[jsantos]

I just scanned one of the manuals into PDF. :-)

If your email can handle 2.5M, I can email the manual with the mechanical & electrical. PM me your email address.

Let me know when you'd like to come over.

I'll post pics tomorrow so you can see what it looks like.

[Greenbuggy]

Erik, your PM box is full. I'm in the Des Moines area but grew up in Delano, if you've got the time sometime I'm back in MN I'd be interested in buying you lunch and picking your brain. I recently got myself an old bandit (long gone) FTV-3 that I'm in the process of rebuilding/retrofitting. Send me a PM or call my cell thanks Kris

[erikjgreen]

I fixed my PM box.

I'd be happy to meet with you and talk over things, probably we could also get Jsantos to join us - he's the new owner of another Lagunmatic 250.

Erik

PS: You probably want to edit your contact info out of your public post above... I've got a copy for safekeeping.

[erikjgreen]

Hmm, as long as I'm typing I'll post a quick update for my mill rework.

I've just finished scarifying and etching concrete in my shop for a new level pad for my mill. I'm using self leveling concrete, which will hopefully get me close to level before I shim.

After the mill is on it and leveled I'll bolt it down.

I've been testing the VFD I got, pondering putting a bigger motor on the mill spindle, thinking about how to mount an encoder on the spindle, looking at the flood coolant system I wanted to do, and pondering an enclosure to keep the mess somewhat contained.

Never enough time to get everything done in the summer... I've also been rebuilding a boat trailer, welding some trailer parts for friends and relatives, building a hydraulic front end loader for my garden tractor, making a garden cart, and scuba diving

Erik

PS: Forgot to add... I picked up an OmniGrid DNA lab machine controller cheap at a local surplus place. I got a bunch of useful parts plus three Parker OEM770T servo drives. They're for brushless motors, which I didn't get, but will also auto detect brushed motors and run them. They're a good fit to a pile of Electro-craft E543 servos I got a while back. Not big enough for my lathe project, but nice for a router table or something like that...

[erikjgreen]

Phew... time for another quick update. Pictures very soon (this evening or tomorrow).

I've gotten the mill leveled using my new machinist's level (or very close to it, within about 1 1/2 ticks of center. Then I grouted it in using quikrete "precision grout" and making a fillet around the base (except for the pinch point in front, in case I need to break it loose at some point).

Sometime in the next few work sessions I'll smooth a few bumps in the grout out and paint the grout to match the floor.

Inspired by a visit with and conversation with Joe Santos, I've been working on my electronics again. I've gotten all three drives and all three brakes mounted on my heat sink. That will save me some space on the main cabinet board and also allow better cooling... I'm bolting a 5 inch 110v fan to the bottom of the heat sink to force some air across it, too.

Power wise it looks like I'm going to go with a basic linear supply using the original transformer for the mill with my new drives. That'll put me at about 110 volts supplied to the drives. The servos can handle 120, and I should really supply the drives at 140 or so for best performance (the drives can handle 160v) but I'll go with the existing transformer for now. I'll upgrade if needed at some point either to a higher voltage transformer or to different servos with more torque/speed, which will need a different voltage anyway.

I've gotten the rectifier mounted (35 amp 600 volts) and put bus bars on my capacitors, which are sitting in the bottom of the cabinet for now... I'll put a plastic shield over the top to avoid shorts in use until I come up with better mounting.

I'm going to drill the back of the cabinet for mounting the SSRs, terminal blocks, 12/5 power supply, and some cable management, then vacuum and clean out the cabinet before I begin electrical assembly. I also need to work out where my VFD will go and rig conduit to another cabinet for it as well as make a hole for the cable pass through for the monitor/keyboard stand.

I took the back of my mill off to view the cooling sump, and took out the coolant pump that's in there... three phase, and I'm not going to spend a VFD on it. I'll use an external barrel for a reservoir for flood coolant, and eventually build an enclosure (before I make a real mess). I still have to find a way to clean all the oil and plastic chips out of the sump (I literally poured oil over parts of the mill to preserve it in storage... worked well, but now I have to remove the oil).

I inventoried the tool holders I have, to decide which way to go on a drawbar conversion for type. I have NMTB40 at the moment, and actually that's the bulk of my tool holders too. I have a few CAT40 I could use with a different draw bar, but I have enough NMTB40 to make it worthwhile to stay where I'm at. The only CAT40 tooling I'd like to use would be the tension/compression tap holders I have. Maybe I can turn a few adapters.

I'd like to work out a simple tool changer once I have the spindle on the VFD with a sensor for positioning and solenoid valves to run the power drawbar. Has anyone tried using NMTB40 tooling this way? I'd like to just set the tools in a rack on one end of the table and have the spindle pick them up and run the drawbar as needed.

