Messages

71

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: Ex-Cell-O Spindle Wizard to retrofit

« on: May 04, 2008, 10:15:40 PM »

I went ahead and tuned the vfd a bit.  The motor is rated at 5.8 amps for 230v and a max of 8 amps.

I set the motor overload current to 6.5 amps.  The vfd manufacturer recomends a setting 10 to 20 % higher than the motor is rated for this setting.  This is the setting where the vfd starts doing whatever it does to bring the amperage down short of cutting the frequency.

I set the maximum output current to 7.5 amps.  This is the setting where the vfd starts cutting the frequency to bring the current down.

I found the auto torque boost produced better results than the manual torque boost so I set the manual torque boost to 0 and the auto torque boost to 30%.  That gave me a pretty flat amperage across frequencies without coming close to hitting overcurrent during acceleration.

I set the acceleration time to 3 seconds.  I could run it a little faster without hitting over current but it didn't really seem to get the spindle up to speed faster so why stress it.

I set the deceleration time to 3 seconds which gives some comfort from hitting over voltage for now.  I expect to turn this down to almost nothing when I'm actually running but I didn't have the spindle brake operating for this tuning session because I've got the airvalves taken apart for the back gear.

72

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: Ex-Cell-O Spindle Wizard to retrofit

« on: May 03, 2008, 06:38:12 PM »

And now I've diagnosed the last broken thing I know of--the gear changer.  It's operated by a couple MAC Valves air valves--one for high gear and one for low gear.  The coil on the one for high gear is bad.  Interestingly while trying to look up a replacement coil in the MAC Valves catalog online I found out they say they have a lifetime waranty on coils on every valve in the catalog.  I don't know if they have a lifetime waranty on the coils on valves they made 30 years ago or not but I'll sure be asking come Monday.

73

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: Ex-Cell-O Spindle Wizard to retrofit

« on: May 03, 2008, 12:04:14 AM »

I finally got the power draw bar working and I got the spindle going so it's nice to know it isn't in the condition the power draw bar was, lol. 

The spindle is a 3 phase multi-voltage motor.  I'm running it on 3 phase 230V provided by a variable frequency drive.  I used a 4 wire cord to bring line 1, line 2, neutral, and ground to the machine.  That goes to a 30 amp breaker I put in the relay cabinet.  I haven't moved the 115 stuff over to that yet but I'm going to; that's why I used the 4 wire cord and brought neutral over in it.  From there I used a 3 wire cord to bring line 1, line 2, and ground up to a tyco corcom 20 amp emc filter which I mounted to the back of the aluminum bracket the vfd is mounted on.  I mounted that bracket to the bracket that the old reversing switch was mounted to.  From the EMC filter line 1 and line 2 provide single phase 230 to the vfd.  The vfd grounds through the back plate.  The vfd provides 3 phase 230 to the spindle motor.  Since it's being run with 230V the spindle motor is wired phase 3 to ( 1&7 ), phase 2 to ( 2&8 ), phase 1 to ( 3&9 ), and ( 4,5,&6 ) tied together.




The power drawbar while kind of cool was a mess electronically.  It uses an electric impact wrench for the turning and a pneumatic cyllinder to bring the impact wrench and drawbar socket down onto the drawbar.  It uses a 115v air solenoid to actuate the cyllinder to bring it down onto the drawbar.  The coil on the solenoid was bad.  It uses a relay to switch poles for forward and reverse and has some electronics to enable an adjustable delay between when the solenoid is activated bringing the socket down onto the nut and when the impact wrench starts going as well as adjusting the speed difference in the impact wrench between tool in and tool out.  This makes it work beautifully when it works and suitable for automatic tool changing but it needed a little diagnosis to get it going.  I started by replacing the electrolytic caps just because they are 30 years old and are electrolytic caps.  I noticed a bad transistor and replaced that as well.  I plugged it in to test it out and as soon as it got power it ran wild (and began blowing the new transistor).  At that point I had to figure out how the thing worked.  Since it's part of the summitt dana bandit gear and not actually  manufactured by spindle wizard I don't have the luxury of the schematics for this part but it wasn't impossibly complex.  I found the diode going from the transistor that was melting had 20 ohms resistance instead of no continutity and needed to be replaced.  Then I found the scr had less than an ohm resistance instead of no contiunity and needed to be replaced.  Now it works beautifully.





