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Author Topic: Mori Seiki TL-5 TL5 Fanuc 2000 upgrade  (Read 23198 times)

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Offline piv

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Mori Seiki TL-5 TL5 Fanuc 2000 upgrade
« on: February 16, 2011, 03:34:43 AM »
I am about to do an upgrade on a big old Mori Seiki TL5 lathe. Its about 1100mm between centres and swings about 500mm. Its got an 8 place auto tool changer. Physically its a good machine.  The controller is an ancient old Fanuc 2000.  Thats the kind with LED lights that show which G code is current. We have actually had it going a few times but getting the steam pressure (just kidding) just right is a real trick. Its time for a new controller.  I have just put DSPMC on a pair of five axis routers and it works pretty good.  I am going to use DSPMC to control this beast. Right now I am pondering whether to use the existing motors that are big old Fanuc Gettys DC units and try to figure out the million wires on the control board to use the existing amps, or pull them off and put on some AC servos and new drives, which of course will cost lots more $ but hopefully be more reliable.  Also I have to write some brains or macros to run the solenoids to control the  hydraulic tool changer and figure out what goes on for the gear change.  I also have to decide on keeping the 20hp DC spindle drive and the mitsubishi spindle control unit. That might be worthwhile. If I pull that out it will get about a 5kw AC servo instead. 20hp is probably a lot more than I will ever need on this machine. Or has anyone found good (cheap and reliable) DC servo drives that can run these old motors, id say they are 15 to 30 amp, but no idea of voltage.

So the question is, has anyone else ever done this to a TL5 or Fanuc 2000 or similar vintage lathe and does anyone know much about these things. Frankly looking inside the control box is scary, its like looking at a museum piece. As tempting as the money saving option is, I really think I will save myself a lot of pain by just putting in new electronics, cables and maybe motors. All comments, info and referals to the loony bin are welcome. I guess the other question is how far should I go in replacing things like limit switches? Of course that would end with a new machine, but if anyone else has gone down the conversion path, Id like to know. Also does anyone have a detailed idea of what else the PLC might do like run the lube pump etc. If not I am going to have to figure out all the things that need to do something.

Offline Hood

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Re: Mori Seiki TL-5 TL5 Fanuc 2000 upgrade
« Reply #1 on: February 16, 2011, 04:47:53 AM »
Sounds like its a similar sized and vintage lathe as mine, mine was hardly used and had a GE 1050 control.
At the time I did mine DSPMC etc were not available  and the only StepDir to analogue converter available was the pixie and it was seemingly a hit or miss and availability was patchy at best.
In the end I went with AC servos, have a 10Nm on the Z and 7Nm on the X both connected 1:1
The spindle originally had a 17Hp induction motor which went through a gearbox and the gear changes were done via electromagnetic clutches, I have since picked up a 12Kw AC servo and use that on the spindle with good results, however I dont think I would go much smaller than that.

I thnk if I was in your position I would try and keep at least the original spindle motor and drive and possibly even the original axis motors and drives. There are Dugong Drives from CNCDrives,com which may handle your motors but they are step/dir so no use with the DSPMC as far as I know.

Originally my lathe had a 6 position turret on the rear and 4 position toolpost on the front, both were totally hydraulic. I have now swapped out the toolpost with another 6 pos turret which again was hydraulic but I have converted that to servo and it can now rotate both ways and doesnt have to clamp at each tool like the rear turret does.

Limit switches etc should be good quality  and I would keep, also see if the DSPMC can do index homing as it will be much more accurate than homing to even a good quality switch.

I use a PLC on mine for controlling the turrets and coolant etc, it also handles the drives I/O and all the switches I have on my panel.
Try and keep as much of the I/O as you can at 24V as it will make noise a non issue.

