6 Axis CNC MACH3 Engraving Machine Interface Breakout Board USB PWM Spindle With ASKPOWER A131 Series

The strange name for the article is because control board doesn't seem to have proper name. And the VFD is also not Huanyang but it looks like so i hope this will help people to find what they need.

This instructable will be mainly describing the control board as this is nice board having 0-10V output for spindle control but no usable manual and i will also explain the connection to VFD ASKPOWER. The VFD image from user guide looks bit different from real think but there is really no need for the potentiometer as all parameters needed can be set from panel.

Step 1: Powering the Board

This board needs two power sources as they claim that isolating the digital from analogue part of the board is great idea.

In short: power the board by 24V and USB connection and it will all work.

Full explanation.

In reality it might depends on what you need. if you need only to power outputs (for motor drivers) it will happily work from USB connector. All you need to do is set you limit switch Active low in Mach3 as you do not have any signal input.

If you need Inputs (no PWM no Relays) and you have only 5V you can connect them to "5V out" connection. Obviously this is not the intended use but it works fine.

The intended use is the "12V-24V Power input connection" (on image marked as 24V). Manual says 12-24 which is not the whole explanations.

If you power the board by 12V you get 5V output, power for your inputs and PWM signal. "PWM 0-10V" terminal will be outputting 0-10V.

If you power the board by 24V you get all prevoius + the 3 Relays will work as they need 24V.

When the board is powered by USB the "5V Output power by USB" connections will have 5V. But trough these same connections the board can be powered by 5V instead the USB.

So at the end the 5V analogue output could power the 5V digital input to eliminate the USB supply for the board but you will lose the separation and that is probably not a good idea and again, not intended use of the board.

Step 2: Outputs, Pwm Relays

Outputs are relatively easy to set-up as their numbers represent the number you set in Mach3 as output.

One think to be careful is that the P1 is also used for 0-10V (mach 3 pwm) output. So if setting motor control. avoid using P1 as you might want it for pwm. In image the connectors is in green colour. The green Jumper if removed will disable the 0-10V output.

Outputs P14,P16,P17 always work but can be used also to control relay. To turn OFF the relay just remove the relay related jumpers.

In red square there are standard outputs with no special functions (except the P1). Can be set to control motors for example.

The outputs are 1V to -3.3V not 0 to 5V. So when Setting up the motor drivers you set ground to positive signal input. and your signals to negative. (white and yellow cables are signals, green is for ground.

Step 3: Inputs

The naming of inputs on the board is 0,1,2,3,4

But in mach3 they representation is 10,11,12,13,15 respectively.

Hopefully this is standard how the LPT port is set not just in my case.

The inputs connection is high meaning it sits at 5V and needs to be grounded to produce a change.

Image attached is just example showing how I set homing switches.

Step 4: PWM (0-10V) and Forward Rotation

VFD i am using can read 0-10V as input for spindle speed and this connection goes to the output of the control board (0-10V).

As previously mentioned do not use P1 output if you want to use pwm as same signal controls it.

The set-up to generate the PWM signal is in red square called Motor control. Note that the pwm base frequency is not speed of your spindle it determines the resolution of PWM signal and you can keep it 5-10Hz. Although on my set-up the signal VFD reading at 10Hz was erratic, I needed to set it to 100Hz to work properly. Probably due to the USB to LPT conversion device I use.

The PWM signal will be generated on ...motor outputs / Spindle (image2) which in case of this controller must be set to pin1 as the only one which can generate 0-10V based on pwm signal from Mach3.

I also use relay to turn on Forward rotation of spindle, this is not really needed the spindle can be turned ON on the VFD manually and completely controlled by pwm from complete stand still to full speed. But you would have to remember to turn the Spindle ON on the controller. So The red square called Relay control is used for this. I set Output 2 to be the signal to turn on the Forward spindle rotation and assigned it output pin17 which is one of the relays on the control board. The relay will control the FWD forward rotation ON/OFF signal. Simply Turns ON/OFF spindle.

Step 5: VFD ASKPOWER Spindle and Power

Spindle

U,V,W Connections on VFD Drive will be connected do spindle. Dosnt matter in which way. If the spindle will be turning wrong directions just swap any two connections.

Power.

R,S,T,Earth

I bought drive which can be powered by 3 phase source but i wanted to use it from one phase. Look at the image to see the set-up.

Step 6: VFD ASKPOWER Data Connection

The drive connections are well explained in manual so I just comet on relevant for this case.

You have 12V and 5V outputs available. Nice as the 12V is enough to power the PWM output of your board. Not relays thou. My control board is powered by 24V as I made a use of the relays for the FWD ON/OFF connection.

5V,10V,20mA IN. are inputs which you can use to set speed of your spindle. I Use the 10V input as my signal from control board is 0-10V (Yellow cable on VFD)

FWD when this connection is pulled low (connected to GND ground) the spindle is turned ON in FWD forward direction.

REW would be for turning the spindle on in opposite direction but I have no use for this on cnc.

Look at the image to see how I connected it to the driver Board. Notice that one ground signal is connected to common ground on the board. But another ground must be used for relay if we want use the FWD signal from the board. When relay is energised connects the ground and FWD Input signal line. this will Turn On the spindle in forward direction.

Software set-up is needed on VFD to read the inputs.

Step 7: VFD ASKPOWER Basic Set-up to Read Inputs

The set-up is simple. Well explained in manual. You have Pn01 to Pn35 menus on this drive. I left most of them in factory settings as my spindle is 400Hz, your might be different so read trough the manual. I only changed these settings:

Pn03 Source of runtime frequency. I set for 4. This will read external signal from 10V IN. When signal is 10V it will equal the max frequency you set for your spindle (400Hz in my case). If it will be 0 the spindle will be at stop.

Pn04 set to 2. this will read the FWD, REW inputs. So you can externally turn on and of your Spindle.

If this parameter is set to 1 you can turn on the spindle from the VFD start button. That is what you would need to do if you decided to omit the FWD signal.

Pn05 ive set to 1. so only clockwise signal is enabled (the one from FWD).

When buying this drive, buy matched set-up; means 1.5kW spindle and 1.5kW inverter or 2kW spindle 2kW inverter atc... This driver doesn't have the possibility to limit current as i have seen was possible on some other drives.

Step 8: The Wole Setup and LPT to USB

The first image is the whole testing set-up.

The second image is usb to LPT converter designed for mach3. I bought it with software which the company is making for control cnc but i wasn't happy with the control software as it was doing strange thinks like my motors where moving without sending signal atc... which wasn't any issue with Mach3. So i dont know where was relay the issue.

I had before boards designed directly for USB without any LPT and the communication was dropping in the middle of the work... well i might been unlucky.

So just as advice this little converter is called UC100 and works really well. Company is called UCCNC. It is about 100e which is expensive but first time i have no issues to control the board trough USB.

Anyway. I hope this will help to someone.

Thanks