[dodgy74]

Okay... I've finally saved enough money to start my retro on my Sizuoka ST-N originally fitted with a Bandit control and tool changer and I've a little snafu. None of the servos or the spindle say anything on them (photos attached). Can anyone help!? Is there anyway for me to test them to figure out what I have so I know what to get as far as drives go? Also, I've looked high and low for any resolvers/encoders and cant find anything... help? Or how about a way for me to find out what size the motor is on the spindle??? The only thing I can make out on it is "Yaskawa" and "JIS C 4210." Please, oh CNC great ones! Show me the way...

Thanks, David

[kirk_wallace]

Hello David,

I have just bought a Shizuoka like yours. It looks like I'll be traveling the same path you are on. Your message is a little old, have you made any headway? I was hoping to use as much of the original hardware as possible for a conversion to EMC2.

Kirk, http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/

[123CNC]

my money is on steppers, from what can be seen in your pics. so you won't find any resolvers/tachs/encoders or other feedback signal generator. can't see any access for brushes of a brushed dc servo (only really available option of this age), and not enough wiring or indication of any feednback as you have found.

The AN-S's had 5 hp motors, the ST-N's smaller and closer in size relationship to a Bridgeport Series 1, likely 2 or 3 hp (I've only owned AN-S, so can't tell you matter-of-fact).

is there any sign of life in the bandit just to confirm axis motors are still working?? if not, you could salvage the power supply from the bandit (steal from a bandit, a Robin Hood power supply) and buy a single Gecko 203V or perhaps a single cheap stepper drive off e-bay (although the new Gecko would be a surer bet). you could then one by one test the drive motors. Or you could just go all new steppers or servos, and all new drives.

youv'e got some work cutout for you

[kirk_wallace]

I got my ST-N running. I took off the end plate from one of my axis motors and have the same wiring. All of the wires are fairly large, so are all power wires. I would think this indicates a stepper motor. When I power up the machine the motors sing at rest and buzz when moving, I would think another stepper trait. I have not used steppers before and they seem a little strange. My spindle motor has 2.2 kW on it so I believe it is a three horse. If you are interested dodgy64, I can find more details. Now, I need a reference to learn how to operate the Bandit. Does anyone have leads to electronic or paper manuals or tutorials? Thanks.

Kirk, http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/

[123CNC]

The Bandit reincarnated is Shadow. Their manual should get you going, at least enough to decide when you'll retrofit.

http://www.shadowcnc.com/shadowmillmanual.pdf

[kirk_wallace]

Thanks 123CNC. The Shadow manual helped allot. Now I have enough information to actually use a function or find a work-around.

I worked on the tool changer and was lucky enough to get it working. It turns out a tantalum capacitor shorted out on the logic board and brought the changer power supply to 0 volts. I removed the capacitor, and everything works fine. Fortunately, I have the ATC manual with all of the schematics, so I can look up the values for the cap for a replacement. I knew electrolitics would fail with age, but maybe tantaliums do too. The logic board had quite a few places that showed evidence of being worked on.

After getting the changer working, I of course had to cut a bunch of air and a few things came to light.

There seem to be no limit or home switches. What is the standard procedure for establishing home and does it need to be done on every power up? What happens when you rapid to one of the limits?

It looks like the tool and spindle speed selection are incremental and cannot be done by setting a speed or tool value.

The knee travel is quite long, but if I move the knee up much passed half way, I would run the vise into the homed spindle. Is it common to have a spacer to raise the head? It seems like a waste to have all that knee travel an not be able to use it.

Currently, I have a three phase power cable to the mill and a 110VAC cable that runs the Bandit. If I have the 110VAC line plugged in the power supply in the Bandit stays on, even though the Bandit power switch is off. It seems to me that it would be better to run the Bandit off of one of the three phase leads, which would allow for one power cable (L1, L2, L3 plus N and G) and have the main disconnect control power to the whole machine.

There are three air pressure regulators, one in the changer, one on the changer housing, and a main on the back of the mill pedestal. Does any one have recommendations on pressure settings for each?

