You may notice that I have a post going on a Bridgeport series I CNC mill with a 24 position ATC, but I have decided to do my lathe first. This machine will be easy in comparison to the mill and it is intended to take the place of my old lathe. Once it is done I'll sell the old lathe and free up some much needed floor space.

The lathe is a YAM-550 (tag on the back says model 1422) with a Anilam Lathemate II control. The control has 2 bad boards and who knows what else is wrong with it. The iron however is really nice.

Machine specs....
Swing over bed: 15.5"
Swing over slide: 9'
Between centers: 23"
Spindle bore: 1.750"
Spindle speed: (6) 128/238/422/847/1577/2800 RPM
Motor: 7.5 HP on 220VAC 3 Phase
Has a external oil cooler that cools the oil and pumps it back to the head stock.

What I want to control.......
X and Y axis DC servos (planing on using the OEM's)
Spindle CW/CCW
Oil cooler
Flood coolant (OEM 220VAC 3 Phase)
Mist coolant
Spindle brake

Planed machine inputs..........
Encoders X and Y
Encoder Spindle or spindle index pulse?
Limit switches X and Y
Foot brake stop switch

Planed operator inputs......
E-Stop
Cycle start
Cycle pause
Jog axis/spindle speed/feed rate selector
Jog rate 1/10/100 selector
MPG
Flood coolant on/off
Mist coolant on/off

Planed outputs.........
E-Stop Lt.
Tool change required Lt.
Cycle completed Lt.
X and Y axis DC servos
Spindle CW
Spindle CCW
Oil cooler
Mist coolant
Flood coolant
Spindle brake

Did I miss any thing? Is there something you think I should include that I haven't?

The OEM Servos are S.E.M. DC Perm. magnet.
Type: MT 30M4-59
Constant stall torque: 3 NM
Max RPM: 2400
Volts: 142
Pulse amps: 30
Tacho: 9-5/1000 RPM

I will replace these at some point, but hope to use them for now to keep cost under control. The OEM encoders are mounted to the ends of the ball screws and the servos are belt drive to the ball screws. The encoders are from Anilam and seem to be ok, but I plan to replace them any way.

I plan to use mostly equipment from CNC4PC for mt retrofit. I like the products that they have to offer and see that there are lots of people out there using them.

So the hardware that I plan on using for them is.....
1, C32 multifunction board
1, Smooth stepper board
7, C27 RJ45 to screw term. boards
1, C34DG Dugong RJ45 board
2, Dugong DC servo drives
1, C3 Index pulse card
and later add the MPG9 panel with PoKeys to get the rest of the I/O I want.

Mach 3 will run the system.

I haven't bought any thing yet, but plan on ordering stuff in the next week or so. If you have advice, input, do's, don't please let me know. Thanks
 

Pictures of a machine that is the same model as mine. I will add pictures of mine as soon as I get a chance.

The axis are X and Z on a lathe, just so you dont get mixed up once you load Mach Turn.

Sounds like a nice lathe, I would probably just keep the servos as SEM DC servos are pretty good from what I have seen and the Dugong drives should work great with them.

One thing I would do is use a PLC for I/O such as switches etc, reason is you can easily make them 24V which will be much more noise resistant than 5v. 5v can work fine but you have to be careful if you want to avoid noise. Just my opinion of course


Hood

Ya you would think that should be second nature, but I have had the Bridgeport project on my mind for so long now that my thoughts are clouded. Thanks.

I for sure want to keep the servos to start off. Once I get it up and running I thought that I would see how they preform. My current CNC lathe is a manual that has been converted with ball screws powered by stepper motors and run by a Ah-Ha RC-500 so this should be far better even with the SEM servos. I hope.

How dose Mach 3 interface with the PLC? Is there one that you would use over another?

Thanks for your input. Interested in anything else that you can tell me.

The PLC talks over ModBus to Mach, it means you just have one cable from the PLC to the computers serial port and all communication goes via that. I use the DL06 PLC from Automation Direct. I use the D0-06DR model which has relay outputs.

Hood

I'll look into it. on a side note is Mod Buss better than PoKeys? I was planing on putting the PoKeys board right in the operators panel for many of the I/O's as it just looked so easy and it is part of the MPG9 panel.
Thank you for the help

Pokeys works well in any testing I have done, analogue inputs wavered a bit but not bad,  I just prefer the industrial  robustness of 24v myself.
Hood

What do you think about going with Optp 22's I have tons of the stuff sitting around and it's also easy to work with. I could put the Opto 22 relay rack in the back of the control panel and use the PoKeys 5V to trigger the relays and or vise versa use a button on 24VDC to pull a relay down to the 5VDC . I have a relay rack that has a 24vdc common and relays with 5VDC coils and a rack that I can set up for 5VDC Common and relays with 24VDC coils. Plus I have worked with the stuff quite a bit in the past. I just never thought of using it before.

Whats your thoughts?

Thanks again!

No experience at all with opto22's have not seen them much over here although I lead a sheltered life so maybe they are

I know some of motion control boards in the future will support opto22 stuff but never looked into it.
Hood

Just got back to the shop tonight and started looking over the machine again. Started to look at things a bit closer as I am days away from ordering parts. Began removing some of the stuff from the control cabinet so I could get a idea of the lay of the land, as I am would like to re use the OEM power supplies. You know, if they work then you know the voltage/amps are what the servos would like kind of thing. Oh ya, and $$$.$$ kind of thing too. As I started to trace things out I started to wonder?? Should I start off with giving the OEM servo amps a step/direction and see what happens? I cant see looking at them any thing that has had let the smoke let out of.

If I use them  I wouldn't have to change out the encoders?? They are wired into the amps now, right??? I know, I know, they are not the state of the art drives that I had in mind and when one goes poof that I would never find another. That might happen on the first power up or some time long after I'm gone so I'm asking why not and hope that ya'll can tell why.

Another thing, and I know that this question should be posted in another part of the form. Dose Mach support more than one touch  monitor at a time?

I have not used Mach before and just started to play around with the down load yesterday, but I didn't take me long to see why so many people are talking touch screen. I like the idea and see that it can make life much easier. Then I started thinking if it would support a second monitor (split screen kind of thing) why buy all the buttons and make a panel and, and , and. Why not put in a second monitor and set up virtual buttons? If I later decide I missed something I gust add it. No adding holes and trying to figure out how the hell to fit in one more button. No adding another wire, ect. I make them the size and shape I want and put them in a location that seem right. When I figure that I was wrong about the location of the button I just drag it to another location.

Well that sounds great too me, but can it be done?

I will take some pictures of the machine and the control panels and post them at some point on Monday.

Thanks for the help.