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« on: July 31, 2012, 12:06:15 AM »
Jh,
Hey man not been in here for a little while. It seems you are doing your usual great job redoing this machine. I finally got my Cincinatti Arrow 5oo moved over to my shop and got the three phase hooked to it. So far I am in the process of reloading the parameters and everything seems to be fine with the stock control at least so far. I am still not running just yet and I have hopes I can just finish this setup and be running with the original control. I have been reading thru your threads here and I find it quite interesting the similarities to my machine. For instance my axis motors are also 2000 RPM and about the same torque as your machine. I want to try to run this machine with the original control if at all possible but I also have to accept that at SOME point the control will no longer be supported and also there are several items in that big electronics box that are REALLY expensive. If one of them goes down and I cannot source another one reasonably I may be up against a serious decision about what to do with the machine. Watching your progress is quite inspiring and while it is a lot of work I am sure you make it seem doable. The interesting thing I keep telling myself is that while it would be a major undertaking I am not doing a complete rebuild as on my RF45. I do not have to make ballscrews and mounts, NO bearings no switches assuming I can find a way to use what is already there and when you use the paired servo and drivers like you are using it is a simple matter of adapting the new motors to the screws. Which brings me to my next question, I saw that it appears the motors you used are not the same NEMA size as the originals, is that the case or am I seeing it incorrectly, I am wondering if you simply just redrilled the mounts for the different bolt pattern and whatnot or did you buy the motor mount adapter plates that I saw on Machmotions site. Also were you able to just use the original couplers or are the shafts different sizes and did you just purchase different couplers? I would think that with adapting the motors and being able to basically gut the control and start over you are given some flexibility to put things where you want and mounting would be much simpler. I look inside my control box and see miles of wire going everywhere and many relays and different components many of which I have no idea what they do just yet. When I think about that and then about my RF45 build I really do not understand the reason for all of that complexity. Just looking at the pictures of your revamped electronics box I can see that it must be less cluttered than it was before despite it doing the same basic things. My only real issue would be the Toolchanger and the spindle motor altho when I looked at the spindle motor it seems like it would be quite simple to adapt a different motor and drive to it and even maybe run off single phase as you have. Again I do not wish to go this route but I have to be realistic here, my machine is a 1994 model and will not be supported forever. There will be a time when it will be necessary to do something or get a different machine. The one thing that makes me not worry too much about it is the fact that you have been able to source everything necessary to do this and it sounds like you were even able to pay for the parts with the sale of the original components that were not damaged. I could see me doing something like this and adapting motors and using new drives and keeping the pneumatics as much as possible and at least getting the basic three axis function and limits and homes configured pretty easily with what I had learned from the RF45 but it is the Toolchanger that would worry me not really due to the wiring of the thing but rather the software end, I would not know where to begin. I also do not know that I would run it with MACH3 again not that it ever really gave me any problems but I think I would want to try something new. I find it interesting that you are able to attain some pretty respectable rapids with the machine now and I am quite sure your power will be more than adequate. My spindle motor is HUGE and everything on this machine has resolvers which I know little about altho they are supposed to be near bulletproof from what I gather so I guess what I am saying is thank you for doing this twice now and showing your work and sharing your parts sources so that If and when guys like me need to revamp their machine they have a road to hoe....hehehe peace
Pete
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