RF-45 CNC Advice needed

[small_toys]

That TECO drive has a biult in PLC!

Most drives I have installed and setup dont have this, not that we would have used them in our applications. But I could play with this feature.

I did purchase the SJ200 for my belt drive conversion. You can see the build here.

I still have not completed the machine so I have never used the setup for cutting.

[cornbinder23]

I am using that same VFD and it has been hassle free and runs pretty cool
lots of features that I will never use though

JTCUSTOMS

[eartaker]

The TECO or the SJ200?

[pete from TN]

And it has been hassle free for some time now. I also has a lot of features I am not currently using and my pal Art has a teco and his has been working for many years now. Just a thought... peace

Oh btw,
here is my simple Cad drawing of the encoder housing. Again as I said before if you intend to use a DB9 connector you would probably be alright but as I used a hose barb and surgical tubing to isolate the unit from water/coolant It got a little tight. I was thinking about it before and I had actually installed the brass hose barbs, then took it over to the mill and machined the inside of the recess away a little to allow the wires to enter into the bose barb without any serious twisting. You can either use them as they are or you can modify the drawing to make them slightly longer to make more room. Again these fit the keling 1125 series servo motors and will probably fit all of their servo motors but I cannot verify that. I used some RTV between the mating surfaces of the housing and the motor to keep crap out of the motor and then used a very light coat of rtv on the cover and with the five or six screws I have not had any issues. I machined these from 3/4 inch aluminum stock as a 2.5D setup. Good luck and use/modify these as you feel necessary. The other three pieces are of course for the lids. I isolated them from the drawing and cut them from 1/4 inch stock and engraved that border on them for a nice look and I was gonna engrave an X,Y, and Z into them too but never got around to it. Been running these full flood for awhile now and no issues.... Good luck and peace


Here is a picture of the finished machined housing....

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/attach...1&d=1255881986


http://www.cnczone.com/forums/attach...1&d=1255881986




Pete

[BobWarfield]

That's a pretty good deal on that Teco. I need a new VFD myself--my bandsaw ate the Hitachi I was planning to use on the mill (didn't hurt it, but it is now installed to drive the bandsaw). The other VFD I think about is a Delta, just because they make cheap drives with provision for spindle position sensing. That's helpful if you ever want to do a tool changer for a taper that has "ears". There is a note about it on my belt drive page:

CNC Cookbook: Mill Belt Drive, Pt 1

This Teco is sure a lot cheaper though, and you'd never need to index the spindle for an R8.

Where are you buying your Marathon motors? I would like to put a 3HP onto my mill when I do the belt drive just because it's a little extra margin if I am outside the power band. The mill doesn't need a full 3HP when you're in the sweet spot--not sure it's a good idea to try to use all of 3HP on one of these, LOL. OTOH, a big face mill sure soaks up some HP.

Best,

BW

[Papa Foxtrot]

What about the TECO EV Series Microdrives? Not trying to threadjack, but I'm looking for a VFD for my lathe and the 1HP version at Wolf is $140. Seems like a good deal for sensorless vector.

[eartaker]

Pete,
Awesome looks like what I have drawn up... kinda. I like the watertight idea.

Bob,
I got it from eBay. A guy had 2 of the Y551 Black Max listed for $430 but accepted an offer of $275. It is 2HP though. I was going for a 3HP drive for if I ever want to upgrade.

I'm going to go with the TECO drive I listed and see how it goes. I also like how I can program it with the PC, and will integrate that into my mill PC. I would like to remove the LCD and place it on my control panel but no real need to if I have full control with Mach3, and really don't feel like paying $30 for a cable.

[eartaker]

Now that the VFD question has been solved, I'm about o place an order with CNC4pc but not sure on what electronics I need for my control panel. I look at bobs site about different methods and thought about using the pokeys55 USB expansion to wire up all the switches and buttons or is there is a better solution?

[BobWarfield]

Originally Posted by eartaker Now that the VFD question has been solved, I'm about o place an order with CNC4pc but not sure on what electronics I need for my control panel. I look at bobs site about different methods and thought about using the pokeys55 USB expansion to wire up all the switches and buttons or is there is a better solution?

3 or 4 choices available:

- A keyboard mapper is great and pretty trouble free. But, it presumes the keyboard does what you need and with enough performance. Won't work for an MPG, for example. It also goes one way, so you can't light up any indicators with it.

- You can go a second parallel and breakout board.

- You can run a modbus device like Homann sells.

- You can run a Smoothstepper which has 2 full parallel ports worth of IO.

FWIW, I like the idea of a pendant with MPG and just using a touchscreen with Mach3 and the right screen set these days. The panels are nice, but you can get a really cool and very usable setup with that combo. Homann's pendant kit is pretty nice.

Cheers,

BW

PS Probably mispelling "Homann", sorry Peter!

[HimyKabibble]

Peter's ModIO works great for a pendant. I've been running my VistaCNC iMach Pro pendant through a ModIO using a macropump driver I wrote, and it works perfectly.

Regards,
Ray L.

[eartaker]

Bob,
Thanks for the info, I was trying to stay away from the keyboard mapper. I looked at homanndesigns.com and the modbus pendent is nice but way to expensive for me lol

I do want a pendent and I will be using a Elo 15" touchscreen but just want a few buttons for spindle override, coolant, start, stop, feed hold and maybe a few other and some space to addon.

[eartaker]

Got the motor yesterday and cant wait to get this thing wired up. Placed the order for the TECO 3HP 7300CV VFD and PC interface card, replacement spindle bearings from VXB, and a 5 gram tube of Kluber for $22.

I wasn't happy with my y-axis motor mount so I tor it apart and decided to rebuild it. Should have it done today and be able to order my belts.