Wotan Rapid 1 HBM retrofit

So, I'm in the process of acquiring a Wotan Rapid 1 CNC boring mill with a dead control. Roof leaked water on the cabinet holding the CNC control board and fried it. Machine electrical cabinet stayed dry. It's a 5 axis machine, as it has the standard X, Y, Z moves, plus a W axis for spindle extension (parallel to Z), plus B axis rotary table. My plan is to refit with LinuxCNC using MESA card(s). It uses old Allen Bradley brushed DC servo motors, with analog drives (0-10v signalling) and from what I can see, Heidenhan encoders. I havent moved the machine yet, but it's getting taken apart and moved in February.

This thread is going to be my build thread plus advice on this. I'm new to CNC in general, this will be my first CNC machine. But, I'm very good with mechanical stuff and electrical, and very well versed in Linux as I worked several years in a position maintaining linux servers.

What Mesa boards would be my best bet? I'm planning on using internal cards and not the ethernet ones as the pc I'm going to use has plenty of pci and pci Express slots.

Thanks in advance for any help. I've not found on the internet where someone has retro'd an HBM of this size with Linuxcnc, so if nothing else, I hope this thread will help someone in the future.

Google photos album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qvSGNdDSUBV871R8A

-Matt

First find out what inputs the A-B amps use. Are they analog or digital? Encoders or resolvers? The Ethernet cards work fine and are very handy to use. If you want to use a slot then use PCIExpress as the PCI's seem to be disappearing. The daughter card would be determined by the amp interface. Stay with a relatively new computer.

Ed.

The AB amps use analog +/- 0-10v inputs. I'm not sure on the encoders vs resolvers situation.

I was planning on using a Dell business pc that has a Core2 Quad. No real reason other than I have it, it works, and they are bomb proof. But, that being said, I could go with a AMD Ryzen setup as I have a motherboard for one right now. That's what my desktop PC uses.

I've got a Dell Laptop, the 5575 Inspiron with the AMD Ryzen chipset. Dunno if it's just the laptop version but it does not play well with pretty much any flavor of Linux I've tried to load on the machine. Desktops may play better, but who knows?

Mark

Stay away from laptops. Apart from Linux compatibility is the latency problem, all the power saving items get in the way of realtime performance. If you want to use PCIE and have analog inputs in the amps then a Mesa 6i25 and a 7i77 should be a good start. Are you on the Linuxcnc forum? Lots of good info in the archives and in the Wiki.

Ed.

I've not signed up for the LinuxCNC forum yet.

My Ryzen dekstop works good with Ubuntu Linux on it, but never tried it with LinuxCNC.... May have to try the live boot.

Thanks for the suggestions on the mesa cards.

Download the latest version and install it on a USB drive. You can then use it as a live install and test out the latency to see if you have a good candidate. Look under CNC in the dropdown menu.

Where are you located?

Ed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by atex57

Stay away from laptops. Apart from Linux compatibility is the latency problem, all the power saving items get in the way of realtime performance. If you want to use PCIE and have analog inputs in the amps then a Mesa 6i25 and a 7i77 should be a good start. Are you on the Linuxcnc forum? Lots of good info in the archives and in the Wiki.

Ed.

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Yes, I've been using LinuxCNC for over 20 years and I'm well aware of the shortcomings of using a laptop with the controller software. The OP mentioned he might be interested in using the AMD Ryzen chipset to set up a LinuxCNC controller on that. I was only mentioning the issues I've had, and many others have with the AMD Ryzen chipset in Dell computers and laptops.

Mark

I'm located in Southern Michigan, USA.

Linux has had a shaky history with Ryzen, this I am aware of.. I had issues with mine early on, but mostly because I was using the 2400G with built in graphics. But, because of the Real Time stuff that LinuxCNC is using, I'd guess they are using slightly older kernel versions that the currently shipping ubuntu that I use now.

I can just as easily use my Dell Optiplex with Core2 Quad in it. Those things are nearly bomb proof, and more than fast enough I would think. I'll test it with live boot this weekend.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by deerefanatic

I'm located in Southern Michigan, USA.

Linux has had a shaky history with Ryzen, this I am aware of.. I had issues with mine early on, but mostly because I was using the 2400G with built in graphics. But, because of the Real Time stuff that LinuxCNC is using, I'd guess they are using slightly older kernel versions that the currently shipping ubuntu that I use now.

I can just as easily use my Dell Optiplex with Core2 Quad in it. Those things are nearly bomb proof, and more than fast enough I would think. I'll test it with live boot this weekend.

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I'm up in Northern Michigan, in Grayling.

I'm running 20.04 LTS on my machine. The problems started with the xx-08 kernels for me. Do the update, and it would reboot to a black screen. I've been reverting back to an earlier stable kernel each time. It's happened with at least the last 5 or 6 kernel updates. They broke something in the kernel that talks to the Ryzen video chip, dunno what they did though. Been pawing through the logs to see what broke but haven't been able to get logged into the machine yet once the new kernel has been installed.

Mark

Yah, I've basically migrated away from Linux on my desktop to Win10, because I was never able to get Fusion360 working properly on linux in WINE. I honestly would rather run Linux if I could.. My laptop runs Ubuntu 18.04 though...

So that said, I'll definitely write off linuxcnc on Ryzen hardware. :D

Question for folks that know more about LinuxCNC than me in regards to two things:

1: It turns out that this mill has a 3 speed spindle transmission. Can LinuxCNC handle automatic gear selection based on spindle speed called? It appears that the speeds are hydraulically selected and there are a series of feedback switches that indicate current gear.

2: The W Axis (spindle quill) and B Axis (rotary table) share a single servo amp and feedback circuit. They use a relay from the control to select whichever axis motor and encoder they want to control. Is this possible with LinuxCNC?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by deerefanatic

Question for folks that know more about LinuxCNC than me in regards to two things:

1: It turns out that this mill has a 3 speed spindle transmission. Can LinuxCNC handle automatic gear selection based on spindle speed called? It appears that the speeds are hydraulically selected and there are a series of feedback switches that indicate current gear.

2: The W Axis (spindle quill) and B Axis (rotary table) share a single servo amp and feedback circuit. They use a relay from the control to select whichever axis motor and encoder they want to control. Is this possible with LinuxCNC?

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Get on the Linuxcnc forum, a fellow that goes as Samco has done a gear shifter setup and is very helpful.

The split amplifier most likely will not be supported. Linuxcnc will support up to 9 axis, so adding an amp should not be a problem.

Ed.

OK. I'll go on the hunt for an amp then...

I'll get an account on the LinuxCNC forum and do some asking over there too.