Beginning Crusader to Mach 2 Conversion Please Help

[MMT]

I have purchased a Lugun Mill with a dead Anilam Crusader controller. The servo motors are still good and I would like to use them if possible. I'm not sure if they are AC or DC servos. (Will Gecko Drives work with AC servos?) I am going to use Mach 2, and a breakout board from Cambell Designs.Any help is greatly appreciated. I would like to have this running in a couple of weeks.
Thanks, Kent

[jdelaney44]

Kent. I don't think Gecko has an A/C servo drive. At least not on their site. I have some of their G340s. I have spun the motors with Mach2 and the Campbell board. I am doing a scratch conversion. I have old reliance micro 100 motors with 500 line HP encoders.

I would see if you can determine the voltage of the motors. Is there a name plate on them? The Geckos are good to 75V practically I'm told. If you push them to 80V I am told you better not go to 81V or you'll let the smoke out. The Rutex drives are rated at like 100V or something. But check all that.

Anyway, you can run the motors at a lower voltage if you want. No big deal. It just cuts off the top speed.

[MMT]

The servo motors say 140v dc max on them. they have an encoder, but only 2 wires? i can replace the encoders, and i have the dc power supply, but my problem is drives. how much speed would i lose with gecko's, or should i get different servo motors that are more appropriate for the gecko's. how would these motors work with gecko's or rutex? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...e=STRK:MEWA:IT
thanks, kent

[jdelaney44]

Hey, those are my motors! I bought 'em from Chris. He was responsive and helpful.

But......if you are set on the Geckos and you have not bought the motors, I would consider going with a lower voltage motor. If you have the motors you might want to go with the Rutex or other higher voltage drive.

The encoders are in the cap on the back of the motor. They are great encoders. Well I think so anyway. They work well with Mach 2. You have to wire them up. You can get connectors that are compatible with the encoders at most electronic stores or on line at Digi-Key or Mouser or..........

Well, I clocked them at about 535 rpm with a 35V supply running under Mach2. That was done with a Grizzly optical tach. So it's a real number. I think I am going to get 900 rpm at my target of 56V. But I'm guessing. Long story on the 56V. Everything just kinda fell into place that way so I'm going with it.

If it's too slow, I'll change our the transformers to get it up to 75V. If that's too slow then I rewire the old transformers and go to the Rutex or something with even more voltage. Or maybe I go with a regulate supply design. Not sure. We'll see..........

I'm using a 3 to 1 reduction so that's 300 rpm to the ball screw which would give me 60 ipm max. I think I'm OK with that.

Here's my post from back when I got them running....................

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From: "John Delaney" <jdelaney2@s...>
Date: Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:44 pm
Subject: Newbie Progress - Reliance Motors, Geckos, Sound Logic, & Mach2


Boy have I been working a while on being able to post this! Finally
got my motors running on the bench. These are those Reliance Micro
100's. There are some on E-bay again now.

You can find encoder specs for these on the Internet and I have a
copy too. They are HP HEDS-5605-A06 encoders. Or at least mine are.

The literature shows that this encoder is a 500 count per revolution
encoder. That's 500 "bar and window pairs".

I went to Mach2, am using the Gecko 340, and the Sound Logic
Breakout Board from Bob Campbell's site.

The bench setup is using a quickie 37V unregulated power supply. I
am getting 535 rpms no load running under Mach 2. I was getting
almost 700 rpm directly wired. As measured by my new cheapie Grizzly
tachometer.

Still tuning up the rig and doing math on the setup of course.....

I will be going to a 56V supply on the actual machine. I'm guessing
I'll get close to 900 rpm in the end, I hope. These things should
have plenty of torque.

Thanks to all who have helped me along the way. Thanks to Art for
Mach2.

I also am very happy with the Sound Logic Breakout Board. It would
have cost me more than the asking price after I blew up a few things
and made 10 trips to the electronics store.

The Geckos work great of course.

So just as a recap for all the Newbies out there. Here's the parts
list on this control rig so far.

Intel D815EEA mother board, Windows XP, 866 mhz PIII, 128 MB Ram
Mach2 (Demo still)
Gecko G340 Servo Drives
Reliance Micro 100 Servo Motors
Sound Logic Break Out Board
Home made power supply. My schematic is posted in the files still I
think. (Ugly, but it works)
Wire & Stuff

OK, on to making some motor mounts, installing the new ball screws,
and getting some CNC going here.

Yay!

Thanks,
-jd

PS: Latest Newbie discovery - when you put a 16v 1000uf electrolytic
cap across a 37v supply it goes BANG in about 30 seconds! Scared the
S&$@ outta me. Just got in a hurry. Very, very lucky I didn't get
hurt on that one! Watch out.

[MMT]

Well I spent some money. I ordered 4 of those motors, and 4 Rutex R90H drives, Motherboard, relay board. I hope it all goes together well. This is my