Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: mmurray70 on February 24, 2016, 08:38:10 PM
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Curious how many people on here are using mach3 retrofits on industrial mills and lathes? Ive been keeping an eye out for a cheap VMC for my garage mostly for hobby use and also to maybe make a few bucks in spair time. I have been considering buying a broken or older machine and retrofitting but the more i read on here, the more uncertain i am. I see alot of posts about bugs, random moves, unexplained crashes, etc. And ive learned there will be a delay in feed hold, homing wont be accurate since it does not use index pulse of encoder, etc.
Anyway just wondering if many people here have done successful retrofits on industrial machines? Are you happy with performance and reliability? Should i go this way or save a little more for a newer VMC with a decent controller from the factory?
What about the toolchanger? I could live without toolchanger for a while but would like to have it working eventually. Is this possible in mach with basic electrical knowledge? Im a mechanical technologist, with some electrical skills (confident in rest of retrofit) but certainly not a electrical engineer. Should i be looking for a machine with a carousel tool changer (like fadal and hass machines) or a side mount toolchanger with arm (mazak or Hass SS machines)?
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Too Many bugs in the higher gcode functions for me to even consider using Mach3 on a VMC for commercial use. Also no conditional Gcode or MacroB support. Macros can be very quircky at times.
(;-) TP
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mostly for hobby use and also to maybe make a few bucks in spair time.
Just highlighting this - your title might be misleading perhaps.
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Yeah, lots of people use mach3 for hobby use on large machines.
Also, regarding Terry's comments. Just because Mach3 may not do what you need, doesn't mean that you can't convert the machine. There is a lot of competition in the DIY CNC control field.
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Yep your title is deceptive . YEs you can convert a machine. It will depend on what you want to do with your machine. And yes as Gerry pointed out there are other options for controllers as well.
IF I were going to buy a commercial machine such as a VMC I would look for a good used machine that ran. Bargains can still be found. NOW IF I wanted teh Conversion experience as part of teh hobby then by all means see if you can buy a machine with dead controls.
When you do that be PREPARED to spend a LOT of time and a LOT of money getting it up and running as well as it would run with teh original controller.
(;-) TP
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Sorry if the title is off a bit. Mostly wondering how many people have used mach to convert industrial sized machines and if they are happy with results. Seems like all the talk in the forums is about benchtop machines. Need to know if it can be trusted with a real machine. An unexplained crash might be a setback or a ruined part on a benchtop machine but on a 10,000+lb machine it could very costly and a serious safety concern.
We have two medium VMCs at work (40x20x20), one is a late 90's Taiwan machine with fanuc control and the other is a fairly new mazak. The mazak is awesome. Super fast, accurate, amazing control but of course is way over budget and power hungry for a garage machine. Something like the older mill with fanuc control might be affordable but its painfully slow. Does a terrible job cutting arcs at anything more then like 10 IPM, cuts more undersize the faster you go, It rounds out sharp corners, etc. 3d toolpaths are not accurate if you try to go fast, and it lags below programmed speed because it cant process the code fast enough anyway.
Im assuming that at least mach with eliminate these problems right? If i have decent AC servos and drives then i should get good accuracy at decent feed rates right? And there is plenty of look ahead so it shouldnt slow down in 3d moves right? Or am i thinking wrong?
If im thinking right, it should be fairly easy to get a high performance machine with no tool changer with mach. Of course you have to deal with the issue of toolchanger, but thats not an impossible goal and machine could be used with manual tool changes right away. But buying a working older machine in my budget probably means being stuck with a slow machine forever. Any thoughts? Am i understanding this correctly?
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A big machine is going to be POWER hungry any way you look at it. Speed cost money how fast do you want to go ? Dependabilty cost money how dependable do you want it ?
For the most part Mach3 cannot do 3d HSM type motions FAST as it is limited by thoughput and teh Z accel values which goes BACK to money and how fast do you want to go.
Mach3 can be a great hobby controller within th boundaries of hobby type work and within teh Simple realm of hobby Gcode. When you get beyond that point it suffers from glitchs and bugs that will NEVER be fixed and can break parts and tools and you really don't won't to walk away from it often.
