Messages

211

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: 1987 Bridgeport Production Center Interact 412 to Mach3 Conversion

« on: November 07, 2010, 04:40:47 PM »

Hi JH looks really nice! Do you spray the paint on or use a roller?

Would have stuck to the flexi metal y axis cover which hangs over the turcite coated brackets though. I've found the rubber type can snag on the table front during x axis moves and also sag onto the ball screw when the swarf starts building up!!

John
 

We used oil based paint, brush and roller.  The heavy oil based stuff 'flows' out nice hiding the brush and roller marks

The ball screws are covered with metal plates so the rubber can not sag onto them, the rubber only covers the ways and plate covers.  Its think and works well for us.

Thanks,
JH

212

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: 1987 Bridgeport Production Center Interact 412 to Mach3 Conversion

« on: November 07, 2010, 03:56:48 PM »

What an awesome project log, thank you very much for sharing, you have inspired me to get cracking with my machine.

I am going to attempt to hook my vsd up to mach using RS485 like you have, i have brought a USB to RS485 converter. Can you please explain the maths behind setting the  Max ADC count to 10000? any other info you have on making this happen would be appreciated.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks!  The RS485 trick is easy, make sure you watch the ModBus videos first.  The only thing I can tell you, is set the max pully speed to your max RPM.   Then set the frequency to reach the max RPM in the ModBus setup.  Mach3 will convert and send out the the frequency required for the target RPM. 

I did find that some RPMs were not working, not sure if its a Mach3, ModBus or VFD issue.  It was only on frequencies that had a rounding up that I had a problem with (ie 75Hz worked, 75.3Hz worked, but 75.6Hz would NOT)  To work around this, I added a check to the spindleSpeed.m1s macro to check for this rounding error and adjust the output frequency up until the math was correct (maybe 1 or 2 RPMs more)

Thanks,
JH

213

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: AL54b (lathe) project from New Zealand

« on: November 07, 2010, 03:43:02 PM »

Looks great !  (I like the color too)

JH

214

General Mach Discussion / Re: What Do You Think?

« on: October 13, 2010, 11:41:17 AM »

What PC did you choose ?  The HP D530 has a parallel port in it.

215

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: 1987 Bridgeport Production Center Interact 412 to Mach3 Conversion

« on: October 08, 2010, 12:02:07 PM »

Here are some quick pics of the remaining sheet metal in work.  Degrease, sand, grind, weld holes....   

JH

216

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: 1987 Bridgeport Production Center Interact 412 to Mach3 Conversion

« on: October 08, 2010, 11:52:47 AM »

Been painting and putting the sheet metal back on in phases while making sure all the parts fit right.  Made a simple way cover for Y Axis out of some rubber sheeting and 6061.  Added a couple of 120VAC computer fans with external filters to cool the cabinet. 

Its starting to look nice now, its sooooo much cleaner that when I started.  Thinking I'll need to add some graphics to that blank canvas before its over....

JH

217

General Mach Discussion / Re: What Do You Think?

« on: October 07, 2010, 11:37:13 AM »

Here is the PC that I am running my BP412 VMC (HP/Compaq D530),  less than 100 bucks on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.com/HP-Compaq-D530-SFF-P4-2-66-1024-40-DVD-/320600526080?pt=Desktop_PCs&hash=item4aa547cd00#ht_859wt_998



JH

218

General Mach Discussion / Re: What Do You Think?

« on: October 06, 2010, 10:32:52 PM »

That will work !  You could also buy a used PC for less 100 of ebay that would work also and save 400 plus for other stuff. 

Windows 7 might be an issue too (not sure)

JH

219

General Mach Discussion / Re: Homing

« on: October 06, 2010, 06:12:53 PM »

The motor homing percent of speed and acceleration profiles will also affect the homing position.  We had an X axis that would not always home to the same position, sometimes it would not change direction.  After changing the homing speed percent from 20 to 30, the problem was fixed.

JH

220

General Mach Discussion / Re: rewiring to minimize EMF and heat

« on: October 06, 2010, 11:02:41 AM »

Shielding any 5v signals and also high voltage lines will help a lot. Also if possible keep the 5v signals to a minimum and use 24v volt for such things as lmits. This may not be practical for you as it will mean you need to convert that to 5v just before it enters your BOB but it definitely helps make things noise immune.
On my machines the majority of my wiring is unshielded as its nearly all 24v but any 5v signals and also high voltage to servos and  encoders wiring is shielded.
 I am lucky in that my servo drive  use 24v I/O and also I have a PLC so I can use 24v to it and then input to Mach via the serial modbus so that helps potential noise problems. Aslo my servo drives take differential Step/Dir signals so I convert the single ended ones from Mach to differential and this makes them much less prone to noise so I dont need to shield them.


Hood

Second that:  Also make sure you connect the shielded part of the cable to chassis ground on both ends (sometimes only on one end for ground loops, but the rule of thumb is both ends)   

You can also RC filters to limit and home switches to keep them from false triggering.  Even if you only add additional pull ups, this can help your signal to noise ratio.  Depending on the application, how you connect the switch to NO or NC will make a world of difference to keep switches from falsely triggering Mach3. 

As Hood stated, a 24V PLC is the best.

JH