Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
As nearly as I can tell, Epson designed a number of features into the R380 specifically to thwart CISS installation, including the awkward bridge across the middle of the printer that interferes with the flat tube feeding ink to the flying cartridges. I managed to route the previous CISS tubing around the bridge, but this time I figured enough was enough.
So I tucked a shop rag inside the printer, put a vacuum cleaner nozzle near the operation, and applied a fine-tooth pull saw to the bridge:
Epson R380 – bridge removed
That certainly simplified the rest of the installation…
Parallel port breakout boards of this ilk run about $14, complete with cable, on eBay:
5 axis parallel port breakout board
The PCB has no part number and the inferred URL isn’t productive. The “driver CD” accompanying it has doc for every possible board the vendor might sell and, absent a part number, the file names aren’t helpful. An exhaustive search suggests it corresponds to the HY-JK02-M 5-axis interface board manual.doc file.
Despite any implication to the contrary, the board does not have optoisolators between the parallel port pins and the outside world. The stepper driver bricks should, but the input signals from limit switches and suchlike connect directly to the guts of your PC.
This overview (from the manual) shows the physical pin layout (clicky for more dots) and reveals the hidden silkscreen legend:
HY-JK02-M Breakout Board – overview
It looks like the board I got added a spindle relay driver transistor, plus a few resistors over by the manual control connector on the right.
Notice that the fourth terminal on each axis is GND, not the positive supply required for the optoisolators on the 2M415-oid driver bricks, which means you can’t just run a section of ribbon cable from the breakout board to the brick. You’ll need a separate +5 V (or whatever) power supply wire for each brick, with a common return to the system ground for this board. Those terminals are firmly bonded to the top and bottom ground planes on the board, so there’s no practical way to re-route them.
The small switch in the upper left, just to the right of the parallel port connector, selects +5 V power from the USB port (which has no data lines) or the power connector in the lower left. The LED near the switch won’t light up until you have both the parallel port cable and the USB cable plugged in.
The doc includes a timing diagram with no numeric values. I established that it can’t keep up with a 500 kHz pulse train and seems content at 100 kHz, but that’s conjecture. Setting the timing to match whatever the stepper driver bricks prefer will probably work. The diagram suggests the setup and hold times for direction changes are whatever you use for the minimum time between step pulses.
This shows the functional labels:
HY-JK02-M Breakout Board – function labels
The parallel port connector output pins, sorted by function:
Pin
9
1
2
14
16
3
7
8
6
5
4
17
Function
Spindle
motor
Enabled
X step
X dir
Y step
Y dir
Z step
Z dir
A step
A dir
B step
B dir
The parallel port connector input functions, sorted by pin:
X -Limit
Y- Limit
Z- Limit
A- Limit
Emerg Stop
10
11
12
13
15
The table uses Chinese for Pin 15: 急停.
It’s not clear whether the pins on the manual control connector are inputs or outputs, nor what the three separate Enabled lines do:
P1
P2
P3
P4
P5
P6
P7
P8
P9
P10
P11
P12
P13
P14
P15
B step
B dir
A dir
Z step
Y step
X step
X dir
Enabled
5V/VDD
5V/GND
A step
Z dir
Y dir
Enabled
Enabled
The three white connectors in the middle drive an LED readout board that’s probably most useful as a DRO for CNC-converted manual mills using the pendant for positioning.
The small white connectors duplicate the functions of the green screw terminals. They’re probably useful in a small machine that I’m not building.
This isn’t the board I intend to use in the final setup, because I need far more I/O pins, but it’ll serve for the short term.
Collected from various spots around the Web, including evanescent eBay listings, and reformatted to make sense, these specs describe the 2M415 stepper driver: a smaller sibling of the 2M542 family.
Blurb
+15 to 40VDC Supply Voltage
H-Bridge, 2 Phase Bi-polar Micro-stepping Drive
Suitable for 2-phase, 4, 6 and 8 leads step motors, with Nema size 16 to 23
Output current selectable from 0.21 ~ 1.5A peak
Compact credit card size package
Optically isolated single ended TTL inputs for Pulse, Direction and Enable signal inputs
Selectable resolutions up to 12800 steps
Over Voltage, Coil to Coil and Coil to Ground short circuit protection.
