[uli12us]

Unfortunately those are step and direction

If you want a complete change of all drives, then you can use step/dir as well as closed loop analog interface. Only if you want or must use the old hardware, you need the not so popular analog interface.

[LUCKY13]

Glad to here things are going in a new dirrection on your build, I was worried for you for a while. Take your time and figure it all out and you will be running before you know it.


Good Luck Pete
Jess

[pete from TN]

Uli,
Thanks for the advice my friend. Honestly I wanted to run with the Linux system closed loop so for the most part step and direction are out. Good suggestion tho....

Lucky,
Appreciate the comments man this project was never going to be anything less than a very long term thing for me and that prospect was disconcerting but I should be receiving some new parts possibly today that will allow me to move forward in a big way. Right now we have been laboring over the best and safest possible wiring schemes for the various circuits inside the machine while working with both the brand new components as well as some of the original contractors and relays inside the machine. It is not simple and it is not easy but we are working on it one circuit at a time and inserting all of it in a simple and easy to read Cad drawing. Once that is complete and my components arrive we can start wiring everything together inside there. I really wanted all of the basic machine circuits sorted out before I start getting inside the cabinet physically. Should not be long now...LOL peace

Pete

[pete from TN]

Well guys things are about to get real interesting around here. I received a delivery today from the fedex lady. Three boxes filled with CNC goodness LOL. I was thinking they might not get here until monday but I was surprised to see them outside of my shop door. I took them into the shop and set them up on my worktable and started opening them up. I was quite pleased with the packaging from Machmotion they used the blown foam type packing and everything was very nice and tight and undamaged. The new motors are really nice looking and I love the milspec connectors on them. The new drives are surprisingly small in size compared to the old ones I pulled out of the machine. The cabling I ordered wit them also look very nice and cleanly made. I am anxious to see them work in my machine here soon. I have been working on my vehicles the past few days and also finished a difficult and trying Tig welding job that went out today actually. Monday I have to install those nice cabinets I built and once that is done the machine will be at the forefront of my time to try to get the wiring started. I will be ordering the new spindle drive as we have finally decided on one tonight or tomorrow. The last bits and pieces will also be ordered in the next few days finally. I am really getting excited about this and while it has taken a LONG time to get this far we are really getting down to the wire with this.

Right now my pal Art and my pal Connor are working on a sweet wiring diagram for the machine and we have most of the basics done so far. Still some details to iron out but it has come a long way. I was pleased to find out that after talking with Machmotion about their wiring setup on their retrofits that we are basically going down the same roads with our setup. There are of course subtle differences since their machines use their proprietary front end but the input power and estop setups are very similar to what I am doing with the machine. I hope that means we will be successful once we get this ball rolling here. We shall see soon I guess.

Initially I will be wiring up and testing the input power contactors and the estop and limits to ensure that they work as expected. Once I do that I will then start installing and wiring up the drives with the motors off the machine. Then that should allow us to make sure we don't have any runaway situations or whatnot and we can test the basic system. Finally we should be able to install the motors and start coupling them to the screws and actually make things move hopefully.

Anyways I thought you guys would like to finally see some pictures instead of all the babbling I have been doing in this thread for awhile now. I managed to quell my excitement and snap some pics of the new stuff.... Peace

Pete

[slowlearner]

Pete it looks like everything is finally falling into place for you. I finally made a deal with the local scrap yard on my machines. One more semi load and then the 30 yd. pan and I'll be out of my burnt building. The new building lacks wiring which should happen this Thursday. The biggest problem I am running into now is I exhausted my savings.
I must applaud you for not giving up when everything was stacked against you. I know how hard it is to keep your head down and keep pushing on.
If I would have had the extra room to store 1 of the 40 x 20 machines I would have kept it to do a teardown and retrofit it like you are doing.
Just to see if I was able to do it.lol
Again I wish you luck and my prayers,
Scott in Al.

[pete from TN]

Hey man thanks for the kind words. I was beginning to think I would never get the Monet together for this build. It is no small amount and if it were not for the kind folks who bought all my old parts who knows if Ans when I would ever be able to do this. Seeing the brand new motors and drives here finally in person was a major big deal for me and I am very pleased to be finally ready to dig in on this build. It is going to be a challenge that is for sure but we have some good folks helping us. LOL....

