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General Mach Discussion / CNC conversion to Mach3 possible?
« on: August 07, 2012, 08:20:13 AM »
Hi guys and girls!
New user here, but frequent lurker in the past. Let me introduce myself and the machine that got my interest set on Mach3. My father-in-law has a mid-size business in the wood industry, making wooden crates and boxes primarily for the food industry. For the most part we make wooden gift/display cases for wine and beer. About 10 years ago he had the oppertunity to buy a milling router for a steal, and he took it. the idea was to be able to expand the product list if the usual product sales would slow down.
well, that didn't happen and the router has been standing there for 10 years gathering dust! and this is where I come in, he asked me if i could see if I could get it working again and making it user-friendly and usable for them.
So I started browsing the web for info and looking for ways to make this happen. A technician from Reichenbacher came and gave it a good check, reloaded the OS and it's operational and working again. what machine is it? The big hunk of metal in the pictures is a Reichenbacher RANC 310A, the version with 3 spindle motors from 1986!
when I first started looking into this I figured it would be like plugging in a computer into the controller, draw and convert with CAD/CAM software et voila!! (what do you expect, I'm from the plug-and-play generation!
) I realise now of course it won't be that easy!
Now to come to my questions:
1) I looked into Mach3 and played around with it a bit, and I like it! But will Mach3 be able to control something this big and old? Would this require a big investment into motion controllers etc.? Things like camsoft packages and upgrades etc. I don't think will be worth the investment... Like I said it's more a luxury problem than a necessity, but it would be awesome to get it to work for us of course!
2) the controller is a Siemens SINUMERIK 8M (pic included) which can be operated with STEP5 PC software from Siemens. But for the life of me I still have no clue how to use it and draw up a project and running the job, at least not in a user-friendly way!
none of us have CNC experience, and learning to program things on the old controller would be difficult at best. Ideally, user friendly would be CAD/CAM software and a controller to make the machine run (the original 8M or computer with controller software like Mach3?) Can this be done?
3) At present Mach3 can control one spindle motor, correct? Mach4 possibly more spindles I read somewhere? just a small question, I'd be more than happy to get one spindle up and running
I looked long and hard for info on this CNC, but found very few information
Can you guys help me fill in some blancs based on the pictures? mainly the spindle motors I have no clue.
From what I've read and learned the spindle motors are servos, pretty big ones in fact. High RPM models at 300Hz/380V. I THINK they can be controlled individually in the Z-direction? Can you see on the pictures if they're AC or DC servoes? analogue probably? any idea how many poles the motors could be?
Many more question I still have, but if I could get a little help so far, I can continue on figuring it out myself. I just hit a bit of a dead end not knowing if it's possible to get this machine running in some kind of CAD/CAM/controller system, and if it is, where to start looking into...
Thanks for looking and reading!
Robby
New user here, but frequent lurker in the past. Let me introduce myself and the machine that got my interest set on Mach3. My father-in-law has a mid-size business in the wood industry, making wooden crates and boxes primarily for the food industry. For the most part we make wooden gift/display cases for wine and beer. About 10 years ago he had the oppertunity to buy a milling router for a steal, and he took it. the idea was to be able to expand the product list if the usual product sales would slow down.
well, that didn't happen and the router has been standing there for 10 years gathering dust! and this is where I come in, he asked me if i could see if I could get it working again and making it user-friendly and usable for them.
So I started browsing the web for info and looking for ways to make this happen. A technician from Reichenbacher came and gave it a good check, reloaded the OS and it's operational and working again. what machine is it? The big hunk of metal in the pictures is a Reichenbacher RANC 310A, the version with 3 spindle motors from 1986!
when I first started looking into this I figured it would be like plugging in a computer into the controller, draw and convert with CAD/CAM software et voila!! (what do you expect, I'm from the plug-and-play generation!
) I realise now of course it won't be that easy!Now to come to my questions:
1) I looked into Mach3 and played around with it a bit, and I like it! But will Mach3 be able to control something this big and old? Would this require a big investment into motion controllers etc.? Things like camsoft packages and upgrades etc. I don't think will be worth the investment... Like I said it's more a luxury problem than a necessity, but it would be awesome to get it to work for us of course!
2) the controller is a Siemens SINUMERIK 8M (pic included) which can be operated with STEP5 PC software from Siemens. But for the life of me I still have no clue how to use it and draw up a project and running the job, at least not in a user-friendly way!
none of us have CNC experience, and learning to program things on the old controller would be difficult at best. Ideally, user friendly would be CAD/CAM software and a controller to make the machine run (the original 8M or computer with controller software like Mach3?) Can this be done?3) At present Mach3 can control one spindle motor, correct? Mach4 possibly more spindles I read somewhere? just a small question, I'd be more than happy to get one spindle up and running
I looked long and hard for info on this CNC, but found very few information
Can you guys help me fill in some blancs based on the pictures? mainly the spindle motors I have no clue.From what I've read and learned the spindle motors are servos, pretty big ones in fact. High RPM models at 300Hz/380V. I THINK they can be controlled individually in the Z-direction? Can you see on the pictures if they're AC or DC servoes? analogue probably? any idea how many poles the motors could be?
Many more question I still have, but if I could get a little help so far, I can continue on figuring it out myself. I just hit a bit of a dead end not knowing if it's possible to get this machine running in some kind of CAD/CAM/controller system, and if it is, where to start looking into...
Thanks for looking and reading!
Robby