CNC 6040 Spindle Control

Note: This is only an on - off control there is no speed control due to limitations on the CNC control box , you set the speed using the potentiometer on the VFD (Variable Frequency Drive). To be able to control the spindle connected to the NowForever VFD Spindle drive , the following is required. The Parallel port pin used was P1 deduced from the YooCNC PCB silk-screen markings RLY - P1 , this pin controls the Relay on this board. The contacts of this relay were wired in to the terminals X1 and COM on the NowForever VFD , see photos below. The LinuxCNC settings were in Stepper Configuration Wizard -> Parallel Port Setup -> Outputs (PC to Mill) Pin 1: Spindle ON , this enables the control of the spindle. The Spindle on and off buttons will now work on the LinuxCNC Axis GUI.

The G Codes required for turning on the spindle are

M3 S1 

then delay 5 Seconds to allow spindle spin up

G4 P5.0 

and for turning spindle off.

M3 S0

For milling PCBs I added these g codes to the software FlatCAM Options Tab.

Prepend to G Code

M3 S1 
G4 P5.0

and Append to G Code

M3 S0

This then means when the G Code is generated from my PCB design at the beginning of the job the spindle will spin up wait 5.0 Seconds start milling and finally will stop the Spindle at the end of the job. This hopefully will reduce the wear on the spindle by only having it on when it is doing some milling.

BT Infinity Finally!

I have finally received super-fast broadband and it was enabled on Wednesday morning around 10am. I never noticed till a day later when I looked at my MRTG speed graphs and noticed the upload had risen from 1Mbps to 13Mbps!!! The download speed stayed at the usual just below 15Mbps but this is because the MRTG graphing only uses the last valid number when in fact the reading actually goes off-scale. I re-tuned the Download speed graph value to 60Mbps and it looks sensible now.

So my surmising what the AIO pavement spray painting meant ie signifying the installation of a all-in-one FTTC was correct. This post may also give someone whose internet comes from a far away cabinet the comfort that they may eventually get a cabinet closer to their home like in my case , I was originally connected to a cabinet ~1.5km away then moved to a new cabinet that is only 600m away.

Below shows the now stablised modem negotiated speeds , you can see a little step increase in downstream speed about midway on the graph and this may be down to a period of line speed training.

I have also been graphing actual measured download/upload speeds to various servers around the country , chosen at random every fifteen minutes or so. On the graph below you can see a baseline roughly between 30Mbps and 35Mbps for download speed , the upload speed is around 8Mbps most of the time.

I have also noticed the gradual increase in Download speeds , this seems to be done in steps , as seen in the graph I recorded.