Taking the afternoon off today to tinker on my Fiero GT and try to figure out what is causing a miss in the motor. Also want to maybe take a picnic with the family to a park or something because it is supposed to be much warmer today.

If I get time I may try to start working on the control pendant panel and work on getting the monitor mounted to it. It will be pretty basic as I intend to do most things in linuxcnc using the nice industrial keyboard I bought so don't expect tons of fancy flashing buttons on there LOL... I am a simple kind of Guy and want to just make sure the machine is reliable and working properly over lots of flash....maybe once it is all working I may do some of the fancier stuff but right now it will be dead simple.

So sorry to hear about your own troubles with the fire. Stand your ground on the prices for your used machines I was amazed at how much people were willing to spend for my old parts but honestly after experiencing a few expensive failures myself with the old control I can see why they were this stuff can be crazy expensive which is another reason why I chose to go with this retrofit route. If something breaks I can fix it and the parts are not only new they are much cheaper to replace if and when they blow......good luck man. Peace

Pete

[Lomach]

Pete

The motors and drives look identical to the estun ones i used including the connectors. Just wanted to mention that on the y axis the motor power plug (not the encoder) was too big to fit in the space under the columb. To get over this i soldered the wires directly to the pins using small brass tubes and then potted them in resin to ensure they were waterproof. Yours maybe ok but thought i would mention it. What are the specs on the z axis motor you are using? Its all looking good though and I hope its all up and running soon.

Lee

[pete from TN]

Well today I FINALLY ordered the spindle drive. It was a close race between the speedstar 7.5hp single phase input vfd and a Hitachi 15hp three phase input vfd to control my 7.5hp 5.5 kW spindle motor. In the end I decided to go with the derated Hitachi drive from Drives warehouse after much deliberation. We will see how that works out. I also ordered a small fractional HP vfd to run the dual voltage 440/230v coolant pump in lieu of replacing the entire pump with single phase pump. Got them both from driveswarehouse and received a shipping notification the same day. Nice folks to talk to over the phone too. I also ordered the dual disk motor couplers in the 22to19mm size I need to mate the larger shaft motors to the machines ballscrews. With any luck all of these items will be here in a week or so but the couplers might be awhile. That is fine because I think it will take me some time to get all of this stuff installed in the machine and tested before I actually start coupling motors to screws. The spindle encoder is still up in the air right now although I am leaning towards a very small 1-1ratio timing pulley driven directly off the spindle body driving an idler with an encoder on it for exact spindle positioning. Working out the details on that one may be a little while but right now I should have everything in place soon to get brand new electronics control on the entire machine and initially we will just be working on getting the basic machine running safely. As I said things are starting to get interesting around here right now LOL....stay tuned. Peace

Pete

[andypugh]

I also ordered a small fractional HP vfd to run the dual voltage 440/230v coolant pump in lieu of replacing the entire pump with single phase pump.

That might be a bit excessive for a coolant pump. I am running my (3-phase) coolant pump as a capacitor-start / capacitor-run single-phase motor.
I needed to rewire for 240V (it was set up for 440V) then it is just a case of linking 2 wires to the mains (via a relay) and the third to one terminal of the capacitor and the other terminal of the cap to a power phase. (if it runs the wrong way, connect the cap to the other live).
It needs to be a motor-run capacitor, and of the right value for the power of the motor.
As a coolant pump starts under no-load and is low-power there is no need for anything particularly clever. There is some information here:
Modifying Three Phase Motors For Single Phase Use?
Look at the "Steinmetz connection" (post 13) info, and just ignore the start-capacitor for your application.
There is a simple rule-of-thumb, something like "30uF per hp", in this book: [ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Electric-Motors-Workshop-Practice-S/dp/1854862464/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361873213&sr=8-1"]Electric Motors (Workshop Practice S): Amazon.co.uk: Jim Cox: Books[/ame]
Which I used to guess my capacitor.

[pete from TN]

Hey man thanks for the suggestions. Honestly while that is probably a better and cheaper way to accomplish the same end result my entire goal for this machine build is that it be as simple and plug and play as humanly possible. The inexpensive vfd allows me to just plug in the existing wire harness for the coolant pump and I can switch it on and off inside the cabinet with a simple 24v signal from my mesa card. Same thing with the spindle drive and they are both Hitachi models so their setup will be simple and repeated. So far everything in the machine is going to be brand new with the exception of a few relays,solenoids, and the main spindle motor. Hopefully the net results will be a great running reliable machine that is easy and simple to repair as well as inexpensive.

