Messages

41

General Mach Discussion / Re: OEM Mach3 machine suppliers

« on: November 18, 2012, 10:38:45 AM »

my mill is knee driven, has about 15" of z travel, the spindle can be used free for tapping.  it was built by cnc automation inc of amherst nh and they still make them.  it is driven by their own cnc control software not mach3.  mine worked well for 10 years, but have had issues with replacing old computer parts for the last 3 or 4 years, its running fine now with the help of a friend more legacy computer savvy than i.  im sure they use newer computers now.  never any issues driving the knee.  their control software works fine, tho i wish i could switch to mach3 myself.  but the "motion control" board in there is unlabeled, a mystery to me, and they dont provide any help with this older machine, they want me to upgrade to the newer control.  i guess i would say if you chose to deal with them, their support was great for the 1st 5-6 years, then i was invisible to them.  if you were willing to help him with just the mach3 and pc part, this might be a good start: http://www.cncmasters.com/index.php?page=cnc-supra-vertical-knee-mill.  it is however, z spindle driven not knee driven.  mine is based on the 10 x 54 acra and it has held up well for me.

42

General Mach Discussion / Re: Accuracy of Homing Devices? Pro's and Con's of Different Sensors

« on: October 16, 2012, 11:19:15 PM »

being in a position where i want to pull a old fanuc system off my 20 yr old nardini engine lathe, and replace it with a basic stepper system, this thread has been interesting.  with the old fanuc, i could count on homing and then counting on the machine to be exactly where it was supposed to be , machine coord wise. going to steppers with no index pulse, having to rely on the quality and repeatability of the home switches, has been one of my concerns.  even my servo knee mill can err, if the switches get dirty (ie cast iron jobs) and react slowly and differently than the last time they were used. but this is usually easy to see, as the error is often a full motor revolution or a multiple of.  the lathe has never failed me in this manner, the switches are of much higher quality, and are very well shielded.  it is very handy to be able to count on ones work coords on startup, but with no index pulse on the upcoming lathe steppers, i fear being off a thou, or 3, that could be a problem, not easy to see by eye.  i had thought if i mounted way on the back of the lathe, one of these (http://www.edgetechnologyproducts.com/pro-touch-off-gage.html) for the x and one for the z, kept them covered, and mounted a ball on a stem on the cross slide, the x & z machine coords could be easily checked by hand at any time.  perhaps a nicely made sq and // block could be subbed for the gages, then using a pc of .001 shim as a feeler to do the same thing.  checking the mill is easier, pick up a known work coord, or mount a permanent reference on the table somewhere as someone here prev mentioned.  the lathe is a lil harder, but this might work?  your thoughts? and thanks.

43

General Mach Discussion / Re: Cutting Fluid for Aluminum

« on: September 26, 2012, 06:44:21 AM »

i have used crisco shortening.  it is paste and stays where you put it.  but if you dont clean it up, it is organic and can decay creating a slightly rotten odor. i have also used wd40, crc and the like, work good.  i finally settled on walmarts tech lube, a wd40 generic, very cheap, doesnt lubricate anywhere near as well as the wd but used solely as a cutting fluid is fine.  i have heard others say for a nice finish on alum make the final pass using a squirt bottle of isopropyl alcohol, just heresay, i have not tried it.

44

General Mach Discussion / Re: 20 yr old cnc control needs replacement, and i need help.

« on: July 28, 2012, 08:54:35 PM »

hi Hal thanks for commenting

i wont keep the servos, they are fanuc items and i want out of fanuc as much as some folk seem to want them.  i run a fanuc controlled workcenter at my day job,
the $$ the folk who come to repair them get is beyond ridiculous as are replacement parts.  my mill is analog with brush dc motors, i think id like the new ac brushless stuff, but if the mill is going to run well, i think i may try to keep the lathe replacement parts as close to the mill as possible, to share as many repair parts as possible. and i have read that the fanuc red cap motors are a hard match up to any of the pc based systems out there.  Machmotion and Ajax are being looked at, there is other stuff out there, Motiontek, Kanalog, DSPMC, but a lot will depend on who can help a guy like me who has little electronic knowledge, i am capable of following instructions, and thats about it.  a lot will also depend on the input i get from the good folk on this board.  i am sure i can handle a mostly mechanical installation, but might like to try to do as much as i can electronically, it will help in my retiring years to have as much knowledge of the internal workings as possible.

