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General CNC Chat => Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) => Topic started by: metlcutr55 on November 23, 2012, 07:45:57 PM

Title: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: metlcutr55 on November 23, 2012, 07:45:57 PM
i want to convert my lathe to mach3.  it is a 17" x 40" gear head engine lathe, has the fanuc 20t control on it.  personal computers i understand a bit, and ive been doing a lot of internet reading and video watching about mach3, im beginning to understand the basics, why a breakout board, steppers vs servos, analog vs digital, step + dir, etc.  ive watched a bunch of the Artsoft tutorials and a lot of it makes good sense to me, tho when folks start talking modbus, incorporating motion controllers, etc, it gets a bit fuzzy to me.  ive watched these folks vids, http://buildyourcnc.com/CNCElectronicsandWiring.aspx and http://buildyourcnc.com/wiring.aspx, most of it makes sense to me, tho ive never attempted this before.  ive looked hard at the Machmotion kits, could probably afford their stepper lathe kit, looks like a great effort on their part, but something in me says turn to the mach3 community, take this in little bitty steps, and i will save some $$ but more importantly i will understand what i have built with the help of others when i am done, which is very important to me.  i run a big fanuc controlled workcenter days, ive watched the fanuc man fix the machines around mine and know the $$$$ he charges, and the $$$$ the repair parts cost.  i need him to not have to come to my garage, i need to be able to fix my own stuff, and from reading the huge manuals that came with my fanuc control, know this is too much for me.

so i think ive taken the 1st 2 bitty steps.  i have listed my complete fanuc control with motors for sale in multiple places including here, goodbye, perhaps i can generate a lil $$ for my conversion.  once the fanuc is gone, i will be left with a nice solid engine lathe with a 2 speed 8 hp spindle motor, running on 208 v 3 phase, yup, not 240, bucked down off a rotary phase converter.  the 208 is i guess european and/or portugese style.  i also have a full set of electrical diagrams, also in portugese.  the motor has a mechanical brake, turn off the spindle, klunk, the chuck stops, very quickly.  there are mpgs for the x and z, a high-low hand switch for the spindle motor, coolant pump, and an oiler.  there is an incremental spindle encoder there, not on the spindle itself, but on the output drive of the gearbox.  oem (hiwin) ballscrews are in place with pulleys on them, and places to mount new axis motors.  bunches of relays and contactors in the cabinet too, i know their basic purpose, but couldnt tell you one from the other.

my original dream was an enhanced version of what i had (i really like the mach3 graphics and screens) complete with vfd, mitsubishi servos kit from Machmotion, now i am looking at a different approach.  bitty steps.  i am looking at basic stepper kits from motiontek and automation technologies inc.  perhap with a higher end breakout board to be there should i decide later its time to go servo.  or add the vfd.  am i barking up the right tree?  will they help me the non electronics guy get this running?  how about you guys?  can i get guidance here a small step at a time?  theres plenty of time, and enough money so i wont be looking for the cheapest component(s) from ebay with engrish documentation.  i want to do it right, simple as possible, fancy is not needed right now.

so ive decided the fanuc is going.  and ive decided to stay very basic, just get her running again.  i have a competent electrician/electronics guy available, but want to do as much as i can myself, so i can learn.  he will be there when needed, electrocution is not on my list.  i just want my lathe to run again, to be able to be run with the handwheels (mpgs) like a manual, and also via cnc, do basic contouring and threading, and i want to document this, so the next fellow who might be a machinist and a mechanic but not an electronics guy can benefit from my experience.  there is obviously a ton of knowledge in this community, an awful lot has been done with mach3.  my task ahead seems simple compared to that.  but i dont have that ton of knowledge.  help me out, what is my next bitty step?

