[vintageracer]

Now that the Dyna Mechtronics section has been added to CNCZone, I can post the retrofit/rebuild of my second DM4400.

We'll start off with a picture of the machine from the ad I found online.



I rented a 24' truck, drove 18 hours round trip to pick it up in York, PA.

Timothy

[Fastest1]

Woo Hoo! I cant wait to read about it. It looks good!

[vintageracer]

After the long drive and the 4am drop off (had to get the truck back to the yard by 8) I spent the next day getting the machine in position and leveling it out.

This was actually my second DM4400. I bought this one specifically because it was fully functional. I had traveled down to HMC to see it powered up and running two weeks earlier.



Timothy

[vintageracer]

I connected 240 single phase to the machine bypassing the three phase needed to drive the spindle and fired up the control and the steppers. Everything was in order, the table and the head moved and the ATC changed tools.
I pulled up a chair and the manual a started to teach myself Dyanlan.
I tried, really I did. I just could not get it to make a circle.
My electronic tech friend Rich came over and asked what the problem was. I handed him the programming manual and told him to make sense of it. After reading it for 20 minutes he replied ' you gotta get rid of this'

So... off came all the electronics. All that was left was the three steppers and the home switches.



Timothy

[vintageracer]

First thing on the list of things to do was to decide what electronics I would need to complete the retro fit.

After an email to Marcus at Gecko Drive, the original steppers would work perfectly with the G540. This also made the wiring simpler by having a breakout board and two relays all in one package.



I bought a packet of 3.3k ohm resistors from the local electronics store to set the current limit on the G540 but I should have bought the EZ G540 connectors from Soigeneris.



Timothy

[vintageracer]

The spindle driver was next and after a bit of online research I decided to go with a Bardac 3200i DC driver. It takes +-10v singals and has tach generator input too. Luck would have it and I found the larger 3600xri version on eBay for an incredible low price, so I bought two.



Timothy

[vintageracer]

A trip to HGR Industrial Surplus in Clevland provided me with the computer cabinet I needed and a stack light.





The light is just for looks for now. I have a small relay circuit ready to install that turns the green light off and the red light on if there is problem.

Timothy

[Fastest1]

Timothy
It is looking good why the spindle speed controller/driver? Couldnt the old one be reused? I believe there is a sensor for rpm built in also. I would think the G540 might be able to process that info correctly. I dont know yet. I have found quite a bit of interesting parts within my cabinet. I am still trying to figure out why I have an air powered door?

[vintageracer]

The original spindle driver required 460vac 3 phase input through a very large transformer on the back of the machine.
The Bardac is a 240vac single phase input, so other than a large breaker at the wall panel, no transformer is required.
Also, the driver was over 20 years old. I made a promise to myself to replace all the electronics with new stuff.

Timothy

[vintageracer]

As soon as the Gecko G540 arrived, I went to work installing it. I started with a sheet of 1/8" aluminum bolted to the inside of the cabinet and fastened all the components to it. I reused the power supply for now cause it was already there and provided 48vdc, 12vdc and 5vdc for the steppers, home switches and fans.

I didn't really worry about making it neat and organized, I just wanted it working.



Timothy

[vintageracer]

After tuning the Bardac spindle driver and setting the home and soft limits in Mach3 I was ready to make some chips.
However, the little table surround was hardly up to the task of keeping everything contained, especially when the 2" face mill was going full blast at 4800rpm.



I even added the alert light on the top of the control cabinet.



Timothy

[vintageracer]

So needing something quick and inexpensive, not to mention something I could finish on a Saturday, I designed a shower curtain enclosure for the machine. There was already four threaded holes on the top of the column so I made a plate that bolted on, bent up some 1" tubing I had and went to the hardware store to pick up a couple of clear shower curtains.





Timothy

[vintageracer]

I removed the existing back splash panels and trimmed the clear shower curtain to fit the contours of the column and base. I then used a couple of magnets to hold it in place.



I ended up removing the ATC since is was non functional at this point which made it alot easier to fit the curtains and make them splash proof.



Timothy

[vintageracer]

Originally the splash guards had an angled bottom that funneled the coolant and chips back into the plinth and down into the coolant tank. Since this section didn't extend all the way to the front, I had a gap with the new curtain enclosure. So I removed those pieces too and made up some side trays to catch all the coolant and chips and angled it to the front to make chip scooping easier.



Now that everything was nice and square, the curtains hung down inside the trays and the chips were contained to the machine. Since this was just a quick test and not really made to be permanent, I just drilled a 3/16" hole in the corner of the tray to let the coolant drain out into some buckets.
I'll add a proper fitting and some tubes to drain it right back into the 'new' coolant tank that I'll be fabricating later.



Timothy

[2ferrous]

OK, I fixed all the broken links to the pictures and am now ready to post some more of the continuing upgrades.

Timothy

[Fastest1]

A name change?

[2ferrous]

The shower curtain was a good quick fix but the main plan was to build a complete enclosure for it. The first step was to design and install the back splash on either side of the column. This would stop the chips and coolant from exiting out the back every time I blew off the work piece and vises.



I used 14ga sheet steel to form the panels and gave them a 1" lip for strength. I had to hand contour the lower edge of the panel around the base so it would fit nicely.



Timothy

PS. Yes, a name change. I wanted something a little more machinist like.

[2ferrous]

Next up while I finished the design of the enclosure was to do something about the coolant delivery. As handy as those jointed coolant nozzles are, I hate the fact that every time you get a stringer from a drilling cycle, the nozzle(s) are knocked out of the way. You can image the damage if the next tool is an endmill and there's no coolant supplied to the cutting edge....

I went to the hardware store and picked up two brass barbs and a length of 1/4" copper tubing. Total cost $6.00. I machined off the barbs and drilled a 1/4" through hole in the lathe and then just soldered a 12" piece of copper tube into the brass fitting. After they cooled down a bit, I installed them in the existing ports with a bit of Teflon tape and then just bent them using one of those small hand tube benders.



I had the two coolant tubes point in slightly different spots to allow for different length cutters.



To date, this setup works perfect. The coolant has a more precise stream to the cutting edge and nothing has knocked them out of alignment.

Timothy

[2ferrous]

The design of the new enclosure complete and all the dimensions finalized, I ordered all the 14ga panels from a local sheet metal shop. All the panels have a 1in lip which allow for nesting to make sure coolant doesn't seep out the seams together and make it easy to bolt together.

After picking up the panels, I drilled some holes and put it together.



Everything went together perfectly and other than forgetting to order the front doors header panel it looks great. And it connected with the previously made back panels perfectly too.



Timothy

[skullworks]

Just was wondering how much all the Steel cost for the enclosure, and if you plan on re-mounting the ATC?