SMC5-5-N-N CNC CONTROLLER 1 YEAR REVIEW

[Music] hello there and welcome to the shop i've had this smc controller five axis controller for nearly a year now and i thought i'd give you a little bit of a review or my thoughts on on this controller and quite frankly it's a damn good a damn good investment because it operates exactly like mark three or mac four for that matter there's no real difference between them it's got a a you know a lovely full color a seven inch screen on it which you know i love it's big enough for me to see and it gives you the full information in in sort of one glass not only is it graphically but it gives you a you know a color difference as well so this is the work offset or the g54 set up from the last job actually so you just press on the shift there and this takes you then straight to the the machine coordinate system and that's how far you are away from the machine huh come out of that i've i've run files through this as big as a million lines of code running for four or five hours without any incident at all it's never ever failed i do understand that there is a there is a patch file from the manufacturer of this that does convert it to inches however i i haven't downloaded that file i haven't done it myself and i don't really know anybody that has i haven't seen any comments about it so i can't really tell you that but to me this is a metric system only i've got this connected up to my little cnc render which is just behind my back here so to to make it operate very similar to mach 3. you have a reset here take the reset off you press this little cross button here reset lights up as nice and green and you can very controllable in actual fact it's more controllable than using a computer and a computer keyboard um and talking about computer and computer keyboards and mach3 i bought this for less than 500 dollars uh delivered here and we're talking australian dollars okay i know it fluctuates every day compared to the us dollar but um you know so that would be about probably about 450 us dollars delivered um you will see all sorts of prices for for this exactly the same model you know with i had it with a with a handset too love the handset works very very well it's magnetic too so you can clip it to a you know any metal steel type thing so the all that cost of this unit to run a cnc machine or a mill for that matter and that's something we're going to do next year we're going to connect one of these up to my big mill which i'm going to convert it doesn't need a breakout board or a smooth stepper it's already built into this and it doesn't need a computer because it is one memory inside is eight gig that's all you need like i say i i've run a million lines of code through it but it is expandable via a flash drive or thumb drive whatever you want to call it up to an additional 32 gig so that's you know that's 40 gig you know i've i've never ever used a code or you know ever had to have anything that size before you know so it is it's got good range for its memory it can simultaneously run five axes um which is really good um i know i only ever run four axes uh you know and i suppose you could run the fifth axis as your tool changer uh or if you're just running the three axes you could you could run the a axes for your tool changer its capability is quite large i'll zoom into the the screen here or maybe the full um size of the controller unit and um i'll go through some of the screens with you just to show you um how easy it is to you know it's already fully set up um but i'll show you how to make changes in it for like the stepper motors uh you know step spur and things like that uh it is very intuitive uh you know it's easy to operate um i find it easier than operating it through a computer with mac 3 actually so uh i'll take you through some of the screens so to move around the screen to choose each individual area that you want to go into you can either use these up and down arrows in the okay or you can use this little this little turn wheel like so which i quite like actually so we're going to go into machine now to select that you can either press ok or press the button and you're into now all your settings or incidentally if you want to change your language this is the the first screen that you would come into and here is english here uh because when you get this sometimes it's all in chinese or japanese or whatever so let's scroll all the way through here to motor set now i think the camera's probably picking this up um these are my steps per okay so it's all 400 uh because this is matched up to what my lead screws are and my stepper motors uh velocity 1500 acceleration 200 very similar to mach 3. now if your motors are turning in the wrong direction you just can't uh like if the zed was was uh going in the wrong direction you know you push um z minus and it was going up uh so to change that all you do is change the zero to a one and uh it's it corrects it exactly the same as mach 3 or mac four so you can see it's very very simply laid out and let's come out of that just go to limits now