There is a round connector on the right side of the Bandit which appears to be a serial port. Does anyone have a pin-out of this connector? What software is needed to communicate with the Bandit? A simple terminal emulator and/or something like Kermit for file transfer?

Thanks.

Kirk, http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/

[kirk_wallace]

I found another regulator in the Bandit interconnect box on the pedestal. It operates the spindle brake. I suppose, I should adjust this one to get the braking performance I want. There is an oops that was completely obvious but I didn't think about it until I started taking the air lines apart to clean the regulators. The main regulator set had an air hose fitting, dehumidifier/filter, regulator and oiler. The main set outlet went to the Bandit interconnect box and to the tool changer set. The interconnect contains the brake regulator/solenoid and mist solenoid. It seems that with the mist on, you would be needlessly drawing oil from the oiler. I couldn't get the mist to work so I'll need to work on that. Can someone tell me what M code to use? The oops is the filter/regulator/oiler on the changer housing. There was oil in the filter, which I thought was strange, but then it hit me that there was an oiler on the main set. This must have been something someone put on after the original purchase. So now I am thinking I need to rethink the whole pneumatic system. There should be, in line; an air hose fitting, main shut-off valve, air dehumidifier/filter, and manifold, with ports for the brake reg./oiler, mist reg. (no oil), operator/aux air reg. (no oil), and changer reg./oiler. Does this seem reasonable?

Kirk, http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/

[HuFlungDung]

Re: power up and homing
None of the bandits I ran (3 out of 3) had any provision for homing. G99 was the return to home command. If they would have this option turned on, it would have been merely to a switch anyways, which would not be particularly accurate. I always used the mechanical dials on the screws to keep track of the home position, and would carefully park it at shutdown and make sure to reset the mechanical dials to zero. Often, the drives would pulse a bit on powerup, so you'd have to watch for that occurance.

So when the control powers up, all axis are zero. If you want to move it somewhere and set a new home zero, then you can do so using the G92 command. You can set any value you like with the G92, but if you want all zero then:
X0 ENTER Y0 ENTER Z0 ENTER G92 STORE
You can also do a single axis at a time.

G98 START (in mdi) will send all axis home to the set G92 position.

All the Bandits I've seen used a seperate 110v supply for the Bandit. The reason for this is preserving the program in memory requires constant power. The Standby switch on the Bandit keeps the memory alive and keeps the boards warmed up. So the main disconnect for your 3 phase is handy as a seperate unit so you can shut down the axis drives (if they are hooked up elsewhere to power, although the Bandit sometimes had power supplies for the drives built in) and kill main power to the machine and toolchanger.

If your Bandit has axis displays, then you can reset them to whatever you want them to read using the G93 command and setting commands in mdi just as you would for G92. G93 is display control.

T1 M6 should invoke a tool change, but will not call the length offset. So you could first change the tool, then farther down in your program you could implement the length offset. Because the Bandit executes the length offset as soon as it is called, you would want to do this when it was appropriate and safe to do so.

The Bandit had a strange coding method for tool length offsets and radius comp.
You could use T1000 as a means to call the length offset for T10, or T100 for T1.
If you also planned to use radius comp, then the number became T101010 where the secret code was related to this acronym:
Trroott
rr= rad comp number
oo = length offset number
tt = tool number
So you could use two, four or six digit command, and a leading zero would be dropped so that T010101 = T10101 for T1

[kirk_wallace]

Thank you, HuFungDung.

I played with homing yesterday and your information helped. I also noticed that the reset button or switching modes resets home. I don't know what was the cause but it seems if a program was interrupted or edited the home would change. I am really going to need to watch this closely.

I couldn't get T1 M6 to work yet. I found that I can use Tool Out, Tool In, Turret CW, Turret CCW and Turret Home to get what I need. It's nice having 24 slots, but moving 12 positions can take a fair amount of time.

I don't have axis display. I am not used to stepper systems, so maybe, not having the display is a good reminder that there is no position feedback.

I haven't touched offsets or compensation yet. The fun just keeps coming. I take it that rr, oo and tt are reference numbers pointing to the offset values somewhere else?

