Not got much done to the Chiron except I removed the Z ballscrew. The Y had lost its ball bearing due to the column coming loose in transit and the Z losing them as I had to drop it off the end of the screw to get in the door. I dismantled both screws totally and cleaned them out and they seem to be in good condition, all balls good condition in each screw although of different sizes in either screw. I found the numbers on the nuts and was surprised to see they are class 2, I was expecting no better than class 5 The nuts have the internal crossovers instead of the external tubes but they were fairly easy to reload, just had to load from the ends. There are 6 tracks in each screw which again is more than I was expecting, I had thought there would be only 4 so again it points to high quality screws.
 I got the Z screw refitted yesterday and modified the motor plate to fit my motor and got that in place and now the motors brake is holding the Z up so it means I can remove the stop I had welded  up. I had been using the holes for the Y ballscrew to bolt the stop to so now I can remove it and get the Y ballscrew back in place.
 I also managed to alter the  coupling for the spindle drive, it had a 24 or 25mm hole in it but the shaft on the motor I will be using is 32mm so got that bored and keyed. The actual plate that the spindle motor mounts to is the correct size for my motor so I dont need to modify that

Hood

Hood,

Seems your standard for "not much done" differs a lot from mine

Why are you going to replace the spindle motor? In favour of a servo one? An interesting thing I recently discovered that VMC's usually have a plain 3 phase induction motor for spindle. I didn't know that since they all do rigid tapping and was expecting them to have servo spindle for that. Appears their sophisticated VFDs take care of this.

Dan

Dan the spindle motor was a Siemens 1FT5076 which is an AC servo. They run lower volts and higher current than the drives I use so it wasnt really an option for me.

Hood

Dan they also run encoders so that the Z can follow the spindle rpm to do a controlled decent and asscent.  MAch3 does not have that ability as a spindle .

(;-) TP

Not via the parallel port but it can with some external controllers. Mach4 with the parallel port should be able to, or at least according to Art, for threading the Z will follow the spindle encoder and should allow for spindle reversal so that should mean rigid tapping via the PP
Unlikely I will ever use the PP again but it will be great for some
Hood

Got the ladder done for the toolchange, well at least I think I have as I wont be able to test it out for a long time but its looking good I think
I need 27 inputs and 24 outputs so will have to get an extra 10 relay outputs for the PLC, already have an extra 16 input module so fine there.
I could do it all via the CSMIO but that would mean the complete toolchange in VB and I am crap at it and to be honest I prefer to trust a PLC with something so complicated.
Hood

Not via the parallel port but it can with some external controllers.

CSMIO being one of them?

Dan

Not at this time as far as I know but as lathe threading uses the full encoder (A,B,I) then it should be possible to alter the plugin to do rigid tapping and I think it is something Andrew has said they will look at in the future when I discussed it via email a while back.
Hood

Got the wires for the tool changer and the Z and spindle motors run through the Igus and conduit to the cabinet. Managed to work out what all the wires are for. There are not so many outputs as I first thought as it seems the toolholders are all raised from one output instead of 12 individual ones. It makes sense really as all tools need to be up before the one to be used goes down so no need for separate outputs to do that, also makes it easier as there isnt a need to know which tool needs raised. So in total the tool changer has 27 inputs from the pox's and 17 outputs to the solenoids. There is one output that I am not sure about, its either to clamp the tool or an air blast to clean the  tool being entered. I am thinking the latter at this stage but wont really know for sure until I can get air hooked up to test it. The solenoids have wee screws on them which can be used to manually operate them by turning 1/4 of a turn so hopefully I will get a chance to do it later in the week, it will also allow me to manually do tool changes to make sure everything is working.

 I have cleared out the cabinet and removed some of the trunking but I am waiting on some new trunking to come so I can get a bit more wired. So far I have the PLC in place and have 16 of the solenoid wires hooked up to some relay boards. The PLC has relay outputs but I prefer to use external relays in addition as it means I am not putting so much current through the PLC's contacts and hopefully they will last better.

Few pics, one of the cables in the Igus and conduit and one of the PLC (also the 3phase to 24v DC supply I will be using)

Hood

Looks like whatever was clipped on the DIN rail on the left side in the 2nd pic was runnin' a bit warmish, eh?

Luv to watch your re-do's!