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General Mach Discussion / AC Servo's and Mach 3!
« on: January 12, 2011, 04:11:33 PM »
Alright, I've got an old hot wire cutting machine that is 2-axis movement with a 3rd axis turntable that's currently not in use, used for shaping styrofoam through the use of high resistance wire. The computer that was controlling this machine had an ISA control board from Delta Tau Universal PMAC Dashlite that was running through a program called Vectorworks. The motors on the machine are Baldor brushless servos with resolvers and the drives are Baldor FlexDrives. Now, before anyone jumps on the fact that the motors have resolvers, the Baldor Flexdrives convert the resolver input into a digital ppr encoder output for the signal back to the computer.
I've done a great deal of reading and searching as well as pinning out this box so that I know what's hooked to what and I've definitely raised a few questions.The Flexdrives have a Pulse and Direction input on a Master Encoder in (http://www.baldor.com/support/literature_load.asp?ManNumber=MN1902 , page 66 of the PDF or 4-14), however it appears to use RS-422 as a communication protocol which involves +/- 5v instead of 0-5v. The digital inputs on the drive are all 24v controlled and currently the machine is hooked up to run an analog signal out to the drive for control, so it would have to be changed to pulse and direction. The digital inputs would have to be wired into isolation relays to talk back to Mach3 in a safe manner as well I assume.
So, my first question is flat out can Mach 3 work with these drives? The follow up question to that is what drives (servo or stepper) *does* Mach 3 work with as I cannot find drives that seem to play nice with 0-5v signals at all. It would be incredibly nice if there was a solid list of compatible drives so that if people were looking to retrofit then more of the information was readily available. If anyone can provide any help or direction I would appreciate it a great deal.
Ryan Schaffer
Fin Pan, Inc.
I've done a great deal of reading and searching as well as pinning out this box so that I know what's hooked to what and I've definitely raised a few questions.The Flexdrives have a Pulse and Direction input on a Master Encoder in (http://www.baldor.com/support/literature_load.asp?ManNumber=MN1902 , page 66 of the PDF or 4-14), however it appears to use RS-422 as a communication protocol which involves +/- 5v instead of 0-5v. The digital inputs on the drive are all 24v controlled and currently the machine is hooked up to run an analog signal out to the drive for control, so it would have to be changed to pulse and direction. The digital inputs would have to be wired into isolation relays to talk back to Mach3 in a safe manner as well I assume.
So, my first question is flat out can Mach 3 work with these drives? The follow up question to that is what drives (servo or stepper) *does* Mach 3 work with as I cannot find drives that seem to play nice with 0-5v signals at all. It would be incredibly nice if there was a solid list of compatible drives so that if people were looking to retrofit then more of the information was readily available. If anyone can provide any help or direction I would appreciate it a great deal.
Ryan Schaffer
Fin Pan, Inc.