Erik

[jsantos]

Glad you're back working on it. Can't wait to see it running. :-)

[erikjgreen]

I promised pics, and here they are. I didn't get the grout painted, so I'm holding off on that for now. This post will be a summary of where I'm at for the moment.

First off, here's a pic of my new enclosure for my spindle VFD and inductor:



It's the electronics box from a Supermax Mill that a local gent decided to convert to manual only (I dunno, to each their own).

I got the box with all contents, three SEM servos in decent shape, pulleys, belts, connectors, etc for $275. So now I have some spare servos for this mill or whatever that are pretty beefy... about 3 nm.

I painted it with Valspar hammered blue, I haven't had it next to the mill yet to see how poorly it matches. Hopefully it won't look too funny.

I'm going to install my WJ200 VFD and an AC line reactor in it, and maybe a contactor or whatever. It'll mount on the left side of my mill on standoffs... here's a pic of the location... can anyone think of a reason I shouldn't mount it here? I'll run the lube line in a gap behind it, I'm mounting it on spacers.



I opened up the back panel of the sump and took out the coolant pump that was in it... the sump is half filled with oil as mentioned before. You can't see it in the pic much, but the bottom of the inside is a pool of oil:



Here's what the pump looks like... not going to re-use it, it's three phase. Maybe I could sell it?



I'm going with flood coolant from a separate tank (a 30 gallon plastic drum) instead.

Not much to look at yet, but I've spent time this weekend drilling out holes and tapping them for mounting parts in the cabinet. I've installed crimp-in insert nuts to hold a big heat sink for the drives and brakes, and laid out locations for terminal strips and SSRs. I'm going to need one SSR for coolant, one for air blowing, one for the lights, etc. All will be controlled via I/O lines from the Mesa cards.

Here's what it looks like now. I want to get all the holes I know are needed drilled then clean it out before I start wiring:



I have this nice little power supply for 12v and 5v. The drives need a 12v logic supply and the 5v will work for limit switches, etc:



Here's what the heat sink I got for the drives looks like. I mounted the drives with 8-32 machine screws mostly, but I messed up a couple holes and so had to use a sheet metal screw or two. Anyway, all are mounted with a minimal amount of heat sink paste and ready for wiring.



I made up a better mounting board for the Mesa boards to insulate them from the metal case:



I picked up a couple of surplus track lights to use for lighting. I have LED flood lights for them, should work nicely. I'll make up some arms at some point.



I'm going to replace this manual valve for the power drawbar air wrench with a pair of ASCO valves that will mount on the machine back. I need to find some compressed air tubing similar to what Lagun used to replace the existing stuff.



As I've been cleaning up wiring in the ball screw area for the Z axis here:



I found a loose part that fell out... to me it looks like a nut from the ball screw top that attaches the pulley to the shaft?



Lastly, as part of my deal for the electronics box I got all the innards too.. a nice transformer, a small 12v power supply, and these servo drivers:



.. which I've found out are essentially SD1525-10 cards just like the ones I had taken out of my mill. So now I have 6 drivers I don't want to use :\

Still working on things this week. As soon as I get all the holes drilled and tapped I'll mount everything up and start wiring. After I get the main cabinet wired I'll work on connecting the second cabinet with conduit to get the spindle working. Plenty left to do.

Erik

[jsantos]

I still don't know how you find all these parts. The only thing I've been able to get so far are those clamps that you showed me. :-)

Finally used my mill this weekend. Milled a couple of skids for a friend's block plane. Turned out to be very nice. It surprised me that we were able to cut out the part and never touched the sacrificial material underneath. Guess there's a big difference between a woodworking CNC vs a CNC mill.

So when will we see your mill running? I want to be there she fires up. :-)

[erikjgreen]

Cool! Sounds like your mill is working pretty well... if you want to, we can run through a tramming setup for it and check its accuracy and repeatability.. I have some good quality test indicators from Mitotoyo that measure down to hundredths of an inch. Out of the box I think it should be accurate to about 0.003 or so? As long as you know the height of the spoil board clamps it shouldn't do more than scratch it.

I think I have a book I should show you too, that'll help with basic instruction for set-ups and the like.

You'll have to come shopping with me sometime. About once a week I get to the surplus places in the downtown area, and I usually watch Craigslist pretty closely.

As far as my mill goes, last night I finished cutting some stand-off mounts for my spindle cabinet from a block of aluminum. The cabinet will mount about even with the top of the left side of my mill and stand about an inch away from the column. I will have to remove the old fitting for mist coolant, but I'm not using that anyway. I may have to cut it off since it seems to be attached with a nut inside the column.

Once that cabinet is on I can wire the VFD and load reactor, and install a fuse block for the spindle. Fuses are on the way.