I am planning on shutting all power off when the machine is not being used, so I guess I'll need to get the serial port working to load g-code files. My other machines are on the LAN, so this is another thing to get used to.

There is a fair amount of rust on the machine, so I guess water soluble coolants are a bad thing for this machine. I already use oil for my Hardinge HNC, so I just need to buy more.

I have pictures and a video here:
http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/Shizuoka/

Kirk, http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/

[HuFlungDung]

Yes, the old "G92" system will move your home around on you. That's why its the sh!ts

RESET is akin to ESTOP and you will want to reserve it for real emergencies because it is a pain to recover position. If possible the best way to halt a program is to switch to Single Step and let the current movement finish. Then manually return to home before rerunning the program.

There is a systematic way to handle the G92 problem:
1. Set the home position in MDI mode, do not write it into your main program.
2. If you interrupt a program you should form the habit of returning to home, using the G98 command in MDI. Be ready, because the machine will move in rapid in all axis to the home position. I also prefer to cancel the current tool offset with a T0 in MDI before any G98 because this will raise the tool up (if you use negative length offsets).
3: If you interrupt a program, or at any time go into JOG mode and move the machine around, you are in danger of losing the G92 home position. Remember this is bare naked CNC So long as you stay in JOG mode, you can force the machine to do a quick return to where you began jogging from by hitting the / G keys then hit the START command. The machine will move back to where it was, at Rapid rate.

One of the first things you will need is access to the length offset register: hit /N1 then START. This will cause the START light to go out and you are in the comp register on line 1. Using the STEP key, you can increment through the offset register one address at a time. At any address, you can type in the value Z-1.2345 and hit STORE to store the length value at that address. When done, return to the main program area by hitting N1 START.

I'm going by memory here, if any errors, please accept my apologies but you can re-ask and I might re-think and re-remember

If you are going to use the machine daily or every couple of days, I'd recommend that you leave it in Standby. This will keep the card cage warm and lessen the movement of the expanding parts overtop oxidation which is the main source of headaches for these things.

[HuFlungDung]

BTW, I'm not sure about your toolchanger. I never actually ran a toolchanger with the Bandit, I used the Shadow.

The changer needs air, without air, there will be a slide hold signal which will prevent operation of the cnc.

You should probably start off with a Turret home code on startup.

You might have to enter T1 on its own line and then the M function on the next line.

Spindle orient off (M19) may not be required, but that would depend on the changer requirement. If your spindle has no keys to drive the tool flange then you would not have to worry about it orienting for the changer.

You might need to try another M function than M6 because M6 might be for manual tool change and is equivalent to an M0.

[kirk_wallace]

The tool changer works with the M codes for Tool In/Out and Turret CW/CCW/Home and the ATC manual doesn't mention M6 to invoke a tool change. From the conversation in this thread, I am getting really frustrated about the work-a-rounds and gotchas with the Bandit. I promised myself that I would try my best to use the machine as is, but I am getting to the point of caving in and converting to EMC2. I am comfortable with EMC2 and can get it to do just about anything I want. So, I took a look at the stepper drives to see if I could use them. It appears that there are four inputs, QB, QA, /QB, /QA (labels from the dual flip-flop in the controller). So the step inputs appear to be quadrature signals with their complements. So far, so good with EMC2. Then there are a couple of optoisolators where the the opto LED seems to be feed a signal and grounded through another pin. My thinking is the signal that drives the LED is enabled by sinking through another signal. These drivers have a Summit logo on them so my guess is that they are proprietary. If they are, then I would need to have the documentation in order to figure out what the "extra" IO is for. If I can't use the drivers, then I need to figure out what drivers to use. The present drivers have a 45 V supply input and are marked with an 8 Amp current limit adjustment and has 6 wires to its motor (4 drive, 2 common). The first driver that came to mind is of course a Gecko, but I would like the have a drive that might integrate with EMC2 better. I seem to recall something about the I in the Gecko PID is not adjustable. It looks I might have to learn about steppers.

Kirk, http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/

[HuFlungDung]

Yes, its a shame to spend a lot of time learning the Bandit when it is so limited even when it is running as well as it can. Its more like an introductory toy to cnc, but its long been supplanted by better things.