Able to reinstall a tool holder and ready to run the spindle I did just that and did some testing and adjusting of the varispeed so that the indicator which I removed when I took the varispeed housing apart was set back to the correct place.

74

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: Ex-Cell-O Spindle Wizard to retrofit

« on: April 13, 2008, 05:53:08 PM »

Since the internet seems completely devoid of information illustrating how a varispeed spindle drive works  I'm going to post some pictures and information here on it now that I've taken mine apart.

Not having any idea what was on the inside I took the rpm indicator off of the front plate.  It turned out that wasn't necessary.  The rpm indicator dial is driven by a worm gear connected to the varispeed adjustment shaft--both mounted to the front plate.  Turning the input shaft turns the indicator dial and moves a fork mechanism on the inside of the plate up and down.  It all pulls off in one piece.



That fork pulls up or pushes down a throw out bearing which moves the top half of the spindle pulley up and down thus adjusting the effective diameter of the spindle pulley.  The varispeed belt is basically a sturdy wide v belt.  When the two halves of the pulley are moved closer together the belt rides further out on the pulley; when the two halves of the pulley are moved further apart the belt rides closer in towards the center.  The pulley on the motor is also two seperate halves--idential to the spindle pulley parts except that a spring works to try to compress the two halves together so that it can react in oposition to the adjustment made to the spinlde pulley.  As the spindle pulley halves are moved closer together making that pulley effectively larger it pulls on the belt spreading the two halves of the motor pulley making it effectively smaller.  As the spindle pulley halves are moved further apart making that pulley effectively smaller tension on the belt is reduced alowing the spring on the motor to compress the two halves of the motor pulley making it effectively larger.  Thus the spring on the motor pulley maintains belt tension at a constant and the effective size of the motor pulley adjusts in the opposite direction to changes in the spindle pulley size in order to maintain that tension.





I found the following documents explaining the numbering of varispeed belts and how measurement of "pitch length"
http://www.jdv-belts.com/imagesjd/VARIABLE%20SPEED%20V-BELTS.pdf
http://www.gates.com/facts/documents/Gf000204.pdf


The belt I removed is very worn.  It was a 1922v332.  19 = the width of the v groove at the outside of the pulley at it's furthest closed position is 19 1/16ths inches wide.  I measured my pulleys and verified that was correct.  22 = the v groove angle.  I measured my pulleys with an angle finder and verified that was correct as well.  v = varispeed type belt.  332 = 33.2" length  I measured the centers of the pulleys to be 8.25" apart so double that for a contribution of 16.5" to the length of the belt.  That leaves 16.7" of belt length contributed by the circumfernce of the pulleys which means a 5.3" diameter at the pitch line of the belt.  My pulleys are 7.5" in diameter.  I'm estimating the pitch line on the belt to be .3" in from the top of the belt so I figure the diameter of the fully open pulley at the pitch line to be 7.2" and the diameter of the fully closed pulley at the pitch line to be 3.4"  Those two numbers averaged together = 5.3"  So the belt is the correct belt--probably the original 30 year old belt.

75

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: Ex-Cell-O Spindle Wizard to retrofit

« on: April 13, 2008, 04:42:18 PM »

With the motor mount plates that cover the encoder pulleys back from having the pockets milled out for clearance for the new encoder pulley mounting I found I needed to drill out some clearance for the end of the encoder shafts too.  I did that by hand and now the motor mounts are done.




While replacing the broken auxilliary actuators on the spindle limit and home switches I figured out that someone had messed with them before and switched locations between the home and plus over-limit switch.  I put them back where they are supposed to be and adjusted them according to the documetation.  The over-limit switch cuts the drive power supplies at 0.200" before hitting the bumper.  The limit switch activates 0.030" before the over-limit switch and the home switch activates 0.020" before the limit switch.  I'm waiting till I mount the quill servo motor (still waiting for the belt) to adjust the lower limit switches.




