Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: AC Servo's and Mach 3!

« on: January 13, 2011, 10:44:20 AM »

Thank you Hood! I appreciate it a great deal. I spent a little bit of time on the phone with the PMDX guys as well and they're helping me out with some of the finer points. If this works well and reliably I will definitely be looking at retrofitting all 3 of my current systems so that I've got a standard interface for my operators.

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: AC Servo's and Mach 3!

« on: January 13, 2011, 12:31:02 AM »

Oh and as a side note, you use the PLC to communicate to the 24vdc to the drive, but your pulse and direction runs through your line driver into the master encoder input?

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: AC Servo's and Mach 3!

« on: January 12, 2011, 11:38:12 PM »

Yeah I'm no electronics whiz myself and most of my experience is with industrial control software and hardware, which believe it or not I find a lot easier to integrate than I do PC based solutions. So you're using 24vdc relays to transfer the limit switches back to the computer, and modbus out to the plc for communicating pulse and direction? Industrial price doesn't bother me because I'm in an industrial situation and a lot of the DIY stuff isn't a robust enough solution for the environment I'm in. I'm incredibly familiar with Automation Direct as we have been going through a progressive process of eliminating AB PLCs and replacing them with various series from AD. And I'm also familiar with AC servo drives for more classic industrial solutions, so matched sets are my friend anyways.

Do you happen to have any good resources for breakout boards that you like and make integrating relatively easy? And other than that do you have drives and motors that you particularly like?

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General Mach Discussion / Re: AC Servo's and Mach 3!

« on: January 12, 2011, 04:37:40 PM »

Excellent! Now if we were looking to replace the drives, is there something more easily plug and play with Mach 3? I have 2 other machines I'm looking at retrofitting as well and need to have an idea of the types of drives I can get for them that will  make integration a little easier.

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General Mach Discussion / Re: AC Servo's and Mach 3!

« on: January 12, 2011, 04:28:17 PM »

Well, I think that's the problem is that they want the RS-422 differential line driver, which is +/- 5v not 0-5v and in the mach 3 manual it says that's a definite bad idea. But I'll let you look it over if you'd be so kind. CNC control hardware is relatively new to me so I may also be making a mistake in my assumptions as well.

6

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.