Electrical specs
Parameters
Min
Typ
Max
Unit
Output Current (Peak)
0.21
–
1.5
Amp
Supply voltage
15
36
40
VDC
Logic Input Current
7
10
16
mA
Pulse input frequency
0
–
200
KHz
Low Level Time
2.5
µsec
Mechanical specs
Cooling
Natural Cooling or Forced Convection
Space
Avoid dust, oil, frost and corrosive gases
Ambient Temp
0 °C – 50 °C
Humidity
40 – 80 %RH
Vibration
5.9 m/s² Max
Storage Temp.
-10 °C – 80 °C
Weight
Approx. 150 gram
Dimensions
2M415 Footprint
Wiring diagram
2M415 Wiring
Notice that the driver requires a positive voltage for the optoisolators.
Of course, the box from halfway around the planet contained HB-415M drivers. Should you go looking with the usual keywords, you’ll find that HB-number turns up mostly “House Bill number” citations from various state legislatures. Popping the top off the drive reveals www.sikesai.com, which eventually produces a description and PDF datasheet for the driver. It turns out to be an “Ultra Low Noise” driver, whatever that means, with reasonably standard specifications that correspond more-or-less to the 2M415 drivers I thought I was getting.
After that picture, the pins soaked for a while, got a rinse & blotting, then sat for a while to dry. I can’t say that’s in complete accordance with the directions, but it’s close to the spirit of the thing.
Meanwhile, the MEK / xylene / acetone I added to the bottle of stiffened ReRACK repair coating had softened it up pretty well. They recommend several coats at half-hour intervals, of which this was the first:
Dishwasher rack – first plastic layer
I probably should have chewed off the corrosion bulging the OEM coating, but, given the number of pins that needed chewing, that started looking like a major project. Let’s face it, I can always touch things up if the pins continue rotting out.
The next morning, the rack was back in service:
Dishwasher rack – recoated pins
One advantage of a big blob atop each pin: the printed rack protectors might not wriggle off quite so easily.
It makes measuring PC power consumption much easier!
I picked up some cheap AC plugs and sockets, cut a short IEC extender cable in half, and wired ’em up. If the IEC extender link breaks again, search amazon.com for something like “computer power cord extension” and rummage around.
US NEMA 5 plug / socket hint: the blade marked W is neutral. More expensive hardware will have dark brass = hot, light brass = neutral, but don’t bet your life on it.
According to the sticker inside, I’ve been using my RayTek IR Thermometer since 2000. At some point in the last dozen or so year, Fluke Borged RayTek, which means yellow plastic instead of gray.
The pushbutton switch behind the trigger has recently gone from intermittent to nonfunctional, but everything else still works fine: some simple surgery should suffice…
The handle has a flip-down cover, for the battery compartment and °C/°F switch, that pivots on molded hinges. The cover’s hinge pins are rectangular with a slight bevel and the case sockets have a notch that will just clear a properly aligned pin. Given this hint, you’ll get the cover off much faster than I did:
RayTek IR Thermometer – handle joint
Remove the obvious screw and press the latches while prying the two halves apart. A small screwdriver helps persuade the latches to release their death grip:
RayTek IR Thermometer – case latches
The parts heap didn’t have any suitable through-hole pushbutton switches, but I managed to solder an SMD switch in place; the original switch is parked atop the IC for reference. Yes, the white button is slightly taller than the original black one, but it doesn’t matter:
RayTek IR Thermometer – new switch installed
Then it’s just a matter of tucking everything in place:
I bought an off-lease Optiplex 780 in the Small Form Factor (SFF) version to replace my ancient Pentium D; it’s also available in Small Desktop Tower (SDT) and Ultra-SFF variations. The SFF box has two PCI slots and one PCI-E slot, which let me install a half-height dual-output video card, with results described yesterday. I innocently believed the PCI-E slot would have enough clearance for the video card, what with these things being standardized and all.
Turns out that the heatsink collided with a flange on the hard drive carrier, with about 5 mm of overlap. Fortunately, the bracket is plastic and I have no qualms about chopping up the hardware. A few minutes of Quality Shop Time removed a section of the offending flange and gave the video card just enough clearance:
Optiplex 780 SFF drive bracket
The heatsink reflects in the shiny surface of the carrier, with the scar from the missing flange just above that. The small dark-gray disk on the far left is a grommet holding a pin that supports the drive; it installs through the larger circular opening and snaps leftward.
You must install the video card and then snap the drive carrier into place. The heatsink protrudes above the flange, with the left side just barely clearing that grommet.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 