Hi,
I'm considering a KFlop/Kanalog control retrofit for a 1995 Milltronics Partner 1 series H. This is a small VMC, not a knee mill. I probably know just enough to sound like I understand more than I actually do. I have a few questions I was hoping to ask before diving headfirst into this as a project. The machine is currently running, I'm just finding the old Centurion V controller limiting and glitchy. I considered just buying a Centroid control, but that's painfully expensive and I want to end up really understanding my machine and be capable of modifying it to suit my needs.

The X, Y, and Z axes have AC brushless servo motors with resolvers feeding back into Emerson LX-1100 servo drives that produce a simulated quadrature encoder signal to the control (selectable 512/1024 lines/rev). The servo drives accept a +/- 10v analog control signal and operate in velocity mode.

My main question is: Is there a potential problem (loss of accuracy) using the simulated encoder signal to feed position information to KFlop/Kanalog instead of a physical encoder mounted directly on the motor shaft? Would it be necessary to modify the motors to add an encoder, or would it be possible to increase machine accuracy by doing so? It will currently hold tolerances about +/-.001, and I would love to get this better, even at the expense of sacrificing speed if needed.

Other questions: The spindle motor is also a servo motor with the same type of simulated encoder from the drive, and it drives the spindle using a belt. I will need to orient the spindle, both for boring head retract and eventually getting the tool changer working, but because of the belt I can't do this based on motor position. It currently orients by spinning the motor slowly until an air solenoid activated detent pops into place and locks the spindle. Is there a way to control the torque available to the motor while operating in velocity mode so the detent can actually stop the spindle, and turn off the motion command once it locks? Or must this drive be operating in torque mode? I have the manuals for the axis drives, but not for the spindle drive, so I am only assuming they are operating the same way.

Finally, if I wanted to add a 4th/5th axis but have the controller configured to initialize either with or without the additional axes, is this easy to do? I would love to have a 4th/5th axis that I can take on or off as needed.

Sorry for the wall of text, I hope I've at least managed to be clear if not concise.

Thanks,
-Nate