Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: Overloaded on April 02, 2008, 12:45:28 PM
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Anyone have any experience with one of these?
Series II Interact 2
I could probably pick it up for 2k as is. Condition unknown but all intact.
HeidenhainTNC 151 Control.
Could it feasibly be switched to Mach if there are electrical/electronic issues ?
Just looking for a project.
Thanks,
RC
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You will probably need to get new drives for it as they will be analogue drives. There were Step/Dir to Analogue converters for sale a while back but dont think they are made any more, their name was Pixies and Skyko was the maker. I think Rutex also made similar things but have not looked for a while and have never heard anyone using them. One last option is to contact Pete Dunster at CNCteknix, the top boards from his Tek10 drives could be used to convert Step/Dir to Analogue, in fact I did some tests a while back on my lathe with these boards and although didnt get as far as actually using them with Mach I did hook up an encoder to them and turning the encoder caused the motor to turn. Not sure however if Pete sells these boards seperatly or for that matter even recommends they be used in that way.
Hood
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There is also dynamotion controllers that will run analogue drives in real time closed loop with Mach3:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41019
http://dynomotion.com/
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Thanks Hood and Dennis,
Kmotion looks good, I understand most of what I found on their site.
The main controller board is 4 axis at 165w.
The amp will supply 2 or 4 axis at 1000w, depending on motor type. And 12v to 55v....I think.
Question:
What would you estimate the wattage/voltage requirements to be for the system/motors on the machine pictured ?
This may be over my head for now, just getting ready.
I suppose there are many mechanical aspects to consider too. Ways.. Ballscrews....Heck, I might get the price down more.
Thanks,
RC
EXCELLENT Zone thread Dennis...THANKS
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One more......well maybe 2..or 3.......................................
Would you guess these axis motors to be brushed or brushless, AC or DC ?
If the motors are OK, would I only need a Gecko for each axis and an adequate power supply ? Or are they big enough ?
May not require the feedback loop. Would be less expensive too.
RC
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RC, this is just a wild guess, but I think they will be brush type DC and way to big for a Gecko.
Brett
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This is the guy I was looking at.
Thanks Brett
What did you end up using on your Hurco ? ADC/DAC
Or did you end up yet ? :)
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Well, I'm still in the process of ending. ;D
I have some jam up little servos and drives that are a great price. New in the box with cables and all I'm dieing to talk about but can't yet. The same guy may be getting some motors that are 2.4 times bigger and at 400 RPM faster. I'm waiting to see how that pans out. These will do a good job I think but to get the rapids, accels, tolerances I want, I think I will have to go bigger. If I was planning on being the only one running the machine, they would be fine as is but hopefully a button smasher will be in front of it more than me. I'm pretty sure you would like these on that series 2. I'm using one of those geckos on my tool chain servo.
Brett
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RC
I cant say for sure but would reckon they will be about 140 to 180V and can be a bit more certain that they will be DC brushed servos, so if you have to compromise on the voltage you will be losing speed.
Hood
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Hi All
I finished up a Series 1 interact with Geckos and mach 3 (Almost the identical machine pictured) Works perfect Yes it is a little slower. but how often do you need 100 IPM + if it is a hobby machine I highly recomend the conversion. A production machine maybe not. it was quite a complicated swap. if you don't know a lot about wiring you may have some trouble. 3 gecko 340s 80V power supply and a cnc 4pc breakout board and the origional SEM motors. the resolvers need to be changed to encoders I got them from US Digital. I first used the origional drives with a Pixie step direction converter that was a waste of a month.
Doug Schwochert
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Thanks Doug, I might contact you in the future.
I checked Rutex. These are $100 a pop.
If all else is OK, maybe these would work OK, and keep the speed up.
Thanks again Doug,
RC
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Doug, what went wrong with the Pixie set-up ?
Looks like these would be very similar.
PM if you'd rather.
Thanks again,
RC
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From what I saw in reading posts when I was thinking of getting pixies for a retrofit they could be dodgy on some systems. Some people could get them to work no problem but others just couldnt. Think if I remember it depoended on whether your drives were torque or velocity controlled but dont quote me on that LOL
Hood
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Thanks Hood,
Was your BPort originally analog ?
What components did you end up with ?
Thanks again,
RC
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My Bridgeport was Series 1 Boss 6.4 so it was originally steppers. I threw everything away and used the steppers geckos etc that I had from the manual Bridgeport that I had converted to CNC.
There is a big difference in size between a series 1 and series 2 Bridgeport.
The Beaver mill I am doing at the moment is about the same size as a series 2 Bridgeport (bit sturdier I think but close enough). It had analogue drives but they made a whistle that seemed to be at a frequency that bugged me so I decided to sell them and go with AC Servos and drives.
