is the most important part. Secondarily the settings will set the min/max RPM and in some cases pick a custom warmup routine. The 8.7 settings will be just fine for your RM70 though.
Thank you! Im still getting an EF1 code on the automation direct vfd which is an “emergency stop” code. I did see there are jnstructions on the avid page for changing some vfd parameters, would this apply to my vfd as well, im assuming thats whats tripping out my vfd?
Unfortunately no… you’ll have to look at the VFD setup instructions for that particular VFD to get it to work.
The automation direct vfd looks like an identical knockoff the delta vfd, the parameter 2-13 is “multi function output” also set to 11 by default
If it’s knock off there’s a chance that the parameters might be the same/behave the same.
What I can tell you is that Centroid is looking for the spindle fault relay to be closed when the spindle is NOT in fault (IE on and ready to go)
If you can’t program your VFD that way you can disable spindle fault detection in the wizard, it’s under “warnings”
This way Centroid will ignore the spindle fault, but be careful: It WILL try and cut if you forget to turn your VFD on
@Bstanga Ah yeah I remember seeing your post. Mine all fit together, but for some reason made a grinding noise and threw a drive error after the install. Hopefully user error, but it has a couple thousand hours on it as well. Didn’t sound perfect even when it was functioning well before the servo swap. After an hour on the phone with avid support checking through everything and not finding a solution they kindly offered to send me a new one and figure out what was going wrong once I send the old one back.
Thats the issue, i got rid of the code error, but acorns wont turn my spindle on. Even if the spindle was wired for mach4 application, theres no longer an error code on vfd one would assume that the spindle should fire up, is there some type of sequence or procedure to start the spindle in cnc12, im still trying to get a feel for the software and cant find any basic operational instructions, if you happen to have a link to show how to use the software beyond the homing (as far as i got) it would help a lot
Check to see how the spindle fault wires are connected in the GS20. IIRC, the indicated terminal came wired R1O from CNCDepot. CNC12 wants to see R1C.
Yep, youre correct, the wire is hooked into R10, shoud i swap it, does it need any parameter change?
Just swap that one wire to R1C.
Swapped the wire, you sir are the Man!!! Thing fired up!!!
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Spindle works perfectly, going through the break in cycle, i dont know if you can help with this, but the fan on the spindle doesnt turn on when i run the spindle nor am i getting any case pressure. Seems like the relays arent kicking on. Lastly, how do i perform a manual tool change, insert/remove tool holder through the software or do i have to add an external button to trigger the solenoid?