Difference between revisions of "Wild TA-10 Innards"

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(Arm unit)
(Cutting Head)
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=== Cutting Head ===
 
=== Cutting Head ===
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The cutting head is the 'business-end' of the device. It is home to 3 PCB's internally, a DB9 to provide signals to the tool-attachments as well as switches and connectors to control it. Take note that the 'handle' on the unit is not quite solid and cannot stand much force.
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=== Piston/hinge unit ===
 
=== Piston/hinge unit ===
  

Revision as of 15:42, 29 October 2013

Wild TA-10; Innards.

Overview of units

To simplify documentation, it's often handy to separate things in terms of functionality as much as possible and document these accordingly. In an effort to make a handy/useful overview; an effort to identify seperate functions is proposed here.

Units/functions

Mechanical

Base unit

Big and bulky and heavy; made of a brown-ish green plastic. Opens on two sides by partly undoing screws located there and pulling side-panels away. One side houses the PSU unit, the other side provides access to the control-unit, housed in a 19" frame with backplane for eurocards (?)

On the top , the Piston/Hinge unit supports the table on one side. The hinges on the other side provide routing for power and driving/sensing cabling.

Todo: find ways of easily separating base-unit and table for transport purposes.

Table unit

Table-unit can be tilted almost upright by use of piston/hinge unit, as well as made to be perfectly horizontal.

The table-unit has a control for turning on and dimming included TL-lighting housed inside.

The table-unit seems to have a perspex cutting/working surface on it and provides room to a number of buttons on the left side to operate functions of the machine.

A half-circular 'well' on the left side provides room for material to draw on or cut-through, as well as a pen/tool holder.

The control-pendulum can be hung from the side of the table by use of a supplied magnetic strip.

The table has an portal-arm that runs over the entire height of the table and can move horizontally. This arm is home to the Y-arm cutting head.

Arm unit

The arm unit has a cable routed through it, half-folded inside and sheathed in grey plastic mesh. It provides signals for the cutting-head unit.

Cutting Head

The cutting head is the 'business-end' of the device. It is home to 3 PCB's internally, a DB9 to provide signals to the tool-attachments as well as switches and connectors to control it. Take note that the 'handle' on the unit is not quite solid and cannot stand much force.

Piston/hinge unit

Nobody's really taken this apart yet, and we've got good reason to assume that this is a non-trivial thing to even attempt. More to the point, we've received warnings about leaving the spring-assembly intact as re-assembly could be problematic.

It should be noted that the Piston does not seem to have any wires routed through it and is a purely mechanical construction.

Electronics

Power Supply

Control Unit

CPU board

I/O board

Servo amplifiers

Table unit

Wire-routing

Lighting system

Cutting-head unit

Cutting-head base-unit

The Y-arm has an actuator that moves along it in vertical direction. We shall refer to this as the 'base' unit.

This base-unit has mounting-holes for an 'cutting head option-unit' that attaches to it and is driven by signals carried over a female DB9. Among the signals available are a permanent voltage, 'light' voltage, two 'pen down' signals.

The base-unit has a number of switches and connectors on the top. 'Quality' is currently of unknown usefulness. 'Lighting' turns on the light-signal on the aforementioned DB9 (and is meant to provide light onto the work-surface, underneath the cutting-head option-unit). The complex-looking connector (2x7-pins) is employed to hook up the tangential cutting-attachment; most likely functioning as a stepper-motor with positional feedback for absolute-angle driving.

There is a small white connector available, seemingly shielded and possibly used for some kind of sensing application. Current use unknown.

The PCB (PCB-H1) close to the switches is responsible for hooking them up, as well as driving/reading the signals on the DB9 connector. The place that the HF-signal is hooked up to is not quite clear. The PCB has two identifiable IC's on it; a 7404 hex-invertor and an LM339 quad voltage-comperators. The PCB carries the designator '339 170d'

A wide rainbow-ribbon cable runs to a PCB on the right side (PCB-H2); mounted next to a servo-motor that's also hooked up to this PCB. A total of 6 wires run to the servo's backside, containing a small PCB (PCB-H3) with two trim-pots on it.

The PCB-H2 also has a connector for the incoming signals from the control-unit, as well as power for all of the functions of the cutting-head. This cable-tree is ensheathed in a grey protective mesh.

PCB-H2 also contains a number of IC's. Sadly, photographic documentation has too little detail to make out part-numbers.

Cutting-head option-unit