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long time since ive posted, doesnt mean ive given up. been reading a lot, have learned a lot, but has also brought up more questions. looking at Peter Homanns website, he has diagrams showing his breakout boards connected to both gecko stepper and servo drivers. i have confidence after comparing these that the difference is not that great and i can handle a brush servo install as well as a stepper install and i think thats the way i want to go. it doesnt appear that Peter's webstore is aimed at a servo kit as large as i will need for this lathe, so i have been looking at Automation Technologies, Motiontek, and CNC4PC for a kit. i like the plug in approach used by CNC4PC as well as the drivers which seem to be the "CNC Drives from Hungary" that Hood has spoken of. this kit has held my attention:
http://www.cnc4pc.com/Store/osc/product_info.php?cPath=64_96&products_id=551,
id request a 2 axis version. Hood's comment of my old fanuc motors being about 1.9Nm continuous, these kit motors look about 85% of that, should be close enough. im hoping to keep identical motors on the x and z, the x motor may be an issue because of space. maybe a physically smaller motor, or perhaps have my buddy Perley the fab guy over with his tools of destruction for some sheet metal modification.
one of the places ive been reading a lot has been the mach1mach2cnc yahoo board. lot of interesting topics there, lots of opinions, but has been a lil scary for me. makes mach3 seem like it can sometimes be an unstable problematic control system. i guess the discussion there centers around problems and solving them, likely the large majority of successful m3 installs are not discussed there, and i am just paranoid. just need my lathe to do what it did before, turn, face, bore and thread. chamfers and radii.
since i have confidence of my understanding of the lathe axis' cnc motion control, i think i want to shift my attention to controlling the other things the lathe must do: i have a big cable full of 3 phase power coming into the main switch. somehow all that juice makes the fanuc stuff run, makes the spindle go, the mechanical spindle brake work, the 2 speed spindle motor (this is not a servo motor) switch hi-low, run in 2 directions and stop, the oiler and coolant pump run. once in jog mode, theres an x and a z mpg that work as crank handles, and are tempered by a feedrate selection switch. and theres also a joystick thats tempered by the same switch and allowed me to move x or z or x and z simultaneously. those mpg handwheels also work independent or together, and having the joystick and the handwheels aid greatly in "manual" operation of the lathe, as does the coolant toggle switch and spindle ccw-off-cw lever, and the feedrate rotary. i know these can be mach controlled, but if youve been a "manual" engine lathe guy, you prefer to keep them.
as i see it now i need to gain understanding of the stuff in the above paragraph. ill think it has much to do with my lathe converting the 208 3 ph to smaller voltages and amperages and more, that will drive relays that will activate contactors (there are a whole lot of them in the old control cabinet) that will distribute all this power in graduated doses to proper destinations.
ive learned a lot about the stuff in paragraph 1 from reading and watching vids. hardly anything about the stuff in paragraph 3. as i said when i started, small steps. no screwdrivers or soldering irons in my near future, can you folk point me to reading and vids that will help me understand the stuff in paragraph 3 and how it will interface with with the stuff in paragraph 1? will the vendors in paragraph 1 be helpful with this? there must be opinions of these vendors, if so id love to hear them, if posting to this forum is inappropriate, pm me and thanks!
regarding the mach1mach2cnc board, the questions that most come to mind are, just parallel port or smoothstepper/other pulse gen? lot of questions about difficulty of interface and support documentation. tough for a noob. and i find myself wondering about the best build for the lathe that will work well in mach3 but be an easy conversion over to mach4. it may take me a long while to get this done, thats ok not in a hurry.
the more you folk have to say about any of this the more i learn and the better i like it. thanks!!