Messages

61

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Strange occurence in Mach 4

« on: October 06, 2017, 12:53:32 AM »

hi was it working better before. i ask because how is your oiler does your ball screw and ways have enough lube. i have seen allot of problems because somebody decided to use motor oil not way oil or similar. i would turn the machine completely off and turn the screws manually how do they feel tight loose. to tight is bad too loose is also bad you want the middle ground. if you aren't getting enough lube you will kill a ballscrew one of the machines i rebuilt had the oiler tube get broken for the x ballscrew by the time it got to me i didn't need any tools to tell it needed to be replaced. oil is your friend. here is another trick i have used with gummy oil orifices take kerosene pump it through the oiler till everything loosens up then follow with proper way oil.
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62

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: tool changer tips and tricks

« on: October 06, 2017, 12:39:21 AM »

hi i dont  know exactly what a Geneva mechanism is but i believe bridgport tool changers use them and i believe the cincinati milicron that i am upgrading also has one i still haven't been able to get the carousel apart and the tool changer door is jammed tight and i mean tight had to remove the bracket so i could manually get it to the back position so i could lower the spindle for the riggers now guess what bracket didn't make it to the end of the journey. chaoticone glad to hear from you, i once did a tool changer in vb with a stepper and that worked out well however i have a machine all set up i am planning to reuse the servo drives and the spindle drive and the original tool change setup. all i want to do is replace the computer and controller as they are crap. the more you can reuse the less outlay and redesign necessary so i am sticking with the ac motor which is just the same as the one on a bridgeport torq cut. dunnitagain the orriginal computer for this machine had a place for you to manually tell the computer which tool was in home position and yes we could do that and we could save the current tool to memory although i have no idea how to do that. it is going to be easy to add a home sensor to the setup which i believe they should have had in the first place. the thing about homing the carousal is this regardless of the position it was when shut down or abruptly turned off ie power outage you will always be able to start at home position which will probably be 1 pointed at the spindle i will post when i work that out. if i were doing a fadal i would just read the same hall sensor but would probable rout it to my controller plc's are great but for me its just one more thing the cslabs controller has plenty of inputs and outputs and they can be expanded to an obscene number. also the ethernet smooth stepper now you can use the first one for running the machine and you can have a second one for additional input and output. so why use a plc and do even more programming.  the next question is will mach remember which tool is in the spindle or do we have to tell it upon restart. mach 3 had to be told and it could be dicey if mach 3 decided it didn't want to listen. we also need to think about tool load unload and tool in spindle but i dont want to put the cart before the horse so i am going to get the carousal right first. thank you for your replies i will post when i have a start for my tool changer page. by the way does anybody know how to save and import just one page ie tool changer page.
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63

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: tool changer tips and tricks

« on: October 04, 2017, 09:27:50 PM »

hi all starting to think on the tool changer.
1st i have 21 tool carousel i am thinking need to know which tool is in which holder not the tool table yet but physical holder. so i am going to build a page put a circle on it then 21 leds around the circle. next i am going to need to write a homing routine. my carousel doesnt have a home switch after some investigating and calling tech support i found that out. so i am going to add a home switch. i checked it out wont be that hard. i think i will home the carousel every time machine is homed. now is the part i dont yet know how to do there is a sensor to count each position for tool holder. we want each count to progressively light up the led for the tool it is on or count down to tool it is on. i am also thinking of a dro that does the counting that way it is always active with where it is. i believe i am coming at this from the right direction as the main is the carousel and knowing which tool is where should be the beginning. please add your comments ideas i appreciate any help.
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64

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Homing - switch lights up but won't stop movement

« on: October 02, 2017, 10:09:46 PM »

hello i havent worked with a uc100 for a long time but lets go back to basics it works from the parallel port that says your bob and wiring should be right. so i would go into the uc diagnostics screen or plug in setup whichever they have and look for the problem with the settings there or if they have a realtime led see it light. if memory serves uc100 is supposed to follow the parallel port setup for ports and pins but somebody could correct me on this. also i would call keiling and see if they can give you some tech support i can try to help and will but they might have seen this problem before. let us know how you make out.
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65

General Mach Discussion / Re: 0-10v spindle control convert to +/-10v spindle control