45

General Mach Discussion / Re: 20 yr old cnc control needs replacement, and i need help.

« on: July 28, 2012, 02:15:20 PM »

and here i am again!!!

legacy computer guy has come and gone,  we fooled with it for a while, various things, no luck.

we had talked about the machine as i bought it years ago, with a new 386 motherboard driving it, and how
replacements had been made, to a 486 then to a pentium 90, all successfully.  he was the guy who put the p90 in
for me.

he decided to slow this board, which was 166, down by moving some jumpers, and dropped it to 133.

i have been running test programs i wrote and old part programs for the last 45 minutes without a single failure.  

i think we have it licked, time to tool back up and make something!!!  

i will not be gone from this board, soon as the mill makes me a lil $$$ it will be time to pull the fanuc off the
nardini lathe and get that onto a pc control.  ill bet that will cause me to generate a few threads here.

the fanuc has lost its mind from sitting too long this winter i guess.  even tho i put a new battery on and fired it up 2x a month for a charge.  i get some type of parity error that the local cnc fellow says indicates the unit is fine but has forgotten its software.  a fellow on the internet has been kind enough to share his nardini fanuc files with me but i think i am tired of fooling with fanuc and want to go pc based.

i look on ebay, fanuc pc parts seem to command pretty fair money.  my question to you folk would be:  do you think there is any added value in trying to sell this
control system complete, from the servo motors on back?  or would it draw more $$ pc parted out on ebay?

thanks again for reading!

46

General Mach Discussion / Re: 20 yr old cnc control needs replacement, and i need help.

« on: July 27, 2012, 07:18:09 PM »

hey guess who's back?

still having issues bad enough to not be able to run this machine.  all the issues are in x and y, z is fine

it loves mdi moves, in rapid or in feed.  doesnt like the handwheel per my last post in this thread.

wrote a program that just does a rectangle 1 x 3 (2) times.  all the fails come at corners

run this program 20 times, it will run ok 7 or 8, the rest of the time x or y will fail at a corner
the "axis on" light will go out, stay out a half second, then come back on.  no other pattern detected
very random between x and y

same fellow is coming to help tomorrow, he had some thought that the new pentium board is fast, maybe
too much.  something to do with "interrupts?"  he asked me to do the program again with a small pause between ea move.  i put a 1/2 sec pause
between them, no changes

wrote a circle program, one again it fails on corners.  motors just dont like to change direction.  i wish they didnt every time
its the 35-40% of the time they work fine that makes the troubleshooting harder.

just throwing his out there, the fellow helping is a great legacy computer guy but not a cnc man.  and im just a good machinist
that is slowly learning this stuff.  always welcome you guys input.

47

General Mach Discussion / Re: 20 yr old cnc control needs replacement, and i need help.

« on: May 31, 2012, 07:54:12 PM »

an update for those who care.

the fellow who was helping me with the old 486 tried a few things including building a customized motherboard from some of his old stuff, not so good, we eventually sourced a couple old lightly used pentium boards, and dumped the old hard drives in favor of an ide interfaced compact flash card reader.  i have a full spare motherboard and 2 spare cf cards that are cloned to the one we're using

its in the machine and the oem software is up and running the machine.  not real well tho, im getting a lot of what i think are encoder based errors "position" "end point precision" "following error".  the x and y axis on lights will wink off and back on quickly, then come the errors.  the machine does not like to be driven by the jog keys or handwheel, these errors pop up after a lot or a little movement.  but go to jog increment mode and set a distance of 1 or 2 or .25 inches, and the machine seems fine with it.  run a program and the errors pop up after 5 or 6 or 8 lines, run a program with a lot of tiny spiral moves and it seems the errors come quicker

the machine did sit 8 months thru a cold unheated winter and a warm wet (humid) spring.  im wondering if letting things get warm and dry again and running the machine a bit will clear this up.  also going to unplug and replug as many related connections as i can, maybe some corrosion in the contacts.  write some test programs with different types of moves and try to pinpoint what causes it the most.

as before im all ears to suggestions, and even tho it seems still wounded, it is nice to see it alive again.

after reading a lot about the mach3 interface, im wondering if it will run on this machine as is (less the problems), i like what i see compared to the oem system

thanks
ken

48

General Mach Discussion / Re: 20 yr old cnc control needs replacement, and i need help.

