Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: Where to start

« on: May 09, 2011, 06:06:37 PM »

Please forgive me for being a little slow on terminology.  I have been running these things for years
and letting other, more qualified people work on them.  That's all different now. 
When you say "servo amps" you're talking about the power amplifier that sends the required amperage
to run the servo motor?  The actual controller board in my controller box would be replaced by the
galil or equivilent driver card?

I understand about the galil card you have.

Thanks.

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: Where to start

« on: May 09, 2011, 05:49:49 PM »

Does what I'm thinking make sense.  I could just take out all the other boards in my controller box and leave the one
that drives my dc servos.  Basically remove the brains and use mach3 as the controller.  Would I need an add on plc?

Also, what would you want for the galil 4 axis card?

Thanks.

3

General Mach Discussion / Re: Where to start

« on: May 09, 2011, 05:25:41 PM »

Hood,  Is it possible to keep the analog drives I have now and the board in my existing controller that sends the signal to them
and add a step/dir to analog converter card in my computer.  My drives still work good.  I can home and jog just fine with them
now.  I guess I would just be replacing the brains and plc of my controller with the pc running mach3.  That would control
my spindle, turret, tailstock, coolant, chip conveyer, chuck, and send a signal to my drive board. I could add the external plc
if i had to.

Thanks.

4

General Mach Discussion / Re: Where to start

« on: May 09, 2011, 04:51:06 PM »

Thanks everyone for the reply.  My lathe is a 1986 Mazak QT10 Universal with Mazatrol T2 controller. (Universal means it has a tailstock)
It's rated at 10" swing, 20" between centers, 8 position turret, programmable chuck and tailstock.  The whole problem started when the
spindle controller went out.  Apparently it shot some high voltage back through some of my controller boards.  I replaced the spindle
controller with a VFD and can run the spindle manually, but with bad boards I cant get the rest of the machine to function properly. I
have replaced some of the boards, but obviously not the right one, and they all are going out one by one anyway.  It has dc servo's on
X and Z axis.  I think 25 years is enough for the controller electronics and it's becoming a money pit.  The pc controller looks like it would
do the job and appears simple enough.  I just want to make sure I know what I need before I start buying stuff.

A list of everything I need would be helpful.  I already have the pc with Mach 3 running good on it. Next step is to deal with the dc servo's.


Thanks.

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: Where to start

« on: May 09, 2011, 03:48:17 PM »

Hood,  thanks for the reply.  If I just replaced the servo's with steppers, where would I be?
Would I still need an encoder to guarantee proper position? 
Would I still need motion controllers or does Mach3 do that? 
Do I understand correctly that a breakout board is optional but offers protection to your pc.
Thanks.

6

General Mach Discussion / Where to start

« on: May 09, 2011, 03:18:58 PM »

Hi,  I have a commercial cnc lathe I'm thinking about running with Mach3.  I have done searches with no results, and other than reading every thread,
is there anyone who could answer some basic retrofit questions?

1: I have analog dc servo's with resolver encoders and need to figure out exactly what or what kind of servo interface card, motion controller, breakout board,
    quadrature encoder, etc., I need to get them to work with Mach3.

2: Can I use my existing operater panel for all the buttons, switches, jog wheel, etc. (manual functions - spindle off/on, collant off/on, tailstock fwd/rev, jog x z,
    home, work light off/on, tool changer)

Thanks for any help, or point me in the right direction.