[FastFarmer]

Hi Stephen, picture appear to be no longer available. Would appreciate it if you could upload them again. I will be in Victoria in April/May this year and would love to catch up with you to see how your BF46 is running

Sorry Stuart, I don't come here very often... and just noticed this. If still need help PM me and hopefully I will get the message.

Cheers
Stephen

[silentwolf79]

Ok forget the KBIC controller!! These drivers are used on the optimum Vario lathes and is useless for what you want.

Depending on your setup you can drive the board with your controller. I use pico systems breakout boards. In my case I made a board to replaced the switches with relays (see pic), but If you don't want to make this board, you can buy the C6 board which will do the job.

Attached is a circuit diag for you.

Cheers
Stephen

Hi Stephen

Don't mean to hijack the conversation between you and Stuart, but i am also busy converting my optimum bf 46 to cnc and am using your circuit diagram to do the spindle. i have a few questions. first am i correct in thinking that there are 5 wires coming from the C6 board to the X6 connector, one from both commons on the relays to wire 1 on the X6 connector (24v i believe), one wire from the NO on the enable relay to both ports 2 and 3 on the X6 connector (start and stop i believe), two wires from the direction relay (one from NO and one from NC) to ports 5 and 6 on the X6 connector, and 1 wire from the analog 0-5vdc signal to port 11 on the X6 connector? it seems i need a ground wire coming from the 0-10vdc output from the C6 board going somewhere, possibly to port 12 on the X6 connector, or am i mistaken?
Currently i have 4 wires going into the C6 board, from port 2 on my Ethernet smoothstepper, one from port 14 for the step signal, one from port 16 and one from port 17 for the fwd/rev signal, and one ground wire from the port, does this sound correct?
The little green inset in the diagram that shows something to do with the lcd, is that something that needs modifying, or is it just detail of the LCD.
then finally, will the lcd and rpm sensor retain functionality, or do i need to wire the lcd or hall sensor to something new, i ask since there will be no way to know what the RPM is in Mach4, no sensor input coming in?
Sorry for all the questions, i am far from an expert in this field...

rgds,

[FastFarmer]

It's been too long for me to remember what wires go where or do what. I never used the C6 board (we made our own) but what you will get from it is start/stop and forward/reverse

Spindle speed is not an option on this mill as the pot uses a floating ground and the DAC is common ground. If you blow these boards up, they are joke expensive!!

I blew the BF-30 up (same board and motor) and it was cheaper (and so much better) to buy a new motor and controller with all the bells and whistles... like spindle speed. I made it direct drive and mounted the controller in the old box with a new panel. It now mills along at 4500rpm all day and is lovely and quiet with no gearbox.

Cheers

[silentwolf79]

Aha i see, well thanks anyhow. i seem to have got everything wired up fine. the C6 has an optoisolated output, and specifically mention that you can ground the output to the common ground. when i simply had the analog output wired in it wouldn't change spindle speed. adding the ground solved the issue, tuning the C6 to provide 5 volts at max commanded RPM resulted in a spindle that is fully controlled by Mach, fwd/rev, start, stop and spindle speed. only thing that it can't do is change gears on the gearbox when needed, but i can work around that until i upgrade the spindle. was thinking that when time and money allow to upgrade the spindle motor to a 1.8kw servo with drive from dmm tech, although your setup looks very good as well, especially the direct drive...

rgds,

[FastFarmer]

Oh that's good to hear!

The only trouble with direct drive is you cant have a tool changer. I have this on the BF-46 and love it.

Changing speed on such a slow mill is not an issue. There is basically nothing (except threading) I don't cut at 3000rpm... never change it, just change the feed, You can get 4000+ rpm out of the mill by resetting MAX on the board (but of course do so at your own risk).

Running it at 3000 it's still quiet enough although it gets hot as hell. I have heat sinks all over it which makes a difference.

[silentwolf79]

Thanks, very glad it is up and running and i didn't blow anything...

Yeah i was wondering how you do toolchanges at all on it, don't see where the draw bar is. i was thinking a 1:1 pulley with belt drive would allow a toolchanger and still have the benefit of no noisy gears.
wow ok, if i run my bf46 to max rpm the noise is deafening from the gearing, although i would certainly like to run it that fast for everything. hmmm, think 3500 is ok for now, don't want to risk damaging the electronics. aha, sure the heatsinks help a lot....