All you need is a motion controller that will output an analog +/- 10V motor command signal. I'm guessing Siemens has a motion control module for their PLCs. My favorite units are from Galil Motion Control, inexpensive for industrial quality hardware, and you can program them with Notepad, no expensive development software to buy.
Galil Motion Control If I were going to buy a new one today, I would get the 4040 unit.
I assume that your spindle motor is also Fanuc, so has the same control as the axis drives, just bigger and maybe with a few more features like the orientation module.
In the range of years we are talking about, the Red Cap (literally the end cap color) motors are AC servos, as opposed to the Yellow Cap motors which are DC servos. The may have changed the colors on modern motors, not sure about that.
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/hardin...-software.html
Like you I started with PLCs, in the early 80's. I haven't touched a Siemens since the S5. About 5 years ago I couldn't even spell CNC
, and I'm 69 now. With your background I would say you can do it. You have basically one thing to think about, the digital I/O, all of the motion control math is built into the controller. Tell the motion controller you want to move the X&Y axes 100,000 encoder pulses each and the motion controller works out the motion profile and handles the the motor analog commands to make it all work. The CNC software on the computer screen is really just an operator interface and a G code interpreter that converts the G code into something the controller can understand. All of the heavy lifting should be done by the motion controller. Contrary to popular belief, it ain't that complicated.
The weak link in any modern system is the computer. But the rest of the hardware is probably OK. Another option is CamSoft. They also use Galil motion controllers. My CNC software is free for now. I have never interfaced with Fanuc products, that however will change in the next few days.
I haven't researched the Centroid stuff, other than to look at their installation manual for the Fanuc system, they have nice drawings, and much easier to read than the Fanuc manuals.
It doesn't surprise me that they charge for every little feature. I just wrote the code for rigid tapping on the mill, but haven't tested it yet. Not too complicated, just electronically gear the Z axis to the spindle axis and press GO
Just like a G81 drill cycle, but the F is the Z feed per spindle revolution to follow the tap.
I'll have more information on the Fanuc interface next week, my plan was to be back up and making chips by Wednesday, but that got pushed back a bit because my output modules won't be here until Wednesday, they were supposed to be here today. Can't turn anything on without the outputs