Would like to see a pic or two of your lathe. ;)

Hood

Offline dresda

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Re: Mori Seiki TL-5 TL5 Fanuc 2000 upgrade
« Reply #2 on: February 16, 2011, 06:32:10 PM »
I have been working on Mori's since 1980, Your machine is about a 1977/78. The main spindle motor should a Mitsubishi or Fuji and will be a 17.5 Kw/25HP. Just had one rebuilt for a customer at a cost of $3500. If it runs leave it alone, and the drives until they break, It's not worth spending tons of money on a 1978 machine unless you are going to regrind the slides because I know they will require grinding after 30 odd years of hard use and cast iron on cast iron. Turret is electric driven, Hyd, clamp, well from 1979 on, through a Geneva gear and about 4 proximity switches for the count, I would put an encoder. The gearbox in the head is no problem, 2 electromagnetic clutches 24vdc. Not sure about the Gettys Fanuc motors, they could have tach and resolvers.
I have lots of customers with Mori's that I want to put Mach3 with DSPMC and I am in the testing period as we speak, but I am having some issues and Hood has been kindly helping me along with some of them  My PC integration sucks, but I do know machine tools. DSPMC is giving me the most  problems.
I should have a bunch of old data for the TL's, let me know if I can help.
Ray.

Offline piv

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Re: Mori Seiki TL-5 TL5 Fanuc 2000 upgrade
« Reply #3 on: February 16, 2011, 06:54:48 PM »
Hi Hood and Dresda, thanks for the reply. Next step for me is to get out the books and figure out just what is there and pull off a few covers to check out the tool change mechanism. Id like to keep as much as practical, but will do it in a way that can let things get replaced with new when the old stuff stops working. Ive built quite a few new machine tools, mainly big five axis routers. The advantage with new designs is you get what you want and can find the information. This is my first go at an old one.

Dresda, I am happy to share info and PLC code with you (not that Ive got any code for the lathe yet). Ive got a young PLC engineer who does some work for me, and I help him learn about CNC machine tools, so if you need help, let me know. The best suggestion I can make here is start simple, put the minimum functionality in the PLC to get you going, then you can add in the bells and whistles. 

What problems are you having with DSPMC, maybe I can help a bit?  Ive used both versions, 7761 and 7762, the new 7762 has encoder debounce which is nice as the five axis routers have a real noisy VFD on the spindle that was corrupting the encoders with the old DSPMC (7761).

I will be using index homing, that does work good on the DSPMC.

If and when I get the controls sorted out, we will then do whatever mechanical work is needed to get this beast back in shape. The ways arent too bad, but a machine this big and strong is worth fixing as an equivalent new machine is well over $100k, and we can get the work for it. Of course a good second hand machine can be had for $50k, but then whenever something goes wrong its a $1k to 10k exercise to fix it anyway.

Offline dresda

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Re: Mori Seiki TL-5 TL5 Fanuc 2000 upgrade
« Reply #4 on: February 16, 2011, 10:33:04 PM »
Hi Piv, The first problem I had was over a year ago using the 7761 hooking it up to Fanuc motors and drives.
The Fanuc drive I was using was the 3 in 1 type, kept getting over current for some reason, the motors were not hooked up, then it was all over, drive pooched.
I thought is was fault until I spoke with the guys at Machmotion, it was the 7761 unit, the new firmware upgrade  supposed to fix that,$2000.00 to repair the drive.
Now I am testing some SEM dc servo motors with pulse coders and tach and at 40"/min when I hit feedhold the Acc/dec is so slow it's pathetic, Rufi said he will try to repair it soon....
I even ordered the new 7762 unit because I have a customer with a 60" lathe that he wants retrofitting and I had to put it on hold.
I posted a few days ago about the Acc/dec problem title " .300" overrun at 120"/min".
When I rapid and stop it's fine, but not in program.
Other problem is when I run the famous roadrunner program and press program stop (I know I shouldn't use program stop) and restart it moves to the block look ahead postion and carries on without loosing postion, so it skips like 100 blocks or so. I tested it on a desk top with just Mach3 installed no DSPMC and the program just restarts right up from when it stopped.
Ray.