The electronics on the other side are about ready to go in, hole drilling is about done. Once they're mounted, wiring happens, and I can connect the encoders and servos to the drives and power them up. Then I'll be using the drives' tuning software to get them moving properly... they're "smart" drives, so that should go pretty easily.

After that, if the VFD is wired I can fire up linux-cnc and try cutting something. I hate giving estimates for time since I always miss them, but maybe the 17th or 18th? It would be sooner, except I have a scuba trip coming up the weekend after next, which cuts into my time to work on projects

Erik

[jsantos]

Would love to do an accuracy and repeatability check on my machine 'cuz at this time I have no idea. Would also love to see the book. Let me know when you'd like to do this.

And I will go shopping with you anytime. Let me know if you're going this weekend. I'll go.

Let me know when you're firing her up. I'll be there. :-)

[erikjgreen]

Well, usually I shop during the week... some of the stores are only open around 9am - 3pm, so it can be difficult to get to them. Maybe a long lunch some day?

Let's try to get together next week some evening... I just found out I'll be able to go scuba diving this weekend, so time is in short supply the next week and a half. Probably I won't get anything more done on the mill until Monday.

But, I did get the cabinet put on. Pics:



The color is a bit darker than the rest of the mill, but it doesn't look bad. I do wish I'd been able to mount it a bit higher up, but I'd have had to make a more complicated support bracket, and my ability to make things like that is limited by tools at the moment.


It fits pretty neatly. The front edge is even with the dovetail ways for the knee, but the limit switches that stop the Y axis will keep it from being bumped. The spacer blocks I made allow it to clear the curve of the casting it sits on as well as clear the locking levers for the knee gibs.



The blocks I made look ok, but since I don't have a functioning mill they're pretty rough. Basically I took a scrap block of 6011 aluminum and made some rectangular solids about an inch thick and wide and an inch and a quarter tall, then drilled a hole. Drilled and tapped four holes in the mill for 3/8" bolts and mounted it up.

Next step is getting the VFD, line reactor, and fuse block mounted, plus a conduit through one of the holes in the cabinet to the other cabinet for power, and a second conduit to the spindle motor.

Plus I'm still working on getting the electronics in the other cabinet bolted into place. The fun continues....

Erik

[Al_The_Man]

But, I did get the cabinet put on.

Next step is getting the VFD, line reactor, and fuse block mounted, plus a conduit through one of the holes in the cabinet to the other cabinet for power, and a second conduit to the spindle motor.

Plus I'm still working on getting the electronics in the other cabinet bolted into place. The fun continues....

Erik

Personally I prefer to remove the back plate and mount everything flat on the bench, especially if the panel is on the machine, it can get tricky to re-install, but two people help.
Al.

[erikjgreen]

Good idea. The plate for this smaller cabinet is made of aluminum and makes that possible, where for the larger electronics cabinet it's about 3 feet by 4 and made of sheet steel... I can barely maneuver it into place with nothing mounted on it.

Any wisdom on tapping the aluminum plate? Or should I just expect to use threaded inserts that I crimp on, or sheet metal screws?

Erik

[erikjgreen]

No more work this week on my project... I'm going to do more scuba diving. Expect updates sometime next week

Erik

[Al_The_Man]

Any wisdom on tapping the aluminum plate? Or should I just expect to use threaded inserts that I crimp on, or sheet metal screws?

Erik

I normally drill and tap for machine screws, small bolts for the heavier items.
As long as you don't overdo it with weight on the aluminum.
Al.

[erikjgreen]

Sounds good, I think I'll use inserts for the VFD and line reactor, they're fairly heavy. Alternatively I could bolt them in with a washer in back to spread the weight a bit, but I like the idea of them being removable easily from the front.

The fuse block I got mounts on DIN rail, so I'll screw a piece of that on with sheet metal screws. Who knows, I might need to DIN mount something else later.

Erik

[jsantos]

Looks like you're making good progress on your machine.

You can use my mill anytime you need to make a part. In fact, doing so might help me learn more things from you - like workholding. :-)

Let's get together sometime. Let me know when you've got time.

[erikjgreen]

Joe -
Thanks!

At this point it looks like next Sat. or Sun. is going to be the big day... I'll let you know later in the week. Also, email me if you have time to visit a surplus store around noon some day - we'd need a couple of hours.

Everyone -
I spent part of the weekend getting some welding done I'd put off for a month... it's just been too hot. I did spend most of a day getting the mill farther along. I added some more holes for mounting items in the main cabinet, tapped approximately 0.5 billion small holes by hand, drilled and mounted inserts for the spindle VFD, inductor, and fuses then mounted those items on the backing plate, and started on the wiring harness for the servo drive backplane.