this is um i keep on referring to mach 3 or mac 4 because it's identical these are the pinots numbers on the back of the controller that are connected to the x limit plus minus the y limit and the z limit so this is the pin uh numbers that you or connection numbers that you connect to in the back of the controller so it prompts you you know if you've got a limit switch in the plus direction well that is the number that you would connect onto pin number one if it's in the minus or if you have two on there you connect it into the connector or pin out number two on the back and i'll i'll open it and show you in a minute so exit out of that and go back into homing okay enable uh if this was a zero that would disable it okay uh as it's a one it's enabled and you obviously change that by using using these numbers here uh you know you just i'll go on it um i'll just choose this one click it till it goes until it goes green and press one okay and it's it's changed but we don't want that one switched put that back to zero okay so that's how to change them very very easy um there again these are the pin numbers or the connection numbers on the back of the controller okay so the whole mid micro switch 4 x home is connected to pin 11 on the back of the controller and whether it's a one or a zero here denotes the direction of where your which direction you go into home all right some people like to hold this this side others like to home the other side so you can change that here and this is the where you change the speed of your home in mine is set to millimeters per minute okay you can alter that to whatever you feel comfortable with and also the pro it has probe functions and you can choose the speed of which you want to the zed to probe down at which is 100 millimeters per minute and to back off the material 10 millimeters so that's it's pretty self-explanatory so we're going to come out of that exit you know soft limits soft limits uh these are set up for my particular machine uh they're self-explanatory as well um you know no real need to go through those you just set the the limit that you wanted to go that's the the actual length and this is the the limit that you want to set the soft limit zone and it's exactly the same as mach 3 or mac 4. spindle you can either a pwm that's the pin number you connect to uh high or low exactly the same or you can have in my case i have an analog so i've got analog enabled um and maximum rpm 20 000 rpm uh but you know if you want to run a vfd it will also run a vfd so we can exit out of that now so really and truly that is all you need to alter and address to run this on any cnc machine really okay so this is the the back of the controller and uh this is the uh the wiring and the drivers and the power supplies for my particular little cnc router now a lot of people ask me what sort of power supply this this requires according to the little manual that comes with this um it will accept anything from 12 volt to 24 volts but on the back here it's got 12 volt input so what i did and what i do i try to should we say utilize retired uh electronic components and in this case it's a printer power supply um it's 12 volt dc it's uh it's a clean power supply clean as in electrically clean uh it was a hewlett packard unit so uh what i what i do you can easily find it which is positive and negative and trim the wire down and that's the unit there and i use a you know mains protected mains power board in there it's got its own protection um and i i use that to supply 12 volt power to this this 12 volt power supply is 1.5 amps at 12 volt uh but this only requires one amp let's have a closer look into the back here because i know a lot of people ask me how do you connect it up well i'll show you okay there again it is fairly self-explanatory you have a 12 volt positive in and there's that's your negative there or ground you also have a ground supply here and a 5 volt supply to supply 5 volt to the drivers then you have x direction and x pulse y direction y pulse and z direction and z plus and of course uh there's the fourth axis is the fifth axes six axes and seven this one actually is only wired for five axis um and then again up here you have uh if he was running a vfd you'd use the health pulse width modulation or pwa uh in my case i'm using the 0 to 10 volt to run my dc 100 volt dc um 800 watt spindle and again you have 5 volt supply 5 volt supply there um which corresponds with this plug here now if you can see with all these wires all these uh this paper here like i sort of label everything these particular ones here are for the limit switches so we have and remember on the other side of the control panel there was numbers uh 11 12 and 13 and the the homing switches so here we have here this is 11 12 and 13 is over here this one here is the common this one is the ground which is indicated here this one here is the 0 to 10 volt information supplied to the the spindle controller have a ground here which actually goes to the spindle controller as well this big this big plug here which is this one here that one