Hood
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Hi All
The Pixies were designed to be used on Torque drive amps. they may of may not work on velocity drives my Bridgeport had velocity drives. They worked but was not able to get them tuned properly. They ran the program OK but there was no accuracy.
Doug
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Hood,
What size, KW / in.lb, motors and drives are typically required for the machine I posted and what size did you use for your Beaver ?
Brett,
Keep me posted on your motor situation.
Thanks
This is just a guess. Would it suffice with a 2:1 reduction belt drive ?
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RC
I think 1KW with a 2:1 ratio would be fine.
On the Beaver I have motors that are rated 1.125KW but their torque is very close to yours being 3.39NM continuous and 4000 RPM rated. I am driving them 1:1 as I want the acelleration to be very good.
On the Y axis I have a bigger motor, not sure if it will be needed or not but its just what came along at the right price. In fact I am notr sure the motors I have will be big enough as I have not done real tests yet but theY do move the axis along nicely so I am hoping they will be fine, if not I have the reduction option although I would like to avoid that
I am going to be using the SmoothStepper on the mill as with 2000count encoders I will be needing a much higher pulserate than the PP could hope to deliver, at full speed of the motors it will need a pulserate of 533KHz which is no problem for the SS. Even if I have to gear 2:1 thats only just over 1MHz which is still easy for the SS :)
I have the same style motors/drives on the lathe I did but bigger, then again its a big lump of a lathe and the saddle, cross slide, turret and toolpost probably weigh about 800Lbs, about half the weight of a series 1 Bridgeport :D.
Hood
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Good info. Hood,
These servo motors w/drives are about $1500 per axis.
Question:
Can you tell at a glance if the Series 1 pictured has steppers, and would changing it over to mach be less complex ? Maybe use Gecko's ?
Just a hobby/light commercial app.
I think I can pick this one up real cheap.
Thanks,
RC
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That is a Boss and it has steppers. Some guys have used all the original harware on these and just used a breakout that a guy called HillBilly makes. One drawback to that is the transistors on the BOSS machines are notorious for popping, not hard to replace from what I gather but also the rest of the electrics/electronics are old so I decided against this route. You can use Geckos with the original motors but again I decided against this route also and went with modern steppers.
One thing to be aware with this machine the travels are small, 11 or so on Y and a really miserly 18 on the X. Also they only have a 30 taper as opposed the 40 on the Series 2. The tooloing for the series 1 is Bristol Erickson QC30 and is not as easy to find as the normal 30 or 40 tooling. Some of the Series 1 have a hole right through the spindle so you could remove the QC nut and use normal 30 tooling with a drawbar but mine doesnt and I think quite a lot dont so you are stuck with the QC. The QC is nice and easy to change but the lack of cheap tooling outweighs this.
Actually just looked at your series 2 pic, it may also have 30 spindle, cant really make out from the pic.
If I had as choice of a Series 2 I would go for it over the series 1 but then again maybe the series 1 will be all you need
Hood
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I wouldnt think of that as a good buy. Unless you know for sure the condition of the non cnc part.You might dump some cash in the head before you even start the retro.have you heard it run and ran it through the speeds. Those are not a machine people look for.Look up some auction achives in your area to see what theve been selling for. Al
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All good food for thought......and I'm hungry.
I cannot find adequate steppers for a BPort axis.
Nothing big enough.
Any links ?
Thanks much,
RC
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RC on my series 1 Bridgeport I have 916 oz in steppers, the gearing is 2.5:1 if I remember correctly, you should be able to find steppers easily in that range. I think the original steppers on the BOSS machines were about 900 oz in and the early BOSS machines ran 1:1 gearing so that should be plenty torque. Servos are the way to go if you want speed and acceleration and you can get stuff from eBay at a decent price if you know what you are looking for, also might be waiting for Brett to get back about the drives he is trying out.
Here in the UK that series 2 with the 151 control would go for probably $3-4000 and even the old BOSS series 1 in your last pic would be $2000 or there abouts. I got mine for $800 but that was 3 years ago and the price has started to jump up, probably due to the fact that Mach is known about now by a lot more people.
Hood
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Hood,
I did find some biggies at Keling and Anaheim.
I might get the II for 2500.
Also looking at a regular J head BPort with a CNC package on it.
And I have an older step pulley BP here that I just might motorize.
Thanks for your help,
RC
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Guy's I m working on a Bridgeport R2E4 boss 9 servo machine and I plan to use the larken Viper drives. http://www.larkencnc.com/viper/v200.htm they also have a support site on the CNC-ZONE My servo's are DC Brush and 14 amps continious and 165 volts they say they are un conditionally guaranteed so I am going to give them a shot...
Happy Hunting
archie =) =) =)