thanks in advance
ken

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Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: Hood on November 24, 2012, 05:28:24 AM
I would say if you are used to servos you will be disappointed if you go to steppers with the low acceleration and rapids that they will have in comparison. I am not saying steppers wont do a good job but they will not be any where near the performance you will get from a servo. That may not matter to you but I know for me steppers are not something I would go back to on a lathe or mill.
 If your motors and drives are sound you MAY be able to use them with one of the motion controllers available for Mach that can output analogue control voltage however saying that I have heard people having issues integrating Fanuc stuff, will all depend I suppose on the encoder type on the fanucs.
 Hood
Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: Sam on November 25, 2012, 12:52:24 AM
Been using a Fast Trace for over a decade. Never had one problem from it (so far). Did it not run in its current state? I do find the conversational programming capabilities extremely lacking, to say the least, but I don't think I would go so far as to completely change everything out, in fear of a costly repair that may never happen. As far as steppers or servos, I would go with servos 100%.
Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: Dan13 on November 25, 2012, 05:01:43 AM
Had a look at the Fanuc drives in the Bargain Basement section and looks they are Alpha series drives and it means they won't work with Mach3. They have some kind of proprietary control signals (not analogue nor pulse and direction) which is not documented well enough anywhere to figure what they are. Have these drives on a mill I bought thinking I could use them, but unfortunately I then discovered I couldn't :(


Dan
Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: metlcutr55 on November 25, 2012, 09:32:02 AM
i am grateful to see the quick replies to this thread.  i will respond here to all who have posted so far.  feel free to tell me if my thinking is faulty, i am just a machinist, all the electronica is new to me.

regarding stepper vs servo, i understand well that the servo is the more capable system in most ways.  the reason i find myself aimed at steppers is not so much the cost but what seems to be the simpler install.  i have been reviewing Patrick Hood-Daniel videos on youtube, his 9 part series that have "CNC Electronics" in the title seems to me to be concise, i understand what he's doing, even though my electric/electronic knowledge is weak.  if i could get guidance at that level, i like the looks of this servo kit:

http://www.automationtechnologiesinc.com/products-page/servo-nema34-kits/3-axis-nema34-1125ozin-72v20a-psu-g230x-gecko-driver

im sure they would sell me a 2 axis version, but im not sure i could install it, not being an electronics guy, and not knowing how concise their instructions would be, or how much support they could/would provide via phone or email. i am prepared to work on the install slow, and safe, just worried i will fry my investment.  a stepper kit in the 1800 oz-in range or a lil bigger looks to me to be an easier install.  but again, this is an unexperienced opinion.

regarding speed, ive watched youtube vids of a bridgeport knee being driven at 120 ipm by servos, 50 ipm by steppers, and ive seen cncmasters claim their 14 x 40 lathe max speed is 100 ipm.  i think i could live with 100 ipm.  their unit is direct drive, and they claim 40 tpi on their lead screw (seems high).  my lathe has not yet been closely measured, but the pulley reduction and ball screws look similar to my mill, which would be 2 to 1 on the pulleys and 5 tpi on the ballscrew.  i am hoping i can use this to my advantage, 150 ipm rapid is my mills max speed, (80 on the knee, just because it works smoother that way) that would work fine for me on the lathe, tho with the fanuc stuff it is closer to 300 ipm.  the 17 yr old kiwa horizontal mill i run days is just under 1800 ipm rapids, even that is slow these days.

regarding the fast trace, i ran it for about 8 or 9 years.  it was basically reliable, in that time i needed an x servo motor and the crt unit replaced.  then the keypad developed some small issues, and now the 914 error (see my post in the bargain basement) and i need the fanuc guy again.  im lucky enough to have had 2 guys local at $50 an hour, but the 1st guy passed away, and the 2nd is not always available quickly.  and the real factory fanuc guy gets much much more $$.  my move to a pc control is because i cannot afford to have (or wait for) the Fanuc man come here, as i approach (semi) retirement.  i need a system i can understand and maintain myself.  including parts and costs.  a refurb power supply exactly like my item 2 in my bargain basement post was listed on ebay a few day ago for over $2000.  yikes.  if i lose a bit of performance, i will have to live with it.

thanks to all, keep those comments coming.  whats my next small step?


Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: Hood on November 25, 2012, 01:56:57 PM
Good infor Dan, thanks. I suspected that would be the case if they were fairly modern Fanuc drives/motors but I was unsure how old they actually were.

metlcutr55
Servos are really not any harder to wire up than steppers, yes you have encoder wires and possibly, depending on style of drives, more I/O to the drive, but still fairly straightforward. Where it gets a bit harder is the tuning, steppers its just a case of putting conservative numbers into Mach and you are set. With servos you have to tune the drives PID but usually that isnt too hard. In Mach servos motor tuning is probably if anything easier as you know the Velocity you will get from your motor/drive specs and the only thing you need to trial out is to find the acceleration.
 Regarding that kit you linked to, it would do but Geckos servo drives are not the best around from what I have heard. Their stepper drives are market leader but seems their servo drives fall a bit short of others that are now available. CNC Drives from Hungary seem to have the crown in the low end servo drive stakes at the moment so may be worth looking at them.
 Now the rapids are not the thing that would concern me, its the slow acceleration of steppers when compared to servos that is much more important in all aspects of machining. As an example of the difference that can be expected  I had steppers on my Bridgeport, I got 2200mm/min rapids with 120mm/s/s  acceleration. I changed it over to AC servos and could get 6000mm/min rapids but much more importantly the acceleration was 10x fatser being 1200mm/s/s. The gearing etc was the same with both setups, the only difference being the motor types.

