Excello retrofit and introduction

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Hi guys,

Just introducing myself and my new project. Been surfing this forum and others for education on how to proceed. There is a bunch of stuff removed from the top of the mill so it could fit into my garage. Also the covers are off so I could poke around but it's all there.

I know very little about the machine. Dont know the model# and the year was approx '83. It came with a dc servo spindle and a fanuc6. If anyone knows anything about this machine, please fill em in.

The master plan is to retrofit this thing into a single-phase production wood cutting machine. I have plenty of time and this is not just for hobby use so I dont want to cut corners. I plan on doing Mach3, upgrading to ac servos and changing the spindle. Mostly for higher speed but also because there is little to no info as to specs on the motors I have.

For the motion control, I'm deciding on keeping it simple with bobs and parallel ports or going with something like the galil/kflop or going all out for machmotion type of system. Although 7k sounds a little high for an old beast like this. I've heard people say the parallel ports are unreliable and I've also heard the ss/ethernet systems are also not reliable. Any input?

The spindle is the tricky part. I need high RPMs for cutting wood efficiently. I have a couple of thoughts. Tell me which is the least crazy. 1 - keep the cat40 bridgeport setup and run an ac motor/vfd in the original location. This could get me the rpms I need easily but the belt speeds are way above recomended levels. And since I wont be able to orient the spindle, I'd need to ditch the drive dogs on the cat40. Probably not a big deal with wood. Also, not sure what kinds of bearings are in the spindle and in the gearbox and what they can survive and what they can be upgraded with. Again. very little info online that I can find, and what I do find contradicts itself. 2 - pull of the head and mount a z axis with a hsk high speed spindle that I have already. Very labour intensive and costly.

Long winded but I'm ready to start on this and I'll keep the retrofit updated here. Any info would be greatly appreciated!

-Kevin

If you get it from... whatever... The best thing you shurely can do is tear apart and identify what you've got. In such a worn machine, have you'll have to check spindle bearings, ballscrew bearings, ballnuts and in general the whole mechanical thing.

As for the spindle motor, replacing it for a newer one and an VFD may work but maybe you'll find a stepdown in power, i think that under single phase there are power limitations for the VFD's. Anyway, orienting the spindle is easy done with either an encoder mounted to the spindle shaft or a hall effect sensor or basically something that can output a point for the controller to know the spindle orientation.

The Fanuc 6 was temperamental when it came to 1ph anyway, the servo's usually were 3ph SCR and the 3phase power rotation had to be observed when connecting.
If you intend to machine wood only it may be best to fit a High speed spindle such as Kress or a high end router motor and a Super PID controller.
If the 6 is in working order, you should be able to part it out for a good $.
Al.

Al,

The servos are definately dc servos, Electrocraft E26-2. Cant find any info on max rpms or hp. Probably not useful anyways as there are no encoders and no way to mount encoders directly on them. Also, the kress wouldnt work for me. I'm aiming for at least 4-5hp and ATC.

I have a 15hp spindle. I know I cant run 15hp on 1ph but I can get a VFD that is 5hp that will run on 1ph. This is another area I'm unclear on. Can I run a spindle like that with a smaller VFD as long as the cuts stay light (<5hp) or will it no even work?

Liex,

If I used a hall sensor to sense the right spot to lock the spindle, and I installed a locking air cylinder, how would I turn the spindle to that spot?

Thanks,
Kevin

No the 5hp on 1ph will not run the 15hp motor with any effectiveness.
That is a very large spindle to run at the rpm,s required for wood, apart from the present spindle not rated for that rpm, you may have a job getting a 15hp 10krpm+ spindle in induction motor style for anything but a small fortune.
I would have thought mounting an auxiliary spindle would be the answer, but if you need spindle orientation for T.C. then you need a spindle controller with the capability of reading the marker on a encoder mounted on the final spindle shaft, there are specialized spindle controllers that do this in conjunction with an induction motor, but again are pricey, such as Mitsubishi spindle controllers, they are enhanced VFD for this purpose, but may not go into the rpm range you seek?
Al.

Damn... I was afraid that I couldnt run the 15hp on a smaller rated VFD. It's not that I need 15hp, it's just that I have that spindle for free:) It's from our work machines that each run 2 of those at 18k rpms all day long.

Again, I dont need the spindle orient either if I ditch the drive dogs. Our HSK63f spindles like the free one I have dont have drive dogs. They work like a charm on wood. I know plenty of wood machines that run iso30 tapers with no drive dogs either. That's why I think ditching the dogs on the cat40 would not be an issue. And it eliminates the need for spindle orient.

If you are sure that this big spindle wont work with a smaller vfd then I need to see what I can do about speeding up the stock setup. ANy ideas on bearing part#'s in these things?

-Kevin

can anyone tell me the model# of this machine?

Its not a good Idea to drive the spindle without drive dogs, because the spindles are balanced with this part. If you run it at 3000RPM, then thats ok, but you want more than 15.000rpm. I have tested this issue with my machine who runs only 8000, but I cant run more than 3000, if more all is vibrating.

Been a while, progress is slow... I'll try to keep this thread updated once in a while just in case anyone ever attempts a retrofit on one of these down the road.

I now have all of the drives and servos from machmotion. Attached is a pic of one of the 750w servos bolted to an adapter plate that I've made to adapt the Teco motor to the original mounting location on the excello. Thankfully the shaft was longer than the shaft on the original motor to allow me to do this.

Also there is a pic showing my new 3hp inverter duty motor. In this case I lucked out big time - the new motor bolted right in place of the old one. I was expecting to have to mod the plate but hey - no complaints here. New QD bushing and we are good to go.

As for my plans on this machine, I've decided to keep the max RPM at 7500 for now. Still may be waaay to high for the stock spindle/gearbox but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Hoping that there wont be balance issues without the drive dogs.. I'll watch out for that once I fire it up. Thanks for the heads up.