New EX control boards

I have a custom built machine and control, but I use the 850 and 860 boards in my cabinet. Currently I use a UC300eth and an additional charge pump board, but I’m super interested in the new centroid acorn based controls because I’ve been frustrated by Mach and UCCNC.

Is there a new set of boards from AVID to allow me to easily use an Acorn with the existing 850 board for the m12 sensor connections?

We still use the 860 boards in these new controls but not the 850 boards.

I am not sure if we can sell you the boards separately but you could contact support and ask.

I would like hear about your experience with the Acorn controls.

Before I worked at Avid CNC I ran them in several machines that I converted. The Acorn is rock solid reliable which is what attracted me to it. I was able to take some old machines I was running that had unreliable controls and make them into rock solid reliable machines that went from being flakey to absolute workhorses.

When I got here and we started going down the path of evaluating new controls Centroid quickly rose to the top because of the reliability and flexibility.

A controller that can do this:

Is not only very impressive, but also addresses a lot of things that we have wanted to do for a long time. If you haven’t read through this post, it explains why we made the switch:

I asked but according to support the proposed option is to offer up to a $500 credit when trading in my old nema 34 system for a new EX control.

Not sure how that makes sense… bought the nema 34 system for 2600. So I would buy the new system at probably the same price (the $3000 option minus the motors and wiring since I already have them). And get a $500 credit. But it’s up to $500, so I may not even get that for whatever reason.

So I would spend $2100 and then also lose the original electronics? So the obvious option is just to buy the new system outright lol.

Would love to see a clean retrofit kit option for those comfortable enough to do it. At this point I’m willing to just try to wire it up on my own and replace the 860 board with the field wireable connectors.

Happy to support Avid but this is kinda lame.

We are actually doing the retrofit when we get traded in controllers. When you trade in we will take your controller and swap in all of the new electronics. Or in some cases you’ll just get all new parts, it depends on the state of your trade in. However it ends up you’ll get a full EX controller with a full warranty

You can actually do this yourself. We are going to release a technical manual just like the ones we have done in the past for the Mach contrlller (it’s close to being done). This will show you all of the IO and how it works. If you’re comfortable you can do a swap in a few hours. This is actually how I built our first prototype Acorn controller, and I am still running it to this day. You won’t even need our special interconnect board either. You’ll just have more wires in your box (the interconnect board eliminates the need for a lot of wiring)

If you match the IO the way we have it mapped out you’ll even be able to run our version of CNC12 so you’ll get all of our cool software features.

You can buy an Acorn board either from us or from Centroid directly.

I think the second option is great if we could get the new breakout boards. There are those of us that live outside the 48 states so shipping the controller back would be cost prohibitive/cause a much longer period of downtime. I understand the acorn has on board opto isolators and relays that the 850 boards add to the smooth stepper so I imagine less of the things in the 850 board are actually needed.

I guess my only want is to be able to connect to the existing motor and sensor port boards.

If you don’t mind cutting and crimping wires you can install an acorn into an existing Mach based controller with no breakout boards needed. I’ve done it several times myself. When I’m back home I’ll see if I can dig up some pictures.

I don’t mind doing it, I was just hoping there was a way to make use of the existing board with the m12s. I guess I could just get a terminal Block for that ribbon cable, but I was hoping you had a new board that provided all the pass through for the acorn.

You can. There’s a breakout board on Amazon that plugs right in.

Sysly IDC16 2x8 Pins Male Header… https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074TGVCPW?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Everything else you can just wire in.

I was actually thinking of exactly this just now. With the acorn having isolated inputs and actual relays, for a one off build, the 850 is not necessarily needed any more right? I know the 850 had the isolation because it’s not on the ESS itself.

You don’t need the 850 at all if you’re wiring it yourself. In fact it’s easier to not use it because you don’t have to reverse engineer it. You just wire to the labeled pins on the drivers directly.

Thank you, a technical manual sounds great. Is it safe to assume you will post here when it is available?

