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Author Topic: Any one used xylotex boards to upgrade an EMCO lathe?  (Read 12325 times)

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Any one used xylotex boards to upgrade an EMCO lathe?
« on: May 01, 2009, 01:00:37 PM »
I have an older EMCo lathe that I am currently using Welturn on, I bought a Xylotex board to upgrade to a PC and then use Mach II. Any one done this or have ideas how to hook the board up?

Thanks.

Jack

Offline Dan13

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Re: Any one used xylotex boards to upgrade an EMCO lathe?
« Reply #1 on: May 01, 2009, 02:11:30 PM »
Hi Jack,

What is the lathe model you have in particular? I have a Compact 5 CNC and I know that this whole series had variable reluctance 72 steps/rev stepper motors. If I remember correctly they are rated at 9V. The Xylotex driver can't drive them.

Get new, modern stepper motors to replace the stock ones and you should be fine.

Daniel
Re: Any one used xylotex boards to upgrade an EMCO lathe?
« Reply #2 on: May 01, 2009, 02:31:58 PM »
I have a compact 5 pc. What stepper motors do you recommend? do they need to be 9volt? do you have a vendor in mind? What kind of board would I get?

thanks for the info.

Jack
Re: Any one used xylotex boards to upgrade an EMCO lathe?
« Reply #3 on: May 01, 2009, 02:33:11 PM »
What software do you use on your Emco?
Jack

Offline Dan13

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Re: Any one used xylotex boards to upgrade an EMCO lathe?
« Reply #4 on: May 01, 2009, 03:01:16 PM »
Jack,

No, they don't have to be 9V. Actually the lower the voltage the better. Since the Xylotex is 35V, and it is recommended that the drive be about 5-10 times higher voltage than the motors, I'd recommend motors rated about 2V or less. But you'll have to make sure the Xylotex will be able to handle the motor's current.

There are really lots of vendors out there. I got mine form KelingInc.net . They offer pretty good motors inexpensively.

I use Mach3 on the lathe.


Daniel

Offline Dan13

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Re: Any one used xylotex boards to upgrade an EMCO lathe?
« Reply #5 on: May 01, 2009, 03:16:13 PM »
Oh... and you might want to have a look at this manual from GeckoDrive

http://geckodrive.com/upload/Step_motor_basics.pdf

It is a pretty comprehensive manual on stepper motors.

And as a correction to my previous post - the stepper driver's voltage should be 10-25 times the stepper motor rated voltage.

Daniel
Re: Any one used xylotex boards to upgrade an EMCO lathe?
« Reply #6 on: May 01, 2009, 04:39:55 PM »
So did you have to get a board to hook the motors to and then the board plugs into the parallel port on the computer?
Re: Any one used xylotex boards to upgrade an EMCO lathe?
« Reply #7 on: May 01, 2009, 06:59:36 PM »
I had a Compac PC-5 which I converted to Mach. I bought motors and a Xylotex board. With the Xylotex board the machine was slower than with its old steppers. I replaced the xylotex with  geckos and got acceptable performance.

I have since decided the machine was to small for my use and have sold it. Im looking aorund now for a bigger lathe for my next project

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Re: Any one used xylotex boards to upgrade an EMCO lathe?
« Reply #8 on: May 02, 2009, 09:25:39 AM »
So did you have to get a board to hook the motors to and then the board plugs into the parallel port on the computer?

Don't know what you mean by "board". My steppers are hooked to Gecko drives which in turn are hooked to a CNC4PC break out board, and this is connected to the LPT.

Ron, I think your motors where just rated too high a voltage. I think if you had 2V motors, you would have gotten acceptable performance. I have Mechatronics drive  (much like the Xylotex and rated the same voltage) on my F1 mill, and the rapids are at 1400mm/min - almost twice the original rapid speed.

Daniel

Offline RICH

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Re: Any one used xylotex boards to upgrade an EMCO lathe?
« Reply #9 on: May 02, 2009, 11:06:56 AM »
Jack,
You will probably get a lot of different opinions on what to do. So I may as well add my 2 cents worth.
You already have a Xylotex board and if i had to start from scratch that would not have been my choice
and would have went with Gecko's. For steppers why not use or buy the equivillant of 269 in-oz ones which Xylotex sells with their kit? Also take a look at their associated power supply. Download their instructions also.

I have my PC and controller on a cart since i need to move them around for use on different machines.
You didn't say what drive you bought but if it's for four axis's then the power supply should have amperage
equal to the total amperage of all the drives along with 24 to ?? voltage ( ?? check to see what you drives are
rated for ).

You should consider using MAch3.
RICH