 It sounds as if I am dead against steppers but I am not, they do a reasonable job as long as you can live with their performance but once you have seen servos running a machine you will be dissapointed with anything less.
Hood
Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: metlcutr55 on November 26, 2012, 08:19:10 PM
thanks Hood

i do understand about the acceleration of the servos, if i were drilling a 20 x 20 pattern of 400 holes on my dc brush servo mill, say small holes, in a 4" x 4" square for example, my mill would jump hole to hole very quickly, due to the acceleration even tho the rapid is only 150 ipm.  i can see watching the stepper vids that task would take noticeably longer.  if the guidance from the sellers of the servo kit is good i bet i could do it, but looking around the net, i rely on vids like i mentioned before, from Patrick Hood-Daniels, and another set i watched yesterday, cnc g704 parts 1 & 2, from someone called "n1bpd", all on youtube.  im pretty sure i can do what theyve done, but they are both stepper based and i find no step by step simple vids like those for servo setups.

regarding the gecko kit i mentioned below, i picked it because it has the biggest servo motors i could find from a vendor who seems to have large sales and a good reputation. i would not be opposed to keling, viper, dugong or whale drives, im not sure if any of these are the Hungarian drives you refer to, but i whatever kit i choose will have to have directions that are not vague to the neophyte (me).  i will need step by step instruction, on a basic level, like the videos i have mentioned.  or a lot of handholding here on the forum.  i read somewhere that 75% of the basic cnc builds never get completed.  i dont want to be part of that group.  id like a servo driven lathe, but a stepper driven lathe would be preferable to a manual lathe and a box of servo components in a box under a bench.  for me ac motors and drives are likely out at this point, just because of cost.  also that when you say tune PID, i dont even know what you mean.  likely i can learn.  im all ears fellas!!  thanks!

ken
Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: Hood on November 27, 2012, 03:10:29 AM
I looked at your parts for sale and the servos seem quite small if I am reading correctly, 500watt and 3000rpm so torque of about 1.9Nm continuous.
That seems quite small so could you confirm that is the case?
If thats right then you may find some second hand AC servo kits on Ebay from South Korea that may do. I have one, a Samsung Fara, on the Z of the wee lathe I am doing and it works very well and didnt even require tuning, it automatically tunes itself..
Hood
Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: metlcutr55 on December 01, 2012, 03:47:48 PM
hi Hood!

all i can read on the z motor is correct in my ad desc "A06B-0032-B077#7076  3.2 amps 176 volts AC" there is more there but id need to get the motor out to read it.

looked at the faulty x motor again, "0.5 kw continuous  166 volt 3.2 amps  200Hz freq.  speed- 3000 min(-1)"  it has what looks like a 1/2" dia shaft.

fwiw, these are fanuc red cap motors.

i have no interest in reusing any fanuc in the machine.  the only servos i have considered are the teco .75kw unit offered by Machmotion, by themselves without a kit they run over $800 ea for driver and motor.  too rich for me right now.  and i do not want used components.

i am still interested in that servo kit with the geckos, although they appear to be out of stock.  they appear like they back their product, and should their drivers not be up to task, once i had learned enough to set up the system in the 1st place, perhaps replacing with a stronger better driver would be an easier task for me. and i do like the use of encoders vs just having steppers.

i am not yet convinced i am up to the servo install without very basic guidance from the seller and this community.  as i said i am making pretty good sense from the stepper videos listed below that i have been viewing, and am leaning stepper, because of cost and simplicity.  i am looking with interest at a 2 axis version of this kit,

http://www.automationtechnologiesinc.com/products-page/stepper-nema34-3-axis-kits/nema-34-stepper-motors-3-4-axis-kit-1

once again for simplicities sake, the driver power supply being built in is attractive to me.  might not be the best choice, it is just a guess on my part.  i might request a fancier breakout board, to possibly control a vfd in the future.