« on: April 18, 2012, 08:18:51 PM »

im back! i have read these posts over and over, i think the necessary path is becoming clear.  i am competent mechanically, but an electronics noob.  the only way i could get into modifying my current system with pc parts that i would need to wire myself would be if there were a mentor close to me in the s w NH area.  that would be a great experience and education, in lieu of that, i think i need the "kit" solution, where i will mostly just do the mechanical install.  i do have electric/electronic help available, but he has not done a pc based system.  it is very attractive to anticipate having a modern computer, control software, brushless motors & new amps, and i am pretty sure with a lil help my vfd, mpg, mist and oiler will integrate nicely into the system.  but i cannot see trying a pc part electronic install by myself, i can close my eyes right now and see the blue flash and smell the ozone!   

i am still puzzling over Machmotions required inclusion of the 1000 controller with the servo lathe systems but not at all with the servo mill systems.  i will talk with them soon im sure they will clarify.  their systems are the priciest of those i looked at, but not so bad considering nearly everything is already there and appears to be top shelf.  it took 4 months of part timing eves in the garage to put the $$ in the cookie jar, it is there and its time to sh** or get off the pot.  with both of my "good" machines down, i have been making stuff on my chinese 7 x 12 lathe, and mostly on my rong fu 40 round column gear head mill.  i am damn tired of counting dial revs, esp with .03 backlash screws, loosing x, y & z each time i move the head and hand cranking the machine, it will be so nice to mdi type g1x10y2f5 and push the button again, not to mention being able to do multiple features in a shot rather than putting the part in and out of the vise for ea feature!!!

i will need to fairly (to buyer and to myself) price the old westamp amps and motors coming of the mill, and the fanuc stuff coming of the lathe, to refill the cookie jar for when the mill is done and its lathe time.  i do want the mill and lathe on the same brand pc based control, the thought of the expensive fanuc man having to head to my shop lugging expensive fanuc parts is scary.  my mill had a couple years of light duty on it when i bought it, and the nardini fanuc had 6 years of the same, in 8+ years of running both, the mill was noticeably less trouble far as little breakdown issues, even though the mill ran about 2x as much.  so i am a fan of systems built from available items rather than proprietary stuff.  if i get a blanket order someday for 100000 widgets, then maybe a "real" control is in order.

thanks again for your input!!

49

General Mach Discussion / Re: 20 yr old cnc control needs replacement, and i need help.

« on: April 15, 2012, 10:32:05 PM »

i really appreciate all the input, please keep it coming if you have the time!  ive made some assumptions about closed and open loop, which are incorrect i guess.  all based on looking at various folks advertising, their faqs, etc, i had assumed servos could be run either way, but closed would be better, and that steppers would  be open loop.  my main worry was that unless the loop was "closed" servos could "lose" steps and cause dimensions (and relative position of the machine) to be lost as i guess steppers can if they are undersized?  a few of the stepper based systems i have seen appear to be robust enough to run my machines, bu these fears had kept me from considering them.  they are certainly less $$.  not sure i could deal with all the funny noises they make and i have not seen them anywhere in my years in the industry. once again i am assuming, but it looks like for the small difference in $$ servos are the way to go?  i think i am correct in seeing Machmotion only uses the interpreter 1000 on their lathe servo controls, why the difference from their stepper kit?  bear with me folks, i am getting a little smarter about this, and you guys are helping.

50

General Mach Discussion / Re: 20 yr old cnc control needs replacement, and i need help.

« on: April 15, 2012, 09:41:04 AM »

thanks again for the reply.  ive looked at the Machmotion stuff a lot, i believe the all the mill controls are just step-direction, and only the lathe servo controls use the interpreter 1000 (where the dspmc is likely contained?), which would make it closed loop?  of course as someone new to this i could be wrong.  i have to wait for uncle sam to send my tax refund then i think i will give Machmotion a call.  i guess i will try to sell my analog stuff as a lot 1st there may be someone interested, if not, off to ebay pc by pc.  once i have the mill running i will likely repeat this whole process with the nardini lathe and the fanuc 20t.  if there are any more comments of course id love to hear them, and thanks to all!