I'm wiring separate power wires for each drive, wiring each one's DC out to a brake module, and running the output pairs and power wires to locations where they'll attach to terminal strips on the main backplate. The encoder inputs and anything else I want to attach to the drives go on via RJ45 connectors, so I'll just be directly attaching those.

With a bit of luck I'll get things to the point by Saturday where I am ready to power up the servos and tune the drives, then I should be able to try some moves under Linux-cnc control.

Erik

[erikjgreen]

Got some more stuff done last night. I spent time finishing the mounting of the VFD, fuses, and inductor on the backplane board, then installed that in the drive cabinet. I did minimal wiring for now, because the VFD manual recommends a power up test before connecting control lines or setting up logic for the drive. I'll do that, then probably use auto-tune to set basic parameters for the VFD.

I'm wiring power to the drive via 6 gauge wiring and a pair of 40 amp fuses per the vendor spec. Power will come from the main cabinet via about a 6 foot jumper I'll install in a flex conduit the same way the other wires are run. The main cabinet will have a different type of 40 amp fuse that feeds both the jumper to the vfd and the drives/computer in the main cabinet. I'm being conservative with regard to fuses, if they get blown too much I'll increase the size. 6 gauge wiring to the wall inside an SJOOW cord I was lucky to find a piece of at a local surplus place. No conduit needed.

I've opened up the conduit box on top of the mill and found some work someone had done... the wire from the sensor on the gear select lever had been replaced and the splice covered with electrical tape. Also, three small wires from the motor had been disconnected and taped over. I'm guessing these were the wires for the electromechanical brake on top of the spindle motor... don't really know yet, I'll have to trace them. Does anyone have a spindle motor with a thermal sensor on the stator? The VFD will estimate heat based on current flow anyway, but a simple sensor would be easier.

Does anyone see a need to fix/replace the brake? I have an opportunity to buy a brand new KEB clutch/brake that fits a 182C motor frame, which I think I could make work on my motor. Is there any advantage to using an EM brake over just using the VFD's DC braking with a resistor for tapping or fast stops?

I've been thinking of picking one up for an eventual 4th axis project anyway... it would make for a simple way to lock the 4th axis for milling.

I spent time wiring the brake/DC side of the drives on their backplane heat sink. I'm going with 10 gauge wiring for them, just because I have it and because theoretically the servos can momentarily pull 39 amps. Next up is the power wiring for the drives plus jumpers with crimp connectors to attach the servo drive connections off board. I'll probably do connections for logic power and encoders once the heat sink is permanently mounted in the cabinet.

So I think I'm getting close... I'm going to clean up the main cabinet and mount the drive heat sink after it's wired, plus the linear power supply parts and the 5/12 volt supply. I should be able to bring up the drives for testing and tuning then, maybe using the linux-cnc PC with a copy of windows to run the tuning software via the built-in USB connection on the drives. I can swap a temp hard drive in for that.

I'll test each axis' motion and the encoders once that's done, and then I can proceed to connect limit switches and the SSRs for control of coolant, air, etc as needed. I should be able to wire the limit and home switches and power up the spindle by Saturday so Joe and I can test cut a couple things

By sometime next week I should have a DRO display for my Heidenhahn glass scale built, which will give me a way to test motion of the axes vs. an external reference for accuracy. Fortunately that's a quick project.


Erik

[erikjgreen]

Okay... a bit more work last night.

I finished up the power wiring for the drives on their heat sink:



The wires hanging off on the bottom with the small zip ties are the outputs, they'll be attached to terminal blocks on the back plate just below the drives. The longer wires hanging off the right side in the picture will hang off the bottom of the heat sink once it's mounted, and are the power wires going to terminal blocks near the ripple cap bank.

Here's a blurry pic of the VFD cabinet with the stuff mounted in it. Sorry for the quality, I was in too much of a hurry to keep my hands still, and that camera has no LCD on it:




I also investigated wiring for the spindle motor, pulling the wires out of the main cabinet and back to the VFD area. I need to install one new conduit from the main cabinet to the drive, and run power wires through it. I'll re-use the existing run from the top of the mill to the motor. I did find these three small wires in the box that run to the motor, but aren't connected to anything. At the motor end they're encased in small clear tubes. My guess is they're thermal switch monitoring wires, but I'm not sure.

One thing I didn't see was any brake wires in the conduit. Maybe the brake was set up to disengage whenever power was applied?



The cut wires with black tape on them are from the light fixture, which I'll replace long term. For now they're just getting removed.

Erik

PS: Does anyone know what those connectors are called? They're liquid tight, with the outer nut part compressing the tubing into the fitting on the box and over an insert with a gasket on it. Hard to describe