Ultimate Air Assist with Shop Air

[Dave Vigness]

The diodes are to prevent back feed to the controller from the WIND and STATUS to each other. Notice the line on both go towards the +24V terminal and effectively to the other component.

If you lost functionality after you put them in, there is a good chance you either have one or both in backwards or you have a connection that came loose. Worst case, take one or both out ans see what happens. Of course, if you put it right on top of the solenoid like I did that could be a PITA.

Your air for scanning is controller by the bypass, not the solenoid.

The theory of operation is there should always be a little air getting past through the bypass to keep your lens clean during engraving or pulse tests. Your exhaust keeps things down during engraving because the head is on the move. When you start cutting, the solenoid opens and keeps the out gasses clear of the slow moving laser beam.

[Brian Book]

Hi Dave .... I really appreciate all your help .... I might not be explaining myself properly .... and please forgive my ignorance .... when I turn the Laser on and switch the toggle switch on the Air Assist .... both Air Solenoid on the 3 way and Relay energize .... I just can't get the Air Solenoid on the on the Air Compressor to energize from the relay .... so I'm thinking I may be using the wrong Terminals ?

Take Care

Brian

[Dave Vigness]

Yeah, you probably have something hooked up wrong. The toggle switch is to override the laser output to make everything turn on. In normal operation you don't use the switch.

The toggle should turn the compressor on and energize the air assist solenoid. But so should starting cutting operations. That is assuming you have set your IF BLOWING in your LAYER PARAMETER to YES. If you didn't have air assist before, it may be set to wither yes or no because it didn't matter.

[Brian Book]

Hi Dave .... Yes I did have the Compressor Air Solenoid working before I installed the kit .... I just thought looking at the Video the on the Relay Block ... Terminals 9 and 5 were used to control the Compressor Air Solenoid ..... but my case it isn't .... so my line of thinking was that it might be different terminals I need to wire to.

Take Care

Brian

[Dave Vigness]

Wish I could give you better help, but I built mine from scratch. I know they like to just tell you to link to the video, but drop Cloudray an email asking for better documentation on the specific hardware they sent. The pic you sent doesn't look like anything I have seen relating to Russ' air assist. What is it that has the four terminals on it?

[Tim Mellor]

Dave, that is what I was trying to clear up for you and Brian. He was trying to use the Relay to drive the Air Assist solenoid and what he showed is the Relay base. The confusion seems to have been that it came with the kit so it must be needed which in the case of a shop air fed assist it isn't.

20200707_123407_resized.jpg

[Brian Book]

Hi Dave and Tim .... I checked with the Gentleman that produced the video before ordering the Kit and he said if the Solenoid is 24 volt the relay should be ok ... I sent him an email to see if he could help with my dilemma .

Thank You both again for your efforts.

Take Care

Brian

[Dave Vigness]

That would be Russ. I am confused though. Your pic shows two relays, which does not jive with Russ' diagram. On;y thing I can think of is if you are controlling a 220 compressor and need to switch both legs of the circuit. Even then I would use a DPST relay instead of a pair of SPST, but oh well.

I would try the air solenoid wired direct to the controller just to make sure that part works and your polarity is right, then start adding / diagnosing things from there. You might find that you just have something swapped and didn't know it. It might miraculously start working! I did that, and put the diode in the solenoid terminals so I couldn't accidentally swap them since the switched ground had gotten me on something else before. Might do the same thing to the compressor relay wires. Put the diode there instead of in the feed wires.

[Tim Mellor]

You can use the relay which is in theory pushing the controller less with the reduced current for the coil of the relay rather than the powering the solenoid coil directly either option is fine in this case. My preference would be to use a relay and that is what I have shown here as it is the better electrical solution rather than pushing the optocoupled output of the controller so hard.

You might like to take my overall model for a twirl here https://a360.co/2XZg1u0

[Brian Book]

Hi Dave .... you can see my Air Setup on page 1 of this thread as to the Air Solenoid I am trying to energize .... I only have one Relay ... I have a schematic for wiring ... but like I said I'm completely hopeless with them

Ultimate Wiring.jpg

Hi Tim .... really nice looking rendering