With the limit switches corrected and working some of the front panel push buttons started working like they should and this sent me off examining the wiring and relays to find out why the rest of them weren't working yet.  In that process I found that many of the bulbs in the series 3 micro switch push buttons were burnt out or missing all together.  Honeywell lists them as discontinued with no replacement but emailed me some old documentation on the series which told me that the bulbs were j1 bulbs.  With that information and a bulb and a set of calipers in hand I was able to determine that the bulbs are j1 with sub-micro flange bottoms which are available from chicago miniature.  I continued into the relay panel to find that my relay lay out didn't quite match the logic diagram I thankfully was close enough that with a bunch of backtracking of circuits from what I did find that matched I was able to figure out what was different.  The logic diagram I have has a note at the top about the addition of the cr18 relay which is included in the diagram.  My mill does not have the cr18 relay.  My relays go in order and match the logic diagram for 1 through 16.  Then where you would expect to find relay cr17 there is a blank receptacle used for wiring posts in the back which is in fact what is called p17 in the logic diagram-- then the next relay is cr 3 which is where it is drawn in the paperwork, then relay cr-17 is where cr-18 is drawn in paperwork.  I labeled them all with a paint marker to avoid future confusion.



While I had the relay panel off doing all my tracing of circuits I pulled the "jog board" which handles zogging the spindle while switching the back gear and examined it.  It had an electrolytic capictor on it that had done what old electrolytic capacitors do and sprayed it's contents causing a little bit of corrosion on some adjacent parts but nothing bad.  I replaced the capacitor and reinstalled the board.  While tracing circuits I also verified the pinouts of the amphenol mil spec connectors to the harnesses for everything and labled the connectors with a paint marker.  This is where I found my problem.  When I removed the spindle motor starters and 3 phase wiring and connected the panel to 115 single phase I got a wire wrong.  With that corrected the rest of the front panel controls work and the drawbar panel has power when it should though itself is not working yet.

76

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: Ex-Cell-O Spindle Wizard to retrofit

« on: April 03, 2008, 02:08:43 PM »

I found a few of the auxilliary actuators on the microswitches on the spindle (limit and home switches) were bent and broken.  I suspect both by me and someone previously taking the front panel off of the mill.  The nice thing is that since they are auxilliary actuators, as in not part of the microswitches themselves, and since they are actual micro switch brand micro switches the auxilliary actuators (JE-5) are still available.  I put them on order along with a 20 amp tyco line filter to install with the  vfd.




On that note, I was also able to order a replacement for the broken air pressure regulator that's been stopping me from putting air to machine to get the backgear, spindle brake, power draw bar, and mist coolant working.  The exact Watts Fluidair part number (163-2) isn't around still but it looks like their current model ( r364-02c) is a direct replacement.


I mounted the new US digital encoders in place of the no longer wanted resolvers.  They aren't mounted in exactly the same place since they aren't exactly the shame shape and size but I was able to fit them in there anyway.  I had the pulley bored out to fit the 1/4" shaft and the mounting plate drilled and tapped for the encoder mounting screws.  I retained the tachometers just because they hold the other pulley allowing me to keep the same belt routing.  The encoder blocks off where a pole used to be in the center of the electrical box to screw into to retain the electrical box cover so I had 4 holes drilled and tapped into the cormers of the elctrical box area so I can replace the one pole in the middle with one in each corner.  The pocket in the second motor mount plate which sandwiches with this one and covers the pulleys and belt needs to be milled out for a little more clearance around the encoder pulley.

77

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: Ex-Cell-O Spindle Wizard to retrofit

« on: March 30, 2008, 11:26:19 PM »

I'm where the machine is now and starting the actual retrofit.  I've been going back and forth between schematics and spindle wizard engineering diagrams and the actual machine and have developed a much better understanding of what exactly I've got here.  As I understand it now the machine casting and spindle drive are Ex-Cell-O's standard 602 contribution.  From there the knee, huge tubular ways, ballscrews,  and "Position Wizard" super upgrade table which give it the huge and acurate travels that attracted me to the machine are Spindle Wizard upgrades.  Spindle Wizard also put on the quil motion, power draw bar, coolant, and their own control for things like gear changes, spindle speed, tool changing, and coolant.  One of the buttons on the 11 button front panel is an auto/manual button.  With that button set to manual the other buttons can be used to control all those functions.  With it set to auto the spindle wizard control takes commands from a cnc control (originally a bandit) to control those functions.



