[CATCH22]

I just bought a 1981 Excello 604 CNC mill and cannot find any info. on this machine,I would like to find an electrical scematic and anything else about the mill. Does anyone know where I might be able to locate this info.

Thanks Mike

[Al_The_Man]

The 604 was used by a few OEM's for CNC conversion, so it depends on what controller is on it?
Many had SEM DC brushed motors with old Westamp drives.
I have the original manual in PDF, this would be before conversion.
Al.

[CATCH22]

Your right AL, it has Westamp drives,do you know if they can be used with Mach3 or would I be better off going to something more modern?

Thanks Mike

[Al_The_Man]

Job to use them with Mach unless you go for the Kflop & Kanalog from dynamotion.
Mach uses step/direction drives.
Al.

[Karl_T]

I have this machine. I'd suggest you look at EMC. It works great with DC brushed servos. I'd further suggest AMC amps to drive your servos. Easy to get good used ones on eBay.

I have a manual for the mechanical parts if you need it.

Karl

[CATCH22]

I have this machine. I'd suggest you look at EMC. It works great with DC brushed servos. I'd further suggest AMC amps to drive your servos. Easy to get good used ones on eBay.

I have a manual for the mechanical parts if you need it.

Karl

Thanks for the reply Karl.
I was wondering if you could tell me a little more about your machine,what you used from the old controller and the wiring if any of it,and what servos you have mine dont have a name on them they just say, Assembled in Mexico by Indiana General,and they are 85 volts,28 amps,1700 rpm DC motor.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Mike

[Al_The_Man]

The ones I have and converted had Milltronics III controls which were obsolete and parts not available.
I virtually gutted except the power supplies, and used either Copley Controls or AMC drives.
Because I used motion control cards in a PC slot, I was able to use analogue drives as the Westamp uses, you do not need the tach with the more modern drives in the torque mode of operation.
I did remove the Varispeed and fitted a direct drive timing belt to the spindle C/W. VFD control.
I still retained the gear box.
BTW, I was told by Excello that they went over to recommending ATF fluid in the G.B.
You motors sound the same size as the SEM.
There are some photos of my conversion in previous posts here.
Al.

[CATCH22]

Job to use them with Mach unless you go for the Kflop & Kanalog from dynamotion.
Mach uses step/direction drives.
Al.

Thankyou very much AL,I will go and check out your photos.

Thanks Mike

[Karl_T]

The control on my mill broke in 1995. I sold the servos, drives and control at that time.

No such thing as Mach back then so I put a DOS stepper control on called AHHA. I never liked the steppers even after trying the first Mach version. So I bought dc brush servos off eBay and installed Camsoft in 2003. EMC was in existance then but nowhere ready for prime time IMHO. I now have Camsoft on four machines. Its a professional control suitable for large commercial machines. The software costs $5K and you can spend another $5K on hardware. So, I wouldn't suggest it for your situation.

I just assisted a guy doing EMC on a similar mill. He is delighted. He used the AMC drives and bought the other hardware from Jon Elson, an EMC pioneer and guru.

I told the above fella to gut his control cabinet. I suggest you do the same. You may reuse some components but an empty box makes it easy to ID all your sensors and then do a nice layout. You'll need more cabinet space than comes with the excello. I just bolted one on the back from an old series 1 bridgeport.

I'd strongly suggest a VFD to drive your spindle, AMC amps for your servos, and a Jon Elsone PPMC board for your EMC IO encoder connections and +/- 10 volt analog servo signal.

Karl

[Al_The_Man]

Thankyou very much AL,I will go and check out your photos.

Thanks Mike

Link P.M'd.
Here is the spindle mod.
The 'Gear' Tooth is for a tach.
Al.

[CATCH22]

Link P.M'd.
Here is the spindle mod.
The 'Gear' Tooth is for a tach.
Al.

Thanks AL,
What kind of speeds do you get with the vfd and spindle mod?

Thanks Mike

[Al_The_Man]

The motor is a 4 pole so with direct drive and G.B. in high I get ~3600 when running around 120Hz, I have not tried anything higher.
Al.

[Karl_T]

Link P.M'd.
Here is the spindle mod.
The 'Gear' Tooth is for a tach.
Al.

Al, I assume you only did this cause something was broken??

I use mine with both the varispeed and the VFD. Set the speed in the right ballpark with the varispeed, then use the VFD attached to a pot on the control when running.

Karl

[Al_The_Man]

Well for one I did not like the unknown rpm with the vari-speed, also it was noisy.
I have a Acroloop motion card running Acromill with one of the analogue outputs to control it, so I can issue a M3 & S value for the spindle.
I have an input that indicates when it is in low gear.
Al.

[CATCH22]

Thanks for the replys guys,I have built a small cnc mill with stepper motors and am using Mach3 with it and I really like it so I think Im going to go with it.
So would I be better off going with the rutex drives or the gecko drives in your opinions or something else.I really like the look of the gecko drives they look really easy to wire up. But I also know they only go to 80volts and 20 amps and I need 85 volts,28 amps so I dont think they will work. Any opinions on this would be great.

Thanks Mike

[Al_The_Man]

If going with Mach and the same motors you could look at Larking Viper drives, I have not used them however, but it appears there are a few here that have.
Al.

[CATCH22]

The 604 was used by a few OEM's for CNC conversion, so it depends on what controller is on it?
Many had SEM DC brushed motors with old Westamp drives.
I have the original manual in PDF, this would be before conversion.
Al.

PM sent.

[CATCH22]

Here is a picture of my servo motor.
It looks like it says .7 amps could this be right?


Thanks Mike

[Al_The_Man]

What is the dimensions of the motor?
What is reduction/gearing involved?
Al.

[CATCH22]

Hi AL,
The dimensions on the motor are 4" diameter x 11" long including the tach. and about 6.5" for just the motor to the back of the brushes.
The gearing looks to be a 2 to 1 ratio.