Messages

1

CS-Lab / Re: Stripped down Biesse Rover retrofit

« on: July 24, 2019, 07:48:10 AM »

Didn't seem to like my photo's...

2

CS-Lab / Stripped down Biesse Rover retrofit

« on: July 24, 2019, 07:44:39 AM »

Hi everyone, I'm Sam from Australia.

I built a Joes style machine about 5 years ago running Mach3 and have been using it ever since but that's not the topic for today.

I recently won a Biesse Rover 23 at auction. It's massive and it was quite a task to shift but it's parked now and I'm doing a lot of reading getting ready to do a retrofit (sort of).
The machine has Yaskawa analogue servos so a CSMIO/IP-A will be the go. Very encouraging to see that CS Labs even have a wiring diagram for these very drives on the site (SGDB).

I've seen some really impressive retrofits of these machines with every one of the hundreds of I/O functioning. I decided early on that I simply didn't need most of the features this machine has. It's a pod and rail machine, aimed at furniture production and I really need a flat bed so with that in mind I've already disassembled the vacuum system and all the associated I/O. I'll build a vacuum table up off the sliding rails, much like the flat bed versions of the Rover.

The second major component to go was the boring head. This might cause some eye rolling but I just don't need it. The machine has a 10hp iso30 ATC spindle and 7 tool changer so when I need to drill holes I'll just fit a drill bit in a tool holder. With all that bulk and mass removed from the Z axis the guarding, shrouds and curtain setup were all redundant too. All gone now. Shed a tear, old machine lovers. The dust extraction all that steel and alloy provided was only a 'best effort' deal anyway, the cubic meter of sawdust I removed from the machine proved that. I'll make a pneumatic dust shoe from the remains of the curtain setup.

I still have all the parts, of course. Not junk until the job is done.

So, that's the basics of where I am at the moment. Maybe less a retrofit and more a case of 'Building a flatbed router from a Biesse Rover' but we'll see. The machine isn't powered on yet and I'm still working through the control cabinet, removing the redundant elements, which there are a lot of. The level of redundancy and safety built in is seriously impressive to see and something I'll try and take forward into the rebuild.

It's a long way from my flimsy (relative) little 4x8 machine with it's tiny stepper motors and 4 limit switches. If anyone's wondering why someone might buy a machine like this just to remove all the features, the whole machine including about 20kg's worth of cutters, vacuum pump, 15 tool holders and a whole spare spindle cost less than the parts for my super budget 4x8 machine. It was close to scrap value.

I'll attach some images because everyone likes pictures.

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: External EStop Requested - These random estop's are killing me!

« on: September 19, 2016, 07:01:16 AM »

The estop is wired to the g540. It's connected with cat5 cable. Not shielded but the cable is twisted which should help as I understand. I've run it without an estop for a fair while, just had the two pins jumped together with a short wire. Didn't help. It just meant that when it faulted I had to cycle the power to get it out of estop.
I had the thought to cut some air the other day so I ran a 40 minute job through three times. Twice it completed successfully, once with the spindle running, once without. Then it threw an estop on the third run through with the spindle off. Soooooo.... Not the spindle I guess. Maybe.
I'll take some pics of the cabinet. There's only two AC connections to ground, the psu and the vfd. Should I have anything else connected to ground?

4

General Mach Discussion / External EStop Requested - These random estop's are killing me!

« on: September 18, 2016, 07:40:51 AM »

Not literally. They are really starting to get me down though.

I've built a 4x4 router, 48v G540 CNCRouter parts kit, ESS, 2.2kw Chinese spindle. It's been finished for about two years. I've used it to make awards, plaques, that kind of thing. I've had occasional estop issues right from the start. They happen often enough that I screenshot my global co-ords every job in case I have to reset my zero due to an estop.
I've had about three different pc's on the machine since I built it, so it's had a few fresh installs of Mach3 since new, that hasn't improved anything.

It's long past time that I asked for some help with the issue, I really don't trust the machine to finish a job at the moment.

I've tried setting the de-bounce in Mach3 incrementally up to about 10000. No effect. Found out about the ESS version of debounce, set that to 10000, no effect. Thought that may have been outside the acceptable parameters, set it to 143 (It's supposed to be a multiple of 1.43 as I understand it) no effect. I read a comment from Hood that if you need to set the ESS debounce to much more than 10 you've got issues.

I think it's time I started chasing RF noise in the control cabinet. The VFD lives in there with the rest of the controls so that might be the issue, don't know.

I guess I'm hoping to get some advice on where to chase this particular rabbit.

Happy to post pics of control cabinet, the router in general. I'll try and post my XML file too. Maybe there's some doofus mistake in there.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Sam

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 turn spindle synch issues

« on: August 06, 2015, 07:41:44 AM »

Thanks for the input guys. I dug out the old pc that I first setup for the lathe and copied the xml file over. Sure enough it works as it should. Rpm from the sensor is used to determine the z travel speed. Rpm set in the wizard is irrelevant. If I get a chance I'll try comparing the two files to see what the culprit is.

6

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 turn spindle synch issues

« on: August 02, 2015, 09:31:38 AM »

Ok, simple as that. Sounds obvious when I say it out loud. I can certainly work with that. I'm still confused though because when I first set the lathe up (on different electronics) I'm almost certain that I was getting correct threads regardless of the rpm I set in the wizard, I'd never paid any attention to it. In fact the wizard defaults to 1000 rpm, at least it was today, and there's no way I'd have tried to cut a thread at 1000 RPM. I should have ended up with a pitch of about 20mm but I didn't. The first piece of stock I threaded was a perfect 40x1.5mm. I think I'll see if I can dig up the original xml file from the old pc.

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 turn spindle synch issues

« on: August 02, 2015, 06:11:35 AM »

A bit more info, gecko g540, 1.8 degree steppers coupled directly to a 2005 ballscrew, 400 steps per rev on the z axis. X is a 1605 geared 3:1 at 1200 steps per, just FYI.
Mach is set to mm native units.

8

General Mach Discussion / Mach3 turn spindle synch issues

« on: August 02, 2015, 05:54:56 AM »

Hi everyone. I've been using mach3 for about 18 months now and so far have been able to find all the answers to my questions in the manual or on the forum. I've run into an issue I can't figure out though. On my lathe I can't seem to get my spindle synch working with threading. I've got a Hall effect sensor hooked up and my rpm displays correctly. When I run the threading wizard and make a part the thread cuts and each pass matches the previous one but, as best as I can tell, Mach is using the rpm set in the wizard rpm field rather than the actual rpm. It must be taking notice of the spindle pulse because it's giving me clean threads so it's starting each pass at the correct time. For example: I program a 1.5mm pitch thread and set the rpm field at 500. My lathe doesn't have a gear for 500 rpm, it's nearest is 420. I start the spindle in Mach and then switch the motor on (no relay at this point) the rpm dro reads 420. I hit run, it cuts, I get a nice clean thread that's nothing like 1.5mm pitch. Now, if I set the rpm to 420 in the wizard I get a thread that's very nearly perfect.

I've checked everything I can think of so i figure I'll throw it over to the crowd.

Cheers in advance