is the uh the hand controller so this little controller works with it any fuss whatsoever it just gets on with the jaw um we'll just hold this little cnc error to do that that button there and come down to go and find the home switches okay [Music] and that's that so like i say it just gets on with the job without any fuss whatsoever the only thing i have found with it as a negative is it's a little choosy on the type of g-code that you can put into it the g code that i run through this on and any of the major programs uh can actually write this g code and that is g code millimeter tap all of vetric programs can write tap g code cavco and also fusion 360 but the paid version of fusion 360 only the hobby version as yet doesn't have g code tap files unfortunately but i think they probably will change that because there's a you know a lot of these type of controllers um to require tap files so the long and the short of it is would i recommend this smc 5 controller absolutely yes would i buy another one oh that's another thing too i am not supported by any by the manufacturer all sellers of this sfc unit i did my own research found the best one i could for the money and i bought it myself so would i recommend buying one of these absolutely yes would i buy another one absolutely yes it does everything that i need it to do it you know that its abilities um it has more abilities than what i need i i will in the future be connecting this up to a larger cnc router um not quite sure what size of cnc rotary yet maybe a 60 40 maybe a 60 90 i'm not sure um you know mac 3 is a good program and i have it and use it on several other cnc machines but you know that relies on windows seven um you can use windows 10 if it was an original windows 7 computer that's okay but you know they're getting a little bit long in the tooth now the same as um systems that used to to use the 25 pin um [Music] you know that was an xp unit i mean that's 20 years old so that's you know sort of way outdated now so you know this is a an alternative direction to go from using a pc um [Music] there are other alternatives to this um and you know you you'll see them but you know they're so expensive for what they are and and there again you've got to get a keyboard and you've got to get a monitor to plug into them you know so you know you're not gonna get much changes it's over a thousand dollars you get two of these for that so um yeah i recommend these highly recommend this and um you know i i may even get another one um although i did make this a modular unit so i can just unplug it and plug another cnc router in um [Music] but i i don't think it wouldn't run with these drivers i probably would run newman 23s but uh the high powered you know high torque nema 24s it probably would struggle with that uh the drivers you know wouldn't supply four and a half amps i don't think so um i you know i'd have to make another unit which is which is okay as well so in a nutshell yes i'd recommend it it's very good value for money you would have to be choosy with the sellers on wherever you you buy it from ebay or wherever um shop around because these smc controllers can be had with the hand control for under five hundred dollars you don't have to go paying 800 or i've seen them for you know 850 dollars which is ridiculous it's p that's been really really greedy 500 is the value of this okay five maybe you know i said i suppose it may fluctuate a little bit five five fifty but i wouldn't be paying any more than that damn good value for money okay so if you've liked this video please like and subscribe and uh come and have a look at some of my other videos uh you know i did 18 videos on building this little cnc router uh very handy little tool to have this i can tell you and actually making this control unit as well um go and have a look this is actually called the midi cnc router it's in a a playlist for you to make it easy um come along and have a look so if you like the video please like and subscribe and come and have a look at some of my other videos in fact the next video uh i'm going to be doing a little 3d carving on this of a fairground horse which is going to be a nice little nice little plaque you know for a kid's bedroom wall or door or something like that very easy little project to do so uh thank you for joining me and it's bye for now [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Roger Webb

Views: 3,727

Keywords: SMC5-5-N-N, offline, controller, 30W, 50W, Fibre, Fiber, Galvo, K40, Laser, CNC, Router, Build, Lathe, engrave, etching, glass, DIY, Bob Ross, Art, Roger, Clyde, Webb, 3018, mill, milling, MIDI, Carveco, Maker, Maker +, ArtCAM, CAD, CAM, Autodesk, Fusion 360, Mach 3, Mach 4, 6012, 6090, 6040, Vectric Aspire, VCarve Pro, Avid, 2000 year old, pen, Windows 10, parts, machine, kits, Grbl, software, budget, 100, watt, Wood-turning, Workshop, Wood, shop, turning, tools, bowl, Harbour freight, grizzly, X2, Sieg, MAXI, Watt, CO2, Welding, MIG, USA, UK

Id: g4DU2Cpk35E

Length: 26min 48sec (1608 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 04 2021