once the fanuc is gone, except for axis control i have just spindle off-on, spindle motor hi-low range selection, spindle brake (mechanical, should trigger with the spindle off, then release once rpms are 0) to figure out how to do.  the other 2 features to control are just coolant and oiler, i can run these manually until i have time to figure it out.  oh and the limit switches, they appear to be 2 switches with ramps and rollers on ea axis, with the fanuc on, you pulled the joystick to home the axis, it rapids to the 1st roller, then slowed and hit the 2nd roller, reversed the axis for a short direction, voila you were at home.

i will have a bunch of relays and contactors left over unless someone makes me an offer for the fanuc system turnkey, but unless my electric/electronics helper encourages me to use these i will likely just source these new also.

ive had no offers on the fanuc system complete, ill wait a little longer, then start to see if anyone wants to buy as individual components across the boards, on craigslist and ebay.

what should i do next?  thanks, and keep the input coming.

ken





 
Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: Hood on December 01, 2012, 05:54:35 PM
How big is the lathe as I would have expected much bigger motors than that even on the X. Maybe I am just thinking its a bigger machine than it is.
Personally I dont see anything wrong with used parts, on all my machines I only have used drives/motors, the thing is they are all industrial grade so tend to be very high quality and will last for much longer than the cheaper drives often bought new by people doing retrofits.
 Regarding the stepper drives with on board power supplies, definitely a good thing in my mind, all the AC servo drives I use do it that way, save a lot of hassles and you can be sure the power supplies are up to the job :)
Hood
Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: metlcutr55 on December 02, 2012, 11:29:48 AM
i will try to attach a pic

(http://www.globalmachinebrokers.com/shop/viewPhoto.asp?path=3771_0.jpg)

the pic makes it look a bit large, it is mostly the cabinet in back

17" dia swing, 40" z travel, weighs about 4000 lbs.   8 hp spindle motor, i am driving it with a 20 hp rotary phase converter.

3 phase 208v to the machine, i needed a buck-boost transformer to bring it down, machine built in brazil i believe to their

electrical standards.

those fanuc red caps supposedly rapid it to 290 ipm, and i never had any stall issues in rapid or in the cut

cuts of say 1/8" plus deep per side in mild steel @ .015 ipr, plenty of torque, as it should be driving through a gearbox.

my max speed with the motor in high range about 1200 rpm, tho the gearbox will go to 3000.  this limitation

due to the mass of the 10" chuck and because my power companys transformer is on the small side, they

promised to change it, that was about 10 years ago.

my reason for avoiding used components is that i want some warranty behind them, i want a simple install, i am no troubleshooter.

i want the install to be as simple as possible, as i learn, i can upgrade later with more confidence if i find a need.

thanks
ken

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Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: Hood on December 02, 2012, 12:00:09 PM
Ah ok its a bit smaller than I was thinking, when I thought of  17 x 40 I thought it was not much smaller than my lathe but  quite a difference really.
Looks like a nice lathe and I have heard the Nardinis are good quality.
I can understand your thoughts on new v second hand.
Hood
Title: long time gone, not forgotten
Post by: metlcutr55 on April 01, 2013, 09:34:17 PM
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long time since ive posted, doesnt mean ive given up.  been reading a lot, have learned a lot, but has also brought up more questions.  looking at Peter Homanns website, he has diagrams showing his breakout boards connected to both gecko stepper and servo drivers.  i have confidence after comparing these that the difference is not that great and i can handle a brush servo install as well as a stepper install and i think thats the way i want to go.  it doesnt appear that Peter's webstore is aimed at a servo kit as large as i will need for this lathe, so i have been looking at Automation Technologies, Motiontek, and CNC4PC for a kit.  i like the plug in approach used by CNC4PC as well as the drivers which seem to be the "CNC Drives from Hungary" that Hood has spoken of.  this kit has held my attention:
 http://www.cnc4pc.com/Store/osc/product_info.php?cPath=64_96&products_id=551,
 id request a 2 axis version.  Hood's comment of my old fanuc motors being about 1.9Nm continuous, these kit motors look about 85% of that, should be close enough.  im hoping to keep identical motors on the x and z, the x motor may be an issue because of space.  maybe a physically smaller motor, or perhaps have my buddy Perley the fab guy over with his tools of destruction for some sheet metal modification.