IF you want to have/run a commercial type machine buy a commercial type machine or at least upgrade it with a commercial control that is a proven performer. BUT be prepared to spend some Cash on it cause it ain't cheap.
Just a thought(;-) TP
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For the most part Mach3 cannot do 3d HSM type motions FAST as it is limited by thoughput and teh Z accel values which goes BACK to money and how fast do you want to go.
Mach3 can be a great hobby controller within th boundaries of hobby type work and within teh Simple realm of hobby Gcode. When you get beyond that point it suffers from glitchs and bugs that will NEVER be fixed and can break parts and tools and you really don't won't to walk away from it often.
Can you explain these limitations with more detail? What exactly do you mean by throughput? In terms of Z acceleration values this would be related to servo/drive right? Or is there some other limiting factor with mach when doing complex 3 axis moves?
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Have used Mach3 on many large machines, presently have it on a small coil winding machine (so not really what you are asking about) Also have it on a Beaver Mill, kind of like a sturdier Bridgeport, so again not really what you are seeking. The other two machines I presently use it on are what you are talking about I think. One is a fair sized lathe with 8 position turret and the other is a Chiron FZ12S with a 12 position tool changer.
Don't run the lathe every day, sometimes not even once a week, just depends on the work I have to do at the time but most of my lathe needs are easier done on the manual lathe as it is simple stuff for the most part. If threading is needed I will often turn the part on the manual and pop in the CNC for threading. If the part involves anything more than just straight turning then it will be done on the CNC.
The Chiron I use every day, works great and never an issue with any of the machines, well except issues of my own doing ;)
Personally I don't need conditional, macro B etc, decent CAM and the machines do all I need and more.
The controller choice is the big one for me.
Hood
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Good to hear from you today Hood! It's like a breath of fresh air hearing the voice of hard-earned experience & knowledge. ;D
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TBH I've been running in an industrial setting for 8 or so years now with mach, vmc with a tool changer.
Mostly large 3d programs cutting moulds.
There has only been one issue that has caused me problems which was probably mach, that was it not liking having two mpgs connected.
And that could potentially still be a hard ware issue that I haven't traced.
Every other issue has been of my own making.
I would certainly say that if your hardware/computer is up to it then Mach is.
Tony
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TBH I've been running in an industrial setting for 8 or so years now with mach, vmc with a tool changer.
Mostly large 3d programs cutting moulds.
There has only been one issue that has caused me problems which was probably mach, that was it not liking having two mpgs connected.
And that could potentially still be a hard ware issue that I haven't traced.
Every other issue has been of my own making.
I would certainly say that if your hardware/computer is up to it then Mach is.
Tony
Good to hear its working well for you. Have any more details on your setup? What kind of machine?
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Im just using a five year old dell optiflex 32bit desktop computer with the on board graphics switched off in bios, and a pci graphics card installed.
Its running xp pro, and outputs to a uc300 .
What thats connected to has no bearing on Mach itself, it matters not if your connected to a machine the size of a house or a little Chinese bench top. as long as you have set it up mechanically and electronically correctly.
I personally always use servo's on my retrofits because they are worth the extra effort 100 times over, and essential when doing the kind of work I do where I cannot afford to miss steps.
Your best bet is to get a machine with brushed DC servos on it as this will simplify matters if you need to buy new drives.
My ATC, which is very rarely used, is one I designed myself using a swing in carousel , I modified the VB script available somewhere here to make it work, although im sure you could get something like a little "click" plc to handle that if you wanted
Hope that helps
Tony
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Matsuura MC500 with 16 pod tool changer. Mach3/Galil driving the stock Yaskawa drives and servos. Running 500 IMP. It does HSM perfectly fine. The main limitation is the spindle speed which is 5K. Using Inventor HSM for the tool paths. It is not a large machine, but it is certainly an industrial machine. It never crashes. It always does what I want it to. Never needed Macro B and it never had it. (Original control was YASNAC). Mach 3 is FAR superior to the original control. Tool changes are twice as fast! Rapids are up from 275 IPM to 500 IPM.
I took my time integrating Mach 3. All of the original machine safety lockout are used and functional. All of the macros are thoroughly debugged and working flawlessly. This machine could be put to production use and never blink an eye.