The way this Spindle Wizard control is set up a custom "M card" in the Bandit control would send m codes to Spindle Wizard control.  The Spindle Wizard control has its own power supply supplying 5 volts for the ttl logic and 24 volts for the signals to operate relays, a 'logic board" that translates the binary input of the m code into a single pin output to the "power board," a "power board" that amplifies and distributes those signals to the designated relay or solenoid, and a "jog board" that supplies the signal voltage to shift between high and low gears and the spindle jog timing to engage the gears after they have shifted.

The Spindle Wizard  power supply, logic board, and power board housed in a cabinet on the right side of the machine.  I have the chasis with holds the power supply and is the card rack unscrewed here but you don't actually have to unscrew it to pull the cards out.  Each wire from the harnesses plugs individually into securely mounted card edge plugs at the bottom of the card file. 



The logic card pulled out of the card file


Fortunately I have the logic diagram for the logic card.  Looking at this, it looks like I can easily interface with the control the same way the bandit did through the same wires the bandit did.  It's using 4 wires  ( card edge pins L, M , K, 19 ) as binary input of the decimals 0 through 9 and 3 wires ( card edge pins P=10, R=40, S=20 )  for the decimals 10, 20, and 40.  That's only 7 wires I need to hook up to the Galil control outputs to be able to send the m codes to the Spindle Wizard control.  Then card edge pin Y is the input for emergency stop.  That's 7 I/O pins.  Since I have a 6 axis model Galil I have 16 uncommitted I/O pins.



The power card


The relay box.  The jog car is in the box behind all the relays.

78

Galil / Re: Mach3 + Galil

« on: March 24, 2008, 01:43:05 PM »

Brian,

Are you the one developing the galil plug in?  Even if it's not currently being worked on it would be helpful to know what isn't working and what the hurdles are to getting those features working and come up with alternative methods of getting them working either temporarily or permanently.

Like if I can do probing and tool setting by hooking a probe up through serial modbus or something like that.  I could do that.  I just need some direction from someone who knows how the plugin and mach work.

79

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 using Galil servo card

« on: March 20, 2008, 07:55:31 PM »

I was thinking of getting a hand held too but it doesn't make any sense for me to get one that hooks up to mach.  It would be kind of silly to get a hand held that hooks up to my laptop but one that plugs straight into the galil control so I can do simple stuff without even bothering with mach--now that's intriguing.  I don't know if you have a stand alone or not but QSI makes some terminals that work with the ethernet galil controllers and the qterm-g55 hand held looks affordable.
http://www.qsicorp.com/product/industrial/qterm-g55.php

If anyone is using one of these and has some feedback on it I'd be very interested to hear it.

I have a similar quesiont about pendant interface.

The pendent I'm using is the one that came from Camsoft (http://www.cnccontrols.com/hhpendant.asp) -- hoping to use it with Mach 3.

It's rotary encoder is wired directly into the aux-encoder (4th axis I think) input on the Galil. I had to write a lot of script to get it to work properly with the old controller S/W.

When I get the pendant working with Mach 3 I'll post any VB script (or whatever extra code). During my conversion I'm re-documenting (lost the original) my wiring to the I/O lines and will post it if anyone is interested.

Anyway right now; The e-stop button is wired to the e-stop I/O line on the Galil (duh) and the buttons and lights are wired to various other I/O lines. As for the controller -- I paid *way* too much for it, especially when you look at the pendents on ebay right now, that I think they are pretty nice. Although with the pendant I have I was able to get away with no face panel at the user console, but am now thinking that's not such a good idea because you might not be near the pendant when you need it. Or if the thing gets tangled up somewhere you are out of luck until you reach a mouse or touch screen...

80

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mach3 using Galil servo card

« on: March 19, 2008, 07:39:25 PM »

Do any of you guys use probes or tool setters?  I just bought a Galil 2160 control and amp-19540 for the mill I am setting up.  I posted in the plugin thread but I think I may be the only person reading it.