[Hellbringer]

Hello!,

So i am starting VMC retrofit, the machine is from 1985 and currently has analog drivers and encoders and i am looking to switch them out to digital step drive setup to use Mach3 or UCCNC and looking for some recommendation.

I found these encoders

https://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Stock-En...QAAOSw8HBZL77k

Looking for that you guys think.

I am not trying to do this conversion on the cheap, i want good quality just dont know where to look

Also, i want to get some pretty tight tolerances with this machine, what is a standard or good PPR count?

Thanks
Mike

[spumco]

What are you putting the encoder on? Spindle, axis drive, etc.?

If you're looking for an encoder for an axis drive, then the servo will come with one. Suggest buying a matched set of servo & drive and then you don't have to worry about incompatibility.

If you're looking for a spindle encoder, then find the drive (VFD?) you want, then you can figure out what encoder is appropriate based on output circuit/signal type, voltage, and encoder count (PPR). Note that not all VFD's can handle encoder inputs, and most of them can't handle very high signal frequencies.

If you're trying to re-use the old servos and put new encoders and drives in the machine I'm not sure how that would work out. I think servo encoders are generally in the multi-thousand PPR, not 600PPR.

[Jim Dawson]

If you want tight tolerance then I would keep the servos and put 1 micron magnetic linear encoders on the axes, on table and the z axis. That gives you 25400 counts/ inch. Cost about $120 per axis for magnetic encoders. You need a real industrial motion controller and mating software. I use Galil motion controllers, and my own software. My software is not for sale, but I do give it away for free.

Mach 3 would not be my first choice for controllers. For one thing, encoders are useless on Mach3, it has no way to read them. Mach3 is open loop only. I don't know anything about UCCNC.

I've upgraded a few machines, and the last one I did for a guy will hold single digit micron accuracy consistently. It was a nice tight machine. My mill will hold +/- 0.0001 (+/- ~2 microns) in all axes if I need it to.