4072
« on: October 17, 2013, 04:18:31 PM »
The spindle motor and drive you have will likely be similar to what you would have with a normal 3 phase induction motor and a VFD. However the motor will likely be dual winding and the torque curves likely much better than that of the normal VFD/Motor.
It may well be possible to connect things up on single phase, your axis motors are DC and good chance your drives themselves actually require DC input and thus your power supply is a separate unit consisting of a transformer/rectifier and some capacitors. You may be able to connect your transformer up differently. One other thing is in the USA you have two live wires for your 220v where in the UK we have 240v single phase which consists of a live and neutral. So if you connected your two lives and then just jumpered one of them over to the third connection it may work fine. Then again I am no electronics or electrical expert so take from this what you will.
Regarding spindle positioning, it is likely the spindle drive you have at the moment has the power to do it internally, if you went standard motor/VFD then you would probably have to use the CSMIO to orientate the spindle, for that you would need an encoder and also the encoder module from CS-Lab. That is a wise thing to get anyway as it will allow you to do rigid tapping.
I think a brake on the Z is likely the best thing, even if you fit a counterbalance it may still be wise to have one. It doesnt have to be on the motor, you could fit it anywhere you can, for example on my Chiron I didnt have a motor with a brake so I retrofitted a brake to the end of the ball screw. I had an old motor I had purchased very cheaply on eBay and it had a brake, so I hacked the motor up and used the brake and the motor case, see pic below.
Hood