one of the places ive been reading a lot has been the mach1mach2cnc yahoo board.  lot of interesting topics there, lots of opinions, but has been a lil scary for me.  makes mach3 seem like it can sometimes be an unstable problematic control system.  i guess the discussion there centers around problems and solving them, likely the large majority of successful m3 installs are not discussed there, and i am just paranoid.  just need my lathe to do what it did before, turn, face, bore and thread.  chamfers and radii.

since i have confidence of my understanding of the lathe axis' cnc motion control, i think i want to shift my attention to controlling the other things the lathe must do:  i have a big cable full of 3 phase power coming into the main switch.  somehow all that juice makes the fanuc stuff run, makes the spindle go, the mechanical spindle brake work, the 2 speed spindle motor (this is not a servo motor) switch hi-low, run in 2 directions and stop, the oiler and coolant pump run.  once in jog mode, theres an x and a z mpg that work as crank handles, and are tempered by a feedrate selection switch.  and theres also a joystick thats tempered by the same switch and allowed me to move x or z  or x and z simultaneously.  those mpg handwheels also work independent or together, and having the joystick and the handwheels aid greatly in "manual" operation of the lathe, as does the coolant toggle switch and spindle ccw-off-cw lever, and the feedrate rotary.  i know these can be mach controlled, but if youve been a "manual" engine lathe guy, you prefer to keep them.

as i see it now i need to gain understanding of the stuff in the above paragraph.  ill think it has much to do with my lathe converting the 208 3 ph to smaller voltages and amperages and more, that will drive relays that will activate contactors (there are a whole lot of them in the old control cabinet) that will distribute all this power in graduated doses to proper destinations.

ive learned a lot about the stuff in paragraph 1 from reading and watching vids.  hardly anything about the stuff in paragraph 3.  as i said when i started, small steps.  no screwdrivers or soldering irons in my near future, can you folk point me to reading and vids that will help me understand the stuff in paragraph 3 and how it will interface with with the stuff in paragraph 1?  will the vendors in paragraph 1 be helpful with this?  there must be opinions of these vendors, if so id love to hear them, if posting to this forum is inappropriate, pm me and thanks!

regarding the mach1mach2cnc board, the questions that most come to mind are, just parallel port or smoothstepper/other pulse gen?  lot of questions about difficulty of interface and support documentation.  tough for a noob.  and i find myself wondering about the best build for the lathe that will work well in mach3 but be an easy conversion over to mach4.  it may take me a long while to get this done, thats ok not in a hurry.

the more you folk have to say about any of this the more i learn and the better i like it.  thanks!!






Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: metlcutr55 on April 13, 2013, 01:37:38 PM
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hope my previous post was not too wordy as to put people off.  the more i think about this, i see it as 2 separate issues.  control of all the non x-z motion items, and control of the x & z with mach3.  i believe i will get my electronics-electric guy over here and see what we can do about getting the spindle to turn, and the brake, coolant & oiler to work without the fanuc stuff in place, and see what i will need to convert the power for all these items and get them properly switched.

once my lathe is working again but without x & z motion, i will attempt (with help if needed) the basic install of a kit and mach3.  if i can accomplish this, i will have functionality again, i can always control the spindle, coolant etc manually, and use mach cnc and jog to move the x & z.

3 issues i guess, i will want the stuff to all work together but i can attack these issues one at a time, likely 1st an index for threading, then the mpgs, etc etc.

i took a few pics inside the cabinet, ill post them in case anyone has comment.  ill try to make them thumbs but im not exactly sure how.  hoping to reuse a lot of this stuff.

(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8523/8645126829_1e0cde0b53_t.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/94931105@N04/8645126829/)
from shop 003 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/94931105@N04/8645126829/) by metlcutr55 (http://www.flickr.com/people/94931105@N04/), on Flickr

(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8394/8645126617_2418e3abcc_t.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/94931105@N04/8645126617/)
from shop 004 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/94931105@N04/8645126617/) by metlcutr55 (http://www.flickr.com/people/94931105@N04/), on Flickr

(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8241/8646226956_d413bd170a_t.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/94931105@N04/8646226956/)
from shop 005 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/94931105@N04/8646226956/) by metlcutr55 (http://www.flickr.com/people/94931105@N04/), on Flickr

(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8531/8645126319_4ce617041e_t.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/94931105@N04/8645126319/)
from shop 006 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/94931105@N04/8645126319/) by metlcutr55 (http://www.flickr.com/people/94931105@N04/), on Flickr