The guys who can make a few bucks with a Bandit in a long haul semi-accurate production situation of some sort can justify fixing them, I guess.

[peburrell]

I am starting up on the same path you two are on. I just bought an ST-N with what appears to be the same setup on the pictures.

I have a couple of starting questions that would help out.

What is the tool holder size. I think it is either a NMTB 30 or NMTB 40. I know that the AN-S are 40s, but I think the ST-Ns are 30. Can someone confirm? I need to order some tool holders. My machine came with none.

My current plan is to retrofit and do a Mach-3 install. There is a lot of baggage (size) that comes with the bandit control.

What is the opinion on the ATC? I had to disassemble mine in order to lift it safely. I think that a lot of work needed to be done on it anyway. The sprocket on the door fell right off.

Does anyone have manuals on the mill or the ATC? Some diagrams might be helpful.


Paul

[kirk_wallace]

Congratulations Paul. I have had really good luck with my ST-N.

My spindle uses NMTB 40 taper tool holders. I think the manual specifies another type, maybe an R-8 but that seems a bit small. I like the NMTB 40 so far except the holders are harder to find. I got 33 holders from the previous owner, so I made out pretty well.

My ST-N came with steppers and a fully functioning Bandit. I had a hard time getting up to speed with the Bandit, so I removed the logic section and plugged in EMC2, using the existing drivers and power supply. I replaced the speed changer with a VFD so I can call for a speed with an S number instead of up/down speed increments and I can run the machine on 240 single phase. It took about two days to make the conversion, minus the tool changer integration. So far, I call for a manual tool change, which is done in local mode. (By the way, I have a small movie here:

http://www.wallacecompany.com/machin...ger_video.html

The changer has some logic built in so the integration should be easy. My changer works well, except the changer is a little loud, but that should be expected from the electric impact wrench.

I lifted my machine as one piece with a fork lift fork on each end of the ram dovetail. It was a dodgy process, but I am glad now, I didn't have to disassemble anything. The manual for the base mill indicates a weight of 3000 lbs, but it seemed a whole lot heavier. My four wheel trailer was maxed out.

I have the manual for the base (manual) milling machine, which doesn't seem to offer much and the ATC. The ATC manual has all the information you might need from operation to schematics. It was a big help for me. I'll see what I can scan. Where should I e-mail the scans?

I am able to use the machine now, but I plan to add a watchdog circuit, a tool slot encoder and maybe axis encoders, home and limit switches. I need the watchdog circuit so that if I leave the main cut-off on ,the drivers and spindle won't power up before the EMC2 controller. The tool slot encoder will allow me to call a tool by T number instead of the current way of counting tool slot moves from home. The axis encoders will allow me to have an accurate home and may come in handy for position display, but steppers should not need encoders.

The foot of the mill is a coolant tank. My mill's previous owner used water based coolant, so there was significant rust on the unpainted surfaces. The the coolant had gone rancid and was junked up and smelled like a septic tank. Cleaning it out was pretty unpleasant. It still smells a little. I was surprised to find that warm water and laundry detergent cut the goo pretty well when other degreasers didn't.

Apparently ST-N's where available with steppers or servos, which did you get? Your ATC sounds in pretty rough shape. Is it complete? Do you have pictures? Did you get one of the fourteen available from Craig's List? Please keep us informed with your progress.

Kirk, http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop

[peburrell]

Yes, I picked up one of them in the SF area (I am assume that is what you are talking about). I contemplated one of the AN-S, but I really did not have the room. Settled for the ST-N. It still ended up being about 4 inches higher than I wanted, but I will make it work. From what I gather, it was a crazy situation there. I did not want to take the time and money to drive down. From some of the extra pictures that I had, it looked OK. The one I was suppose to get was in really good shape, due to confusion, it ended up not being available at the decision time.

It was not in really bad shape, just well used. I still have some of the learning curve on the mill in general, that is why I was asking about the manual. From what I can tell and what I want to do with it, it is a couple of month project. I think that most of the problem has to do with the pneumatic system. The plastic is hold and brittle. The main input filter was cracked, etc. It looks like the base is in pretty good condition. That is what I wanted. A good cleaning and it should be OK.