« on: October 02, 2017, 09:58:09 PM »

hi i wouldnt know how to add a mosfet i know it is a field affect transistor but that is only a name not knowledge of how it works. here is what i know or think i know when running a spindle +/-10v  0 volts stops and brakes the only time you get creep is if you dont have 0v and i am thinking a narrow deadband around zero will be built into most vfd the question would be how to adjust if necessary. i will have to build a bench version and see what it puts out to a scope building wont be a problem figuring out how to read the scope might be. on the vfds i have worked with the lathes stop incredibly fast and so do the mill spindles thats old vfds new vfd require resistors for fast braking circuits. thing is there is a relay to run but that is more of an enable i am not thinking you want to disable every time you change stock. this is something i want to take further but for right now if csmio/ip-a gets the update as promised i am going to build with that. however in the future i can see lets say a fanuc with yellow cap motors. from experience scrap the motors and drives and fanuc computer add two new ac servo drives and motors now you have a fuji vfd that takes +/-10v for the spindle we could run that from a machbob2 with ethernet smooth stepper which if i read that correctly at warp 9 it is capable of lathe threading so already knows what to do with the spindle encoder and index pulse. the lathe i am going to do in the future is a moriseki and it has yaskawa drives that are easy to talk to. a word to the wise dont try to use fanuc drives for anything. the main reason i am going down this path is if a okuma howa lathe for example comes up for cheep or auction i might be interested to upgrade but the spindle problem would stop me and i want the option. so thanks for all you help.
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66

General Mach Discussion / Re: 0-10v spindle control convert to +/-10v spindle control

« on: October 02, 2017, 10:05:39 AM »

ps as for the spindle going backwards some cutters require reverse rotation i believe dont know for sure and with the setups i have outlined i believe rigid tapping to be possible. i dont know how well this circuit will function but the milicron has an encoder and a index for tool changes ect.
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67

General Mach Discussion / Re: 0-10v spindle control convert to +/-10v spindle control

« on: October 02, 2017, 09:59:47 AM »

thank you for your reply and circuit. the reason i might need to do this is i have a cincinati milicron that i am upgrading from the original crap computer. i want to use a csmio/ip-a as this will do +/-10v drives which the original are. however the csmio/ip-a hasnt gotten its firmware upgrade yet and the one on the web site wont do +/-10v spindle just drives and 0-10v spindle. i have been told that the update would be coming out last week or this week then just a couple of days. i really want to do this with the csmio/ip-a but i have been told updates were coming before. the controller i am trying to use doesnt have an autotune feature and just wont work for me i have tried everything i could think of and every time i believe i got it problem. i have used csmio/ip-a in the past with mach 3 (which i dont want to go back to) successfully. i also upgrade using ac servo drives. love them easy setup. and i am looking at a moriseki lathe in my future if the csmio/ip-a will do as i want good but if it wont i could replace the X and Z drives and motors with ac servo however as you know the spindle motors on lathes are huge and require big vfd and are usually old but they are the heart of a lathe so with this kind of circuit i could use a ethernet smooth stepper for the motion planning with lets say a mach bob2 take its 0-10v signal and convert to +/-10v. that about covers my thinking let me know what you think.
thank you
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68

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Homing - switch lights up but won't stop movement

« on: October 01, 2017, 11:27:55 PM »

ok post the screen shots. as for upgrading thats your call mach 3 still works for many people and in allot of ways is steady software. mach 4 in my opinion is light years ahead of 3 in versatility and use. however it is still young problems can arise and then you have to deal with does my controller do that or when will my controller do that. all in all 4 is the way to go eventually. but you have mach 3 and are setup now even if you decided to upgrade i would solve my limit problem now not drag it with me to mach 4 i can assure it wont get better there. now do you know what kind of controller you are running or parallel port.

69

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: Homing - switch lights up but won't stop movement

« on: October 01, 2017, 07:02:50 PM »

it has been a while i do mach 4 now. question have you tried to home each axis individually in the diagnostics screen. what kind of controller are you using. and what are your setting in ports and pins input signals ie limit homing is your active low set the same. luck
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70

General Mach Discussion / 0-10v spindle control convert to +/-10v spindle control

« on: October 01, 2017, 06:55:34 PM »

hello has anybody made or found a converter to convert a 0-10v signal to a +/-10v signal. it would work like this relay output fwd or rev then 0-10v convert so output is 0 to +10v for fwd or output is 0 to -10v for output that would open the way to control some of the older spindle controls that only have +/-10v i will probably make one it depends on an update to the controller i want to use if the update comes through as promised all will be well. if not then this will be my answer short term. i dont want to reinvent the wheel so if anybody has seen or done this??
thank you
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