Control.com - Nerds in Control

Hi:

I have a few Seiberco AIM 5000 controllers. I downloaded a evaluation copy of DESKCNC. I was able to connect to the serial port (COM1), but have a problem, the error, IN RED ESTOP. I need to ground the ESTOP pin.

I don't have a schematic of any info. Can someone out there help me? I think I can make this controller function. The motor have holding power.

Thanks,
Al Botelho.

I have a bit of experience with their older models, but not the 5000. However, with the 4000 and 2300, EOT (end of travel) was TB2-6. It may be the same on the 5000.

I think that EOT and emergency stop were the same thing. They really didn't have a lot of concern about safety with their small motors. However, I don't know if grounding EOT enabled or disabled the servo. You may be able to find that out by experiment.

So far as I know, Seiberco went out of business in the late 1990s. Their documentation was never in electronic form, so to get a manual you would need to find someone who still has a paper copy (or a scan of it). I may have a few scraps of information (such as the EOT pin for the 2300 and 4000), but I haven't laid eyes on a Sieberco in close to 10 years.

I do know though that that with the 2300 and 4000 you could hook up to the serial port and use a terminal emulator to control it. You would get a series of menus which allowed you to configure and test the system.

You mentioned DESKCNC, so I had a look at the web page for it. If you are planning on building a CNC machine, I'm not sure a Seiberco is really the right sort of system for it. I'm basing that on what I remember about the 2300 and 4000, but I'm not sure how you would integrate it into a CNC system. They were really meant to operate stand alone with minimal interaction with anything else.

You might want to talk to the people doing EMC2 "http://linuxcnc.org/" for some advice. They have some rather good looking free software for doing CNC, and quite a few people have build or retrofitted machines with it. They have their own forums and can probably give you some better advice on this than I could.

To M.Griffin

Thanks for going out of your way to help me I really appreciate it.
I have a working CNC that i built, and use MACH3 software. I like experimenting,and have these seiberco aim 5000 with matching motors. The DESKCNC is the only software that gave the indication that com1 was connected and that estop was in error.

I will try a terminal emulator is i can get my hands on one. Also i will try to get some info. from EMC2.

Thanks again