Converting one of these type of industrial mills can be a really good option for the hobbyist. I have about as much in this machine as it would take to retrofit a Bridgeport. And you get nice things like limit switches on both sides of the table (no one switch wonders here!), real home switches, and ATC.
I think you get out of Mach 3 or Mach 4 what you put into it.
Steve
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Im just using a five year old dell optiflex 32bit desktop computer with the on board graphics switched off in bios, and a pci graphics card installed.
Its running xp pro, and outputs to a uc300 .
What thats connected to has no bearing on Mach itself, it matters not if your connected to a machine the size of a house or a little Chinese bench top. as long as you have set it up mechanically and electronically correctly.
I personally always use servo's on my retrofits because they are worth the extra effort 100 times over, and essential when doing the kind of work I do where I cannot afford to miss steps.
Your best bet is to get a machine with brushed DC servos on it as this will simplify matters if you need to buy new drives.
My ATC, which is very rarely used, is one I designed myself using a swing in carousel , I modified the VB script available somewhere here to make it work, although im sure you could get something like a little "click" plc to handle that if you wanted
Hope that helps
Tony
Tony, what do you reccomend for DC servo drives? Ive used geckos on smaller machines but heard they will limit performance on larger machines. I couldnt seem to find much for large DC drives? I was trying to find a machine with AC servos so it would be easier to find drives, and plus you cant beat performance.
What machine are you using?
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Matsuura MC500 with 16 pod tool changer. Mach3/Galil driving the stock Yaskawa drives and servos. Running 500 IMP. It does HSM perfectly fine. The main limitation is the spindle speed which is 5K. Using Inventor HSM for the tool paths. It is not a large machine, but it is certainly an industrial machine. It never crashes. It always does what I want it to. Never needed Macro B and it never had it. (Original control was YASNAC). Mach 3 is FAR superior to the original control. Tool changes are twice as fast! Rapids are up from 275 IPM to 500 IPM.
I took my time integrating Mach 3. All of the original machine safety lockout are used and functional. All of the macros are thoroughly debugged and working flawlessly. This machine could be put to production use and never blink an eye.
Converting one of these type of industrial mills can be a really good option for the hobbyist. I have about as much in this machine as it would take to retrofit a Bridgeport. And you get nice things like limit switches on both sides of the table (no one switch wonders here!), real home switches, and ATC.
I think you get out of Mach 3 or Mach 4 what you put into it.
Steve
They were good old machines. We had one at school when i did my training 10 years ago, thats the first industrial machine i ever used. I had a taig at home for a few years and the matsuura seemed huge back then!
How did you get the spindle to orientate? Been thinking more about how i can control toolchanger and the rest doesnt seem to bad, i think i could handle it. But worried about orientation. Anybody else have any suggestions on how to do this?
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On the Matsuura, it is an air cylinder that engages a roller bearing into a V slot on the spindle. The air cylinder is pressurized and the spindle is run at slow speed/low torque causing the roller bearing on the air cylinder shaft to roll on a collar. When the V slot comes around, the roller drops into the V slot. A limit switch detects this and shuts the spindle off. The air cylinder is now holding the spindle in the correct orientation. So all I did was use what the machine already had. Another plus to converting a machine like a Matsuura, Hurco, or the like is all of this stuff is there! Full coolant system too! No fabrication required. And you don't spend a year on the conversion project. Meaning chips start flying quicker.
I used the Galil to run the tool changer. But Mach could have been used. In fact, I had Mach controlling it all at one point. But I moved it to the Galil to reduce the tool change time a bit. The Galil can have programs running on it at the same time it controls the axes. But any PLC could be used to work the ATC as well. All my M6 script does is tell the Galil what tool is desired and waits for the Galil to signal when it is done.
But the BEST part about using an industrial machine is the rigidity. You can use a 1" hog mill and remove some serious material.
The cons are it has a 10HP spindle that requires a rather large rotary phase converter if three phase is not available. However, only the motors are 3 phase. The drives and servos are powered from single phase. One could replace the spindle VFD and use VFDs to run the TC, oil lube, and coolant motors and run it all on single phase. But I had a 15HP rotary converter already.
Steve