That’s good to hear. Not super familiar with the centroid yet but it looks like all the j outs and outputs are properly isolated so we could indeed skip the 850. Then use the 860 with a breakout board for the m12 connections, and then run the avid version of cnc12 right?

It will go on our support site where all of our current technical manuals are

Yes. Centroid has many schematics on their site that you can check out for wiring examples.

You can run our version or centroids version. If you run ours you’re going to want to match the inputs and outputs so that our software knows where to look for signals.

Just remember while we encourage mods this would be an unsupported setup

Hey all, Ahren here. I’d like to clear up a little bit of confusion around the options, pricing and logistics for upgrading a CRP800 controller to a stepper-based EX system.

We have been focused on new systems for our initial launch, but we’re super-excited to offer upgrade options to our existing customers. The discounts we can offer are more than just the trade-in value of your old controller - if you send us your controller, we can offer a “rebuilt” controller for much less than a new system. If you keep your existing motors and cables, on a NEMA 34 system you’ll save over $1500 off the price of a new complete NEMA 34 EX system, putting the total upgrade cost at just over $1600 plus shipping.

Logistically, we’re adopting a “core charge” model so you can keep running with your existing system until your EX system arrives. You’ll receive your rebuilt system at a discounted price, along with a return label for your controller. You can reuse the packaging from your EX controller to return your existing controller, and you’ll get the final part of the discount once your old controller comes back to us.

While Eric is right that you can wire things yourself to get similar functionality to a factory-built EX controller, there are a lot of changes from the CRP800 systems:

  1. The enclosure itself is new to accommodate multiple gland plates and shifts all the motor and sensor connections to the side of the control box for easier connection.

  2. There is a custom interconnect circuit board to help enable all of the connections from the main connector gland plate to the Acorn

  3. The layout of the box has changed significantly to enable easier wiring and to incorporate various power supplies that support new features of the EX controller, such as z-axis brake support and a separate safety contactor.

  4. There is, of course, a new Centroid Acorn card in the system.

These changes required new mounting brackets and a different hole pattern on the interior plate. There’s a lot of new functionality to fit in a tight space, so while you can potentially do something similar, it’s definitely going to be cleaner if we do it.

We’ve gotten a ton of correspondence about these controllers since the initial announcement - we appreciate all of your interest! Our customer team will be reaching out to customers who have asked about upgrades with more specific information and quotes in the next couple of weeks.

4 Likes

Thanks for answering those questions. I had a couple more that I have guesses on, but was hoping you could clarify.

  1. Is it possible to have a system with both servos and steppers? For example a stepper on the rotary axis and servos for X,Y, and Z?

  2. Are there any unused inputs or outputs on the acorn board? For example if you wanted to DIY a bust boot with a small stepper.

  3. Will any changes be needed to the control board for the eventual ATC system?

I’m super excited by the work you guys are doing.
Thanks.

No, it’s all one or the other

If you don’t have a rotary you could repurpose that output for another stepper/servo

For other IO (sensor inputs and relay outputs) you could repurpose the A sensor into something else (like a dust boot sensor) and you could use one of the relay outputs for something else if you wanted.

Nope! When ATC comes there will be a new box that will plug and play right into the EX control that will have everything you need for ATC. Additionally if you have a VFD that can run our 8.7 spindle the new QTC spindle will plug and play right in.

Hi Eric
Is there any talk of adding a 4hp atc spindle?

If I stay with the nema 34’s for a while and decide later I’d like to upgrade to servos are there additional hardware changes to the machine to be made?

We’re still working through the spindle stuff, we’ll defintiely have more to share on that really soon.

You can do that, however you’d need a different control box. Servo controls do not have any stepper drivers in them. The power for the servos is distributed from a “power node” that’s mounted on the gantry.

Additionally there are signal cables that need to go to the servo system that are different from stepper systems.

So could you convert from Nema 34s to servos? Absolutely. You’d need to swap your control box and run new wires, but our upgrade kit would take care of all of that for you.

1 Like