Bad News All Around

So I've been meaning to post, and make lots of progress, but clearly neither of those things have happened.

1. The CNC mill is still not operational, because it operates off of this archaic thing called a "parallel port." I attempted to run a usb-parallel converter after installing linuxCNC on my Rose laptop. This was entirely unsuccessful. It's looking like I may have to build a new computer with a parallel port card, or try to order one from Sherline. Either way, costly. I could also just buy a bandsaw and do it more by hand. But where's the fun in that?

2. The controller I ordered at the beginning of this project needed to be reconfigured to adjust the voltage input (and maybe set to use voltage in instead of resistance). Regardless after going through the ridiculous act of buying a DB9-DB9 converter  from China (I guess they just didn't put the pins in the right order when they made the board), and emailing support to get the configuration software for the (now obsolete) controller, it wouldn't connect. After asking for the correct baudrate, and trying compatibility mode, I still got a nondescript failure to connect error. Tech support, while responsive, didn't actually help, and suggested that the RS232 chip might be bad and I should just buy another controller.

I might be able to figure something out. Or I could just buy another controller. From someone else, clearly.

Grad School, Nerdsniping, and things

So grad school is effectively done for me, which hopefully means I can put a lot more time towards this project. And I'll drag Daniel along for the ride, because he doesn't do his homework until the end of the semester, anyway.

I've been organizing, ordering, and checking my bank account, and actual work is finally starting to get done. This weekend I spent some time with the drawings to get the signal connections set up for the motor control (manual/diagrams are available on the google drive, for anyone who has access). The controller was bolted to the electronics plate, but I won't mount that plate until the motor is mounted. The reversing contactor still needs to be wired.



Much of this weekend's progress can be chalked up to the valiant efforts of Aaron Bamberger (AKA I nerd-sniped him) who helped me reverse engineer the circuit in the VW accelerator pedal I have. Despite some initial doubts, it will be usable, providing a linearly scaled voltage range from 0.7 to 4.6v. Some reconfiguration of the controller will be required.

 

After this, it was just a matter of connectorizing the correct wires and running them along the body of the vehicle. A revision will be done before the system is "done", but this will get me through early testing.