Setting up the Shark HD4 for someone else.

[fwharris]

I got signed up here to hopefully get some help and guidance for setting up the Shark HD4 for a local associate of mine who is in the business of making and commercially selling cremation urns. He has gone from farming out box front carving at a local cnc shop, then buying a CarveWright to do in house carving and to now buying the Shark. He went for the Shark because of it's 7" Z height and the laser attachment.

Since I was the one who helped him get his CW up and running and trained his shop guy to run it, he has asked me to get his shark up and running. I have it all assembled and running from the pendant controller. That part was really simple. He also purchased the water cooled spindle upgrade http://shop.nextwaveautomation.com/shop ... itemid=147 and the laser http://shop.nextwaveautomation.com/shop ... itemid=161

This is where my first set up help questions starts. I have the spindle installed (minus the cooling pump and hoses) and hooked up to the voltage inverter control box. Is there special programing needed to set this up? Or is it as easy as just turning on the spindle and setting the speed? I find the instructions to be a bit vague and confusing for the most part.

Is it required to run the cooling system even for short (1 to 2 hour carve times) or is it a MUST at all times?

Is it a bit over kill (other than the quite) to have the spindle vs a router for jobs that will be maybe 2 hours long at the most?

I find that I get the most help from they guys who are hands on and use the equipment than I do them dang hard to follow instruction books.
Thanks in advance for any input you might have.

[SteveM]

I don't have a spindle, but every time you run it, you need coolant running thru it, otherwise you will burn out the bearings.
It probably came with a pump & lines and you will need a 5 gal pail with water close to the machine. Hookup the lines and you're ready to go.

The spindle is not connected to the control box. You will have to start it up before you run your project.
As for running a job for a few hours at a time, the spindle is probably the way to go.
I know of people running a router for 10 or more hours at a time on there CNC machines, without any problems. If I had the money, I would get a spindle for my machine.
The benefit of the spindle is noise and more torque than a router and the bearings last longer. It also doesn't have brushes to replace like a router.

Hope this helps!

[fwharris]

SteveM,

Thanks for the input on the spindle and the need for the cooling system to be hooked up for any use. I did enjoy the nice quite humming sound when I fired it up. I did see in the instruction that it should not be connected to the control box plus comments on the nextwave forum. The spindle does take more time to get up to carving speed than a router. I will wait for him to get the bucket for setting up the pump. He still needs to add another electrical out let and buy a computer for set up at the machine to finish up the set up.

Will be hoping for some input from those who have this spindle set up for some direction on the need of any programing.

Thanks again,

[SteveM]

With the HD4, a computer isn't necessary!
That is what makes this Shark different. You run the whole thing with the pendant.
All yo do is create your tap file, load it onto a USB drive and plug it into the side of the pendant.
That is the beauty of the HD4, no computer in the dusty shop.
You can run it with a pc if you want to. Everything runs thru the control panel software.

[fwharris]

The computer he is getting will be more for design purposes than it will be for running the HD4 plus it will also free up the office computer. I think his plan is to get a lap top so that it is easier to store away from the dust.

Do you know if you can have both, computer and pendant, up and going at the same time? Meaning like control the carving process from the pendant and watching the tool path running on the computer. Or is it one or the other?

[SteveM]

I do all my graphics on a laptop and desktop then copy the tap files to a USB stick.

You can run the HD4 on a PC connected to the machine, but reading the posts, there were or still are problems with windows 10 and it's updates, screwing up the control panel firmware. From what I understand, NW tech support says they now have it working. If he will be using Windows 7 or 8, there aren't supposed to be any problems running the machine connected to the control box. The big thing is, from what I understand is, you have to make sure you don't have any settings such as screen saver or sleep mode running in the background. If you do and are running a project, you will be making a lot of scrap.
If you're running a project and the PC goes into sleep mode, it will cause problems.
The PC would be connected to the control box with a USB cable. The pendant is connected with a 15 pin cable. I really don't think they will both run at the same time. I suggest you give tech support a call. They are very helpful and willing to help. Just make sure you call them during the day. They are on eastern time.

The pendant controls many different things, such as cutting speed, speed adjustment for all 3 jog modes. You can actually control the speeds in fast, med and slow modes. You set all your X Y&Z axis, if you have a touch plate, you will also control it with the pendant.
This is all a big learning curve, because there HD4 manual isn't written very well and doesn't explain much. It's a learn as you go sort of setup.
There is lots of help on this site. Mayn others know far more tham me about running this and other CNC machines.

[Rando]

I always find it hilarious when "screen savers" are somehow the issue, given that it's completely trivial for an application to stop the screen saver from becoming active. There are dozens of code samples available, all you have to do is search. To turn it off, and this is perfectly legitimate, especially if you record the original value and restore it when you exit.

To turn it off:

Registry.SetValue("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop", "ScreenSaveActive", "0");

And to turn it back on, just give it a 1. But, best to read it first, and only change it if it needs to be. Yeah, there are other things you can or might want to do to affect things like the USB power shutdown on idle (long-running single-block GCodes, like an G01 move at slow feedrate that goes across the whole bed, that kind of thing). But even that is pretty simple code.

Life could be so wonderful....

[fwharris]

Steve,

I do the same thing with putting the tap file on a flash drive to be loaded to my machine.

I have disabled the screen saver and sleep mode on all of my computers. I find them to be a PIA to begin with. I will make note about the win10 issues and do some reading up on it.

I've read the pendant manual a few times so I am getting familiar with all of functions it controls and what you can do with it. Totally agree with you on the documentation issue. Since I do have another type of cnc that learning curve has started to fatten out some. I do find that more is gained from actual users anyway.

Rando,

I agree that the screen saver should not have any affect on a running program but some do for some reason. Thanks for the reg edit tip!

[mphwoodwerks]

In Windoze 10 go into the power management settings->advanced settings and turn off the USB sleep. This one is critical to avoid a surprise loss of control. You also may need to update the controller and pendant firmware.

There was a recent Windoze 10 "upgrade" that caused lots of problems.

Windoze 7 has known issues with Intel USB 3 ports, so avoid using them. Intel never fixed the driver for some of their chip sets, and just moved on to 10, where the USB 3 ports now seem to work correctly.

I run from the pendant, and have had no issues other than than rigidity and alignment problems inherent in the HD4 design.

[Rando]

In Windoze 10....

Ahem...it's called "Winturds"