Offline piv

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Re: Mori Seiki TL-5 TL5 Fanuc 2000 upgrade
« Reply #5 on: February 17, 2011, 12:56:29 AM »
Hi Dresda,

Sorry I cant help out with those problems but I do agree they are real.  They will be a problem on the lathe, fortunately they are not a big issue on the routers because wood is a lot softer than steel.  The feed hold is a bit of a problem but our work around is to just decrease feed rate to zero using the FRO.

The program stop thing, our customer backs up a hundred lines of code and starts from there. Not ideal but liveable.  The last controller we couldnt start mid program so its luxury now for them relative to before!

Im still pretty happy with the DSPMC, I think it will get better too.  There are a few issues with it but at least they do get fixed. Ive had bad experience with a few other controllers. Smooth stepper and DSPMC are both pretty good other than the few issues they have.

Ive had some of my drives (Baldor Flexdrive) show overcurrent too. But I thought it was in the drive, because the drive is supposed to manage its own current limits, so theoretically it shouldnt ever let itself overcurrent and if the controller asks for too much current for too long, the drive current should foldback. How did DSPMC cause your problem, and more importantly, is it actually fixed?

I guess this highlights the issue that just because something works in one application doesn't mean its good for all. Some things are important to some poeple and not others and there are lots of things that have to be right to suit all applications. I guess thats why CNC costs so much to get bullet proof.

Offline Hood

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Re: Mori Seiki TL-5 TL5 Fanuc 2000 upgrade
« Reply #6 on: February 17, 2011, 03:31:58 AM »
our work around is to just decrease feed rate to zero using the FRO.

That is the way I do things, I have a FRO pot on the panel and if using new code I wind that down and up as needed. One thing to be aware of is Mach will never actually stop even when the DRO reads zero, reaon is it never actually reads zero ;) It will go down to something like 0.1% if I recall. Normal day to day this is not a problem but if you wish to set and hold on a FRO of 0% it will creep along so could cause problems if left for extended periods at zero. I have asked for this to be changed in Rev4 if possible but not sure if it will be.
The way I get around this is I have a Brain looking and reading my analogue inputs from the pot, this is how the FRO is set, I however also have it looking at the % value and if below 1% it will issue a feedhold and thus will actually stop, when the brain sees the FRO% again increase then a cycle start is issued. As the FRO has been turned down the feedhold is almost instantaneous but that may not be the same with the DSPMC. I also have the Brain set 100% if the FRO is between 98 and 102% this just helps setting it to 100% and allows for any slight variances in the analogue signal.

Hood

Offline piv

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Re: Mori Seiki TL-5 TL5 Fanuc 2000 upgrade
« Reply #7 on: February 17, 2011, 03:49:00 AM »
Thanks Hood,

Dresda could make a work around (fix) for his problem by making a brain that reads the feed hold switch and starts to ramp down (using a timer loop?) the feed rate over ride and then sets the feed hold when FRO is < 1 % say. Its clunky but could work. Probably easier for vital to fix the real problem.

Offline Hood

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Re: Mori Seiki TL-5 TL5 Fanuc 2000 upgrade
« Reply #8 on: February 17, 2011, 04:10:52 AM »
I would think the best way was to set up a pot for FRO and use that for testing out new code, great thing for me is I can wind it down as it approaches the part, once I see its fine can wind it back up again. Also because I have the FRO and RRO linked then the rapids are also overridden and for me it is really the rapids that are of most concern when testing out new code, feeds are usually no more than 0.35/rev so even at full spindle speed of 2000 on my lathe that is 700mm/min where rapids are 8000mm/min.
 I am not sure but I think the DSPMC has analogue?
Hood

Offline piv

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Re: Mori Seiki TL-5 TL5 Fanuc 2000 upgrade
« Reply #9 on: February 17, 2011, 04:39:39 AM »
Standard DSPMC has no analogue in but you can get it as an option. Or there are lots of digital inputs so a grey code or even use an encoder and feed it into one of the encoder inputs.