Yesterday I tried to insert one of the new motors into the mounts and thankfully it fit nice and snug. Can't wait to get these installed for good and start using this monster LOL....peace

Pete

[mike_Kilroy]

I did not know you were going to use an external encoder. sorry.

[pete from TN]

Thanks for the tip mike, can you elaborate further on that specifically? I am under the impression that the stock motor is run 2-1 ratio so where the spindle spins at 6000rpm the motor spins at 12k Max which honestly is pretty nuts but that is how they designed this little beastie so who am I to argue. Is there something I don't know here. I hope I bought the right drive as we spent considerable time belaboring the decision. I know you do this for a living apparently I just want to get this machine running reliably. Peace

Pete

[mike_Kilroy]

Thanks for the tip mike, can you elaborate further on that specifically?

ya but then I'd have to kill ya. just try it if you need to and don't speak much about it please - it is my proprietary info.

Since you don't require orient or tool changing anymore, then yes, the oversized drive you purchased should work at least in v/hz mode.

[pete from TN]

Where did you get that I won't require alignment or toolchange positioning? Absolutely I will be needing that. My plan is to use a spindle mounted encoder to track absolute position of the spindle as well as position for toolchange. Dunno why you are being so cryptic here if you need to tell me something important but don't want it posted here just PM me your secret is safe with me....peace

Pete

[samco]

I am pretty sure mike_Kilroy is a mach guy. Maybe you can't orient in mach

This is using linuxcnc and a normal vfd. (and spindle encoder)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6dGYsXAPIU

sam

[pete from TN]

I am pretty sure mike_Kilroy is a mach guy. Maybe you can't orient in mach

This is using linuxcnc and a normal vfd. (and spindle encoder)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6dGYsXAPIU

sam

Sam,
Thanks man I did not know where he was coming from there for a minute. I hope I bought the right drive the specs sure look nice.

Damn man I just broke off my last best 10-32 tap in the machine electronics cabinet back wall. Now I gotta run down town and buy a couple more as well as some shcs for mounting the drives into the enclosure. Be back soon LOL...peace

Pete

[samco]

Yay - those back panels always seem harder than they need to be.

sam

Damn man I just broke off my last best 10-32 tap in the machine electronics cabinet back wall. Now I gotta run down town and buy a couple more as well as some shcs for mounting the drives into the enclosure. Be back soon LOL...peace

Pete

[pete from TN]

Got a couple new screws and taps so back yo work now LOL...peace

Pete

[pete from TN]

Okay guys, today was another good day in the story of my Cincinatti Arrow 500 retrofit. I got a visit from the brown Santa today and he cheerfully dropped off two large boxes. I thanked him and took them inside and opened them up. I was very pleased to find my brand new Hitachi sensorless vector drive for my Spindle driver. I also opened another smaller box and found the very cool and tiny vfd that will now run my coolant pump. They are both japanese made high quality units with numerous special functions that will come in handy when I integrate this whole package together. I am quite pleased with these new units.

The work is just getting started here but today I managed to finish the mounting of my three axis drives into the enclosure. Managed to back out that broken tap and then finished tapping the remaining holes and installed the drives with all brand new hardware. I am working on the overall layout of the enclosure IE where everything will be placed for wiring ease as well as minimizing any noise issues. The new VFD will probably go up into the top right of the cabinet as close to the area where the spindle motor leads come in and as far away from the computer and mesa setup which is largely mounted inside it's own little steel faraday box. The computer and mesa card setup will be mounted to the side wall of the enclosure and I am unsure if it will be the left or right side right now, possibly the left but once we finish the wiring diagram that will probably determine placement. The coolant pump VFD will go down in the bottom of the enclosure where the leads come in for the pump. Anyways I have been cleaning up the electronics enclosure slowly and took some pics of the mounting. I placed a couple plastic bags over the drives to keep crap out of them while I work inside the enclosure and drill and tap other stuff. I may just remove them while I do it but the bags should work fine temporarily. Anyways, the only things I am waiting on now are the couplers and I have yet to order a couple relays I need but not entirely sure of the specs yet so that will wait while I work on the rest of this stuff. Peace

Oh yeah I also popped a picture of the cabinet job I was working on. It is getting installed right now and should be done tomorrow.LOL...
Pete

[skray775]

Nice cabinets Pete!