Hi

I have acquired an Eco PC-turn 50 lathe.

It came advertised as having a minor fault.

The lathe seems in excellent mechanical condition but electronically, it seems a little, well, knackered, I can Jog in X and Y, that's about it.

I have decided to fit new electronics and make a bit of a project of it.

Anyway, on to the smooth stepper related part...

Can I get the smooth stepper to control the tool turret on the machine ?
Can the smooth stepper control the spindle for threading, speed and direction, the spindle seems to be fitted with an optical encoder (disk with lots of holes in a circle and an optical sensor) ?
I want to add flood coolant, presumably just a relay needed for that ?

As the steppers are ye olde 5 phase ones and driving them seems problematic for a new controller, I was thinking of going for a setup along the lines of a smooth stepper, C32 board,  Gecko 320x's and the Kelling 350 Oz/in Nema 23 servos.

Some sort of inverter for the spindle will also be needed.

Any thoughts or advice would be very helpful.

Thanks

Paul

Hi Paul,

Mach3 can handle all you're asking for. Smooth Stepper being no obstacle. I have retrofitted an Emco Compact 5 and it works with the SS just fine.

To control the turret I put a disk with 6 slots on the turret shaft at the opposite end of the turret plate and fitted an optical sensor to count then. Then a simple macro handles the tool change by reversing the voltage to the ATC DC motor through a relay.

To read the spindle speed for threading you will only need ONE slot on the disk. Expand a bit the outer slot and you should be fine. Then again, it is easier to use a new photo interrupter (like the C3 combo from CNC4PC) rather than trying to figure the pinout of the original one.

You are correct about the flood coolant.

Basically, the 5 phase steppers are better than the common 2 phase ones. They usually run smoother. Problem is finding proper drivers for them. Anyway, not sure servos are the correct choice for this machine - especially for the X axis, having merely 50mm of travel. Steppers are much cheaper and can handle it no problem.

Mine came with a DC motor and I was able to control it with the C6 board.

Dan