Trying to get some feelers on interest in a potential product.
Currently the chiller has a flow sensor installed and we have the alarm cable available for it. Now for the people who use pumps, I have both a flow sensor and a temperature sensor check the box.
I am bringing forth the temp sensor now to see if there is interest, but if you’re interested in the flow sensor.
Koolance makes a hall effect flow sensor that I’ve wired into the Masso. It works fine, but beware - the wires that come out of it are poorly protected and easily break with little force. Mounting the flow meter so that it can’t move is critical. After damaging one and replacing it. I found this as well - Clear Turbine Water Flow Sensor with 3-pin JST : ID 5066 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits. It’s a hall effect flow sensor that works the same way for $7.
I do like the idea of a temperature sensor and if it was an AIO unit, even better.
Thank you for sharing your experience with the Koolance flow sensor. I appreciate you bringing the wire vulnerability to my attention. That’s valuable feedback, and I’ll definitely consider designing an optional strap to address that concern. It sounds like it is necessary for your specific application, but it could be beneficial for other users as well.
You’re absolutely correct that this isn’t a new invention, and I apologize if my post implied otherwise. I was/am merely gauging customer demand. Our focus is on providing well-researched, readily available solutions with excellent support for the CNC community. We understand that price is always a factor, but we believe that the convenience and support we offer provide significant value beyond what you might find on Amazon.
Regarding an all-in-one solution, I’ve explored that possibility, the demands and design complexities present some challenges. For now, we believe that offering separate accessories for temperature and flow sensing will best meet the diverse needs of our customers.
I think it would be a good thing to offer. There are a lot of people using these machines that aren’t interested in the research to find and figure these things out for themselves and would prefer simple, clear cut directions and support.
And like I said, I haven’t wired in a temperature sensor yet. I’d love to see what you’ve come up with.
Keep up the good work!
Do you have any kind of diagram or write-up for connecting the sensor? Or is it the same as the other video on Youtube for the similar sensor?
It’s been a while since I wired it, but I’m pretty sure it went like this:
positive (red) to power on the Masso board
negative (black) to ground on the Masso board
other color to an input on the Masso board
You also need a 5.6k resistor between the power and the input,
Mine is inline.
Using a resistor as a jumper from the power to an input is only if the device doesn’t require / have a power wire, like in the case of a probe block or a switch. Using one as a jumper when there is a dedicated power wire is basically installing it in parallel which no resistor installed in parallel with any resistor results in no resistance. At least that’s how i always understood it.
@Chris would you describe how the temperature sensor would work with the Masso controller? For example, would it be possible to use the temperature sensor as an input to logic that would allow for a closed loop G-code warm up procedure?
Thats a good question.
I haven’t done anything with the aux inputs/outputs. If you were able to, that’s how you would do what you speak of, but I don’t think that there is an output to run g-code from an aux input. My understanding is Aux Input 1 is tied to Aux Output 1, Input 2 to Output 2 ect. The website gives the example of like an iVac (automatic based on trigger signal) blastgate. I’m still trying to think of reasons or uses for the Aux Input/Output signals. The only thing I can think of is the iot switch for people without a spindle wanting to turn their dust collector on without an elite… Also, the steppers don’t need to do any sort of warm up procedure.
How I use it is when the cooling liquid temperature gets above 35C, it triggers a spindle alarm. My logic being if it’s not using cool coolant, its not efficiently cooling, and 95F to me is not cool.
The Dominator more likely than not put my pet project on the back burner.
I just took at look at the Masso input documentation and I see that Aux inputs can be used with G-code M66. M66, “…will stop executing Gcode until the input condition is met or the timeout expires.”
For a closed loop warm up my first thought is that one would need to have a logic level input that indicated that the desired temperature had been achieved. So, the spindle would effectively keep running until that temp was reached or a timeout occurred. I guess one would want to measure the coolant output temp as a proxy for the spindle internal temperature. Unless of course there were a temperature sensor in the spindle it self. And, creating the logic level output could be done with a simple microcontroller.
G-Code
M3
S6000
M66 P4 L3 1200000 S3; Run up to 20 minutes at 6K RPM.
MSG Warm-up complete.
S0
M5
M2; End program.
MSG Warm-up failed. Temperature still too low. Check setup.
S0
M5
M2
Doable, but maybe more effort than it is worth.
The Dominator looks awesome! I’m available for beta testing 
I agree, more effort than its worth. Being in Arizona, I’m personally less concerned with the low end, and more concerned with the high end of the temperature scale, especially in the summer.
In the summer the warmup is less involved and done in a few minutes.
In the winter, I’ll just put it in a safe location, and manually turn the spindle on at 6.5k while I’m getting the project ready, then about the time it’s done its warmed up. I am in an insulated garage, and it snows for a day or 2 here once or twice a year.
My garage temp is a fairly constant 50 to 55°F in the winter. Based on what I’ve read that is well into the territory of needing a solid warmup before use.
regardless of the temperature, a warmup should be performed. if it’s a colder ambient, it would just require more (longer) to get the spindles juices flowing. I’ll still do one in the summer, but instead of it taking ~15 minutes, it could take like 5, but its still done.
Here’s a link to a MASSO Forum post I made recently.
https://forums.masso.com.au/threads/how-to-keep-vacuum-on-during-tool-change.4603/post-34753
The Inputs and be tied to any output via the Setup tab (F1). For instance, Input 1 and be set up to toggle TTL Output 17. Or, Input 1 can be set to trigger an internal function like Park. Again, done in the F1 screen.