Information on the LPKF 91 PCB Router

We now have mostly official possesion of an old LPKF 91 printed circuit board router that broke long ago and that PSU has replaced with a new Protomat 92s. We fixed it, bought tools and materials for it, and are using it for PSAS and other student projects. Although it's up and running, we still really wish we had a User's Manual :)

Serial Port Setup and Cabling

The PC talking to the LPKF needs to have its serial port set to:

4800bps, 8N1
Hardware flow control ON
Serial FIFO DISABLED (in Windows, this is usually under an "Advanced" button).

Note that you'll need a custom serial cable to talk to the LPKF 91, and possibly a USB to serial converter if your laptop doesn't have a serial port.

The most important thing to remember is that if it seems not to be responding to the serial port, make sure the Select LED is on, and if it isn't push Select.

The LPKF 91 Router

We should be oiling this thing every 6 months. There's a maintanence manual on the web somewhere at http://www.lpkfusa.com/ .
X is the long axis, Y the short (travelling) axis
On head, every click of the shroud thumbwheel is ~ 1/8 mil (3.7 um) (8 clicks = 0.001 inches).
The PCBs are 12 x 9 inches. The pin holes should be 11.5 inches apart, leaving 0.25 inches between the center of the hole and the edge of board.
The allen key used to change the bit is 1.5 mm
The 91 not responding? Check Select.
Buttons
- Select allows external commands
- Holding Shift + Program on power up forces the 91 to initialize and measure its table by hitting all 4 limit switches. The table measurement is then stored in battery backed up SRAM... and we're just not sure what kind of life it has left in it.
- To program the current position as "home", Turn Select off, hit Program + Home, and then Select on.

BoardMaster 3.0

Use BM 3.0, not 4.0. The BM 3.0 we have will work with ?CircuitMaster 4.0.
Use 'Config', 'Settings', 'Unlock', 'Call', 'OK' to get the tabel dimensions from the 91. This will confirm if the router still remembers its table size, and that you have real coms with the router.
Note that the tool tips are in a status bar at the bottom of the screen
The Windows shortcut that launches BM 3.0 should have the BM-91.INI file referenced somewhere in the command line.
The number by the arrows is the feed rate.
MUST have the autocontrol button on for the 91 to spin up the drill for actual routing. The autocontrol button is the most right button of the head commands (up, go, etc) and looks like an arrow going around a 3D cylinder with a white cross through it.
The "Pause" button moves the head out of the way so you can flip the PCB material.

Serial Commands

We can use the "Capture output to COMTRACE.TXT" option in the Connect option of the Setup menu to capture all the HP-GL commands sent to the router in a file. This will be very handy if we ever need to write our own software for controlling the 91.

Using minicom, we could talk to it. pu; and pd; (for pen up and pen down) were are way to make sure the thing was actually talking with us.

To make the thing move, we had to enter an input window (like iw0,0,3000,3000 ) and then stick any commands within that window.

Commands that work:

;pu;                    --pen up
;pd;                    --pen down
;pu;                    --pen up
;iw (x0,y0,x1,y1);      --input window (must set this)
;oi;                    --output identity
;!e0;                   --echo off
;!e1;                   --echo on
;pa (x1,y1{,xn,yn});    --plot absolute
;pr (x1,y1{,xn,yn});    --plot absolute
;sp0;                   --reset? maybe home?
;oa;                    --output actual position (X,Y,Z)
;oc;                    --output position (X,Y,Z)
;ow;                    --output window (X1,Y1,X2,Y2)
;ci (r);                --draw circle
;ar (X,Y,Angle)         --arc relative

Commands that we think should work, but don't seem to:

!RS7
!TD50,20,10,200
!TM10,400,10,150
!TD0,0,0,0
!TM0,0,0,0
!CM1
!EM0
!VU25000
!ON0                    --output nominal position (0,1,2,3)

;in; --initialize

;oh;                    --output hard clip limits
;os;                    --output status
!EM(n);                 --n=1 drill motor on

Note that the big problem right now is that we can't seem to turn on the router motor. Everything moves, the pen goes up and down, but the motor won't start up.

Attached Files

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