(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8100/8646227498_dabe8706a1_t.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/94931105@N04/8646227498/)
from shop 007 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/94931105@N04/8646227498/) by metlcutr55 (http://www.flickr.com/people/94931105@N04/), on Flickr

once again, im really interesting in anything anyone has to say, about the kit ive "chosen", about vendors, etc etc


thanks
ken

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Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: Hood on April 14, 2013, 06:05:14 AM
I think the DG3S drives are around about the best of the cheaper "Hobby" style drives so thats likely the best choice if going that route, I think however I would look at the CSMIO/IP-S for the controller. Lots of advantages with it being all in one, 24v i/o, analogue spindle control, analogue I/O for things like feed and spindle overrides.
 There is one drawback to it on a lathe at the moment, the pullout at the end of a threading pass is delayed and so you end up with an annular groove at the end. This will almost certainly be fixed in Mach4 as it is Mach3 that is the problem and not actually the CSMIO.

 If this was my machine I would however be looking at AC servos and drives, you can buy new Chinese ones or my personal choice would be second hand ones from the big brands (Allen Bradley, Yaskawa, Samsung/Rockwell, Mitsubishi) These are industrial quality drives and will out perform and probably outlast the cheaper hobby drives. But of course that is just my thinking on the mater and quite likely others will have different views.

If going that route then I would look for ones that are capable of analogue command  input and use the CSMIO/IP-A. I currently have both the IP-S and IP-A on machines and they are the best controllers I have used so far by a long way but the A is the best of the two as it has some distinct advantages with the encoders being used to update Machs DROs.

Anyway thats my thoughts.
Hood
Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: Dan13 on April 14, 2013, 03:17:35 PM
Hood,

Why do you think the pullout is a Mach3 issue and not a CSMIO one? There is no such an issue with the SS for instance...

Dan
Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: Hood on April 14, 2013, 03:29:59 PM
Hood,

Why do you think the pullout is a Mach3 issue and not a CSMIO one? There is no such an issue with the SS for instance...

Dan

Few reasons Dan, first is I got almost instant pullout when I inadvertently had an older version of Mach in, I thought at first it was the new plugin I was testing that had made the difference but then I noticed I had an old version of Mach so I went t a newer version and pullout was back to delayed.
 I talked to Andrew at CS-Lab and he said it was Mach was slow in updating info to the plugin. I also talked with Steve and he said that they had exactly the same issues with the Galil plugin.
Now the reason it works fine with SS/ESS etc is they simply use the Index pulse for threading and do not fully sync Z to spindle encoder. Steve went back to that method in the Galil plugin for now but he will be making sure that Mach4 can allow proper use of a full encoder input to properly sync Z to spindle.

Hood
Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: Dan13 on April 14, 2013, 03:33:07 PM
Thanks, Hood.

Dan
Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: metlcutr55 on April 14, 2013, 04:34:39 PM
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hi Hood!

i am still leaning towards that kit as is, for a couple reasons.  1st being my lack of electronics knowledge, thinking a very plain mach install is within my capabilities, messing with servo drives and controllers with multiple parameter inputs may be too much for me.  i am happy with the dc brush motors on my mill and hope the kit motors would be comparable in quality.  second being cost.  id try stepper but i am not liking the motor noise i hear on various vids.  i see the kit as the next step above steppers, if i can just get this lathe cutting again, i can modify the system to use a motion controller instead of the parallel port, and/or add better motors/drivers later, after ive made a lil $$.

what penalties will i pay going this way, simple brush servos, parallel port control, no external controller, "basic" mach3, vs doing it up as you have described?

i am waiting to hear from my electronics guy about getting the non x-z motion items on my lathe rolling less the fanuc.

i see little input here on this board about vendors and their level of kit support.  i see mostly negative input on cnczone about this question.  i welcome pm's from folk about this question, tho myself, i tend to air such maters publicly, a good job deserves a pat on the back, and vise versa!

thanks all for reading.

ken

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Title: Re: Nardini Fasttrace 220 goes from Fanuc to Mach3
Post by: Hood on April 14, 2013, 05:00:40 PM
Well its not a route I would take but Machmotion get a good name for support and products but it will be more expensive than that kit from CNC4PC
If you are serious about starting off with low end stuff then upgrading later I would say steppers would likely be the better choice as they are simpler and cheaper. Its not something I would do but everyone to their own.
Hood