Adding a rotary to 60W with Ruida controller

Hi everyone, still new and still learning. I have a 60W Red and Black Laser that has the Ruida 6442S controller. This laser did not come with any Rotary attachment nor any connections for one. I can see that it uses the Y axis for the rotary, so I just want to know how to add this.
I have picked up a second hand roller type as well as have available a chuck type from a cnc mill/drill that I can use.
I can see both steppers have 4 wire, Red,Blue,Black,Green, so I am making an assumption here that both Pulse and Direction would be the same for all as far as wire color is concerned ??

If I was to add a 4 Pole 2 Position switch to the unit and use this to switch between the original Y Axis for the Laser and the new “Plug” that will allow me to connect either the roller or the chuck, then this should be correct ??

I know that I need to configure the change in Lightburn for the Rotary Setup, but have I forgotten something or have something incorrect, before I start this change.

Thanks
Ian

My 60W bundle came with a rotary, chuck style and has a port in the bulkhead for a 4-pin DIN threaded type connector. Are you certain you don’t have such an opening? If you glance about the controller bay, do you see a stepper driver connector sitting idle?

I’ve installed a four pole double throw switch in my controller bay, a lot of wires! One of the crimped connectors was not properly done (operator error) and my stepper had a bad case of the jitters until I located it.

It’s mounted on a scrap of aluminum angle, secure from accidental shorts and easy to flip from one device to the other.

Be sure the system is powered off whenever you flip the switch, or you’ll be replacing a controller if the fates are not on your side.

Configuration in Lightburn is a matter of selecting the Rotary interface and changing the settings there for your specific job.

Thanks @fred_dot_u, on looking at my unit, I do have the cable and plug for the stepper driver, but cannot see any port in the bulkhead. So there is no stepper driver, just the cable. Do I need to install the stepper driver as well, or would I just be using the same stepper driver as is used for the Y Axis, hence the re-cabling and installation of the switch. ??

Could you possibly supply a photo of where yours is installed in the bulkhead.

Ian

Installing a separate stepper driver for the rotary can be useful if the rotary motor is smaller than the one on your Y axis. If that’s the case, you’ll want a different motor current setting for each, and just swapping the stepper plug isn’t going to give you that - if you ever forget to drop the current when switching to the rotary you’ll fry the stepper, so spend the $25 on another driver.

Then you can wire the step & direction lines from the controller to both stepper drivers, and put a toggle switch on the enable pins to choose which one is active, which saves some hassle as well.

Whoa! I hope the folks in China who bundled my rig allowed for matching stepper motors, as I had not known of this fact until now. I’ll have to examine that tomorrow.

@iantull, if you have the cable and connector sitting “unassigned,” the other end should lead to the connector in the bulkhead. On my machine it’s inside the cutting bay, front right corner and is a set of four pins in a circular connector.

I’ve done a bunch of rotary jobs after getting the laser, not so many lately and it’s holding up okay. I suppose if the current required is a close match, it’s survived well enough.

I’d like to see a diagram for the enable switch concept. It sounds like an easy enough way, and I wasn’t aware the stepper drivers were that inexpensive.

Can the enable switch be activated while the system is powered up, or does it have to be powered off before flipping the switch?

As long as you’re within the same ballpark it’s ok. If you have a NEMA 23 on the Y axis and a NEMA 14 on the rotary you’ll have some trouble. :slight_smile: A lot of chuck-style rotaries use relatively large steppers, but roller setups tend to be smaller.

I’m unable to easily access the Y motor, but it’s about the same size as the X motor which is about the same size as the rotary motor, all of them a bit more than 50 mm deep. I think I got lucky or the engineering played out correctly.

If it was all from the same seller as a package they probably chose accordingly.

Hi @fred_dot_u, the cable that is unassigned is for connecting to another stepper driver, so comes from the controller as far as I know. I have not looked to closely but will do that later.

Thanks
Ian

Thanks @LightBurn, I do have a few spares from a cnc project a few years ago and have found a couple of Leadshine MD556 Stepper Drivers as well as a couple of SureStep motors, that were purchased at the same time. I am thinking of changing the motors on both the Roller as well as the Chuck so they are the same, that way I could use both without needing to hassle over the settings for the current and add the toggle switch for the enable pins as you suggest.
Another project to do :smiley:

Ian

@fred_dot_u, I found the connector you were talking about, it was already there as you said. Mine did not come with any rotary nor even an offer of one, so I was unaware that the cable was going to that connector. Thanks for that info, it saves me some work. I am now going to add another driver that can be configured for the motors on the roller and the chuck rotary, all I need to do is work out how to connect the enable line and switch them on the drivers.That will be my next question to the group. I just don’t want to do this wrong. :frowning_face:

Thanks
Ian

Hi @LightBurn, I have installed another driver, but I’m unsure of how to use the enable pins on the drivers ??.
I see that the original drivers don’t have any cable going to them and it would appear that they enabled when like that, so how do I use this connection to “disable” them via a switch ??

Any help appreciated.

Ian

There’s a good chance that Enable is opposite, IE adding 5v to the enable pin might disable it. In any case, having the switch send 5v to one driver and not to the other, based on a toggle, should still work. You could also just connect a switch to the motor power input for the two drivers and select between those.

Thanks @LightBurn, I shall investigate and see how I go.

Ian

Once upon a time I had a look through the user manual for these and I’m pretty sure you pull the enable pin low to disable, let it float to enable.

After I wrote that I started getting a naggety little feeling that it might not be true.

It’s not quite…

The driver inputs are optically coupled and you need to poke a little bit of current through the LED to turn the driver off.

There’s 2 inputs: ENA+ and ENA-

You need to either connect ENA+ to the driver Vcc (24V) and then switch ENA- to ground (0V) to turn it off, or else you can ground ENA- and switch ENA+ to 24V to turn it off. And if your PS voltage is 24V you’ll also need a 2KΩ resistor in series.

Here’s the user manual. It has some drawings of typical connections. http://leadshine.com/UploadFile/Down/DM556m.pdf

Thank @Hank for that info, before I read it I had already decided to just use the power going to the driver, so I have a switch that provides V+ to the correct driver. I am not sure re being able to do this whilst the controller is on so I am switching the main off then changing to rotary and or back to regular Y axis then powering back on again. The only issue is that when changing to Rotary, it takes a while for the unit to “time out” as it can’t find a home switch.

Ian

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