I did get to do a little checking. The motors have 8 wires. I have to dug in enough to tell if they are 8 wire steppers or a servo motor. My guess is stepper. When I dig in a little more, I will know.

As for the main drive, I have a VFD. I have the motorized speed control system that is located on the front. With the combination of the two and the two speed drive, I should have pretty good response. I was originally looking at another ST-N that was one of the 1.5HP DC drive for the spindle. It had a DC drive system built in. I decided against it. It was a 30 size tool holder also. Decided to save the money and invest it into a VFD and more accessable tool holders.

Paul

[kirk_wallace]

I posted pictures of the current state of my machine here:

http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop/Shizuoka/

I am tying to breadboard everything and when I get it all working well enough, I will make a proper enclosure and cabling. I now have tool holders, so I got a picture of those.

What I was able to reuse from the Bandit control box is here:
http://www.wallacecompany.com/machin...a/00012-1a.jpg

I needed to reverse engineer the inputs to the stepper drivers which is here:
http://www.wallacecompany.com/machin...tep_Drv-1a.png

I also reused the main breaker, 240 to 120 transformer and one of the spindle relays as an main power relay.
http://www.wallacecompany.com/machin...a/00004-1a.jpg

The tool changer and stepper power supply had a 240 Volt option so I changed them over and they work fine. The last item is the PC which also has a 240 volt option, but I have yet to test it. If all goes to plan, I will only need to run L1, L2 and ground for 240 VAC, air and network to the machine.

Kirk, http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop

[123CNC]

Kirk,

wow, first that is a very clean mill for its age, did you find it in a museum or a barn?

second, youv'e really raised my curiosity on reusing the Bandit drives? I looked at your diagram, but can't make out the parenthesized text under the A/B inputs? Can you share any more details on which EMC driver your using (Stepconfig?) and what the signal types are to the Bandit stepper boards?

I found some pinout diagrams the other day on the bandit serial cable, but looks like you've already made the wiser decision on going EMC.

I've seen the 14 AN-S's on Craigslist as well. The ST-N is a better candidate for most would be garage users.

[kirk_wallace]

I got the mill from a machine shop owner that needed room for a lathe. I know nothing about its history. I looked in the spindle gearbox yesterday and the gears look like they are new.

I posted a larger version of the driver input schematic so it should be a little more ledgable. The QA and QB are the labels from the flip-flop on the control board that drive the inputs. The *QA and *QB are QA and QB but inverted. On the Bandit, the Inhibit signal seems to change the the Q signals from full step to half step with a decreasing Inhibit pulse width as the step rate increases. The Inhibit goes away at about 60% of maximum step rate. I believe they wanted to have the resolution of half stepping and the speed of full stepping. I went with half stepping with EMC2 and my maximum axis rate is about 70 IPM as opposed to the Bandit's 100 IPM. I haven't figured out how to change the stepping mode on the fly in EMC, so I guess I'll live with it until I go to servos. I am using EMC's stepgen mode 9 in the .hal file.
...
## Half stepping
loadrt stepgen step_type=9,9,9
...
My EMC files are here:
http://www.wallacecompany.com/machin...Shizuoka/emc2/

I haven't used Stepconfig, but I think it is for drives that have step/direction inputs.

I didn't know easy the conversion would be, so tried to use the Bandit as-is, but after having used EMC2 on my lathe, it was just too frustrating.

Kirk, http://www.wallacecompany.com/machine_shop

[123CNC]

Kirk,

Your updated pic of the Bandit driver is much easier to make out, THANKS.

Its contributions like yours that make the Zone priceless. You may be one of the first to reverse engineer the Bandit drives and successfully use with a EMC/PC Controller. My hat is off to you.

I hope others find your post (it also makes me ponder what will happen to those 14 AN-S on CL). Your solution is a quick (dollar-wise) yet elegant way to get chips flying.

I just might have to go out to the garage and un-bury those Bandit drives.