Have a look in the Triac threads and maybe some others on the board as the usual interface to common BOBs with 5V logic is a resistor and transistor to do the level conversion as IIRC the SD cards are internally pulled up to 12V and you need to pull them low to be active which a simple open collecto...

From my reading of the manual pin2 is minimum speed and not analogue ground but looking at the schematic in the manual pin2 is connected to 0V(pin4) through the minimum speed pot so pin2 could behave as the analogue ground if set to the minimum so pin2 equals pin4, I think better to use pin4.

The Lynx manual does indicate that the speed reference (pin3) is 0 - 10V input. For the pot shown connected in the manual it is connected to the 10V reference and the minimum speed reference so can give a swing from 10V to the lowest speed setting whatever that is set to. Your 0 - 10V may need to be...

I think the dongle is more likely to be a parallel port dongle as in over 20 years of working with software I have never seen a serial port dongle, only parallel and USB. The confusion may be that some serial ports use a 25 way D connector but they'll be male pins on the PC, the 25 way D for the par...

The part number VP0625-V1014-D2-0511 is searchable and comes up with quite a few hits on ebay and the maker http://www.nitto-kohki.eu/images/stories/products/pumps_and_air_compressors/ac_pumps_and_compressors/ac_linear_piston_vacuum_pumps/vp_0625.pdf . Quoted 9.84 inHg max vacuum so you've got a bit...

The image is a bit blurry but that looks to be 12.5 inHg (inches Mercury) where a full vacuum is 29.92 inHg so the vacuum is not good but it depends on the pump spec. 12.5 inHg is about 6.1 psi. I've pulled double that vacuum with an air injection vacuum generator.

I was thinking from Pete's description of the homing process that if the NAMUR sensor was contaminated or failed then the control card may thinks it's at home already and moving away to detect the transition but no change found so an indication of some issue hence the suggestion to try and check the...

My Triac PC uses NAMUR inductive proximity sensors for the home sensing rather than switches, they're 2 wire and there is circuitry on the auxilliary card to convert the changing resistance to an open collector signal for the main Denstep card home inputs. I don't know if they're susceptible to ferr...

My neighbours work is mainly small and I don't think the loss of 30mm or so in the Z direction has ever been an issue for him but if it was he can always come and use my Bridgeport J head mill. He did most of the machining on his Myford Super 7 but the machining of some final details such as the R8 ...

I just taken a few pics of the Tom Senior and my neighbour had the drawings he did of the R8 conversion parts so I've scanned those, see below.

Piotr, You have roller guides shown, consider making guides with bronze tips as well or instead of the roller ones. I have seen discussions about the pros and cons of each online but it's not something I have looked at recently but you may want to look at it if you haven't already. Both the fixed an...

Wardy,

Have a read of this recent thread http://www.denfordata.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=40&p=23863 . If your control board has the NiMH battery it may be the same issue of it leaking and causing comms issues.

I think I was wrong to say it is a NiCd, it seems more likely to be a NiMH. The battery markings say 2.4V 150mAh but no battery type on mine visible and the only ones that I saw that matched the design were NiMH from a search. Wiki lists the common electrolyte as potassium hydroxide so fairly corros...

Good to hear it's working again. I need to replace the battery on my board as it is a little crusty but I'm not actually using it as I'm converting to LinuxCNC and a BOB. Better you spend on a new NiCd cell and replace the one on the board with a new one, I expect RS and others sell them. It may be ...

I think this may be a similar board to the Triac PC I have and there is a NiCd battery near the comms area which is prone to leak and the crud may be the result of that and effecting the signals in the area. Can you post a pic. Cleaning the area carefully with distilled or deoinised water may help r...

Searching for "Device Driver Call Failed" turns up this thread on the BB http://www.denfordata.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1650 which indicates it may be a hardware issue. As that specific error message got one match it would seem to be a Denford software error message rather than Windows.

You might want to try a different USB lead, IIRC it was someone else here on the BB that had USB comms issues occasionally and it turned out to be a duff lead.

I don't know the cover but you could try using some toothpaste and water on a soft cloth or paper towel to polish it to see if the discolouration can be cleaned up. It's what I use to clean the rear plastic window in a convertible top and the plastic head lamp covers on my VW Passat. Cheap, quick to...

Regarding your question about why more current would flow when the motor is stalled. I'm assuming this is a permanent magnet DC motor like in my Orac tool changer, when the motor rotates as the windings are moving through the magnetic field they generate a voltage which opposes the applied voltage s...

I wonder if something like the electronic lead screw could be a viable alternative http://www.autoartisans.com/ELS/ . Searching for 'electronic lead screw' also now turns up at least one other similar project. The ELS project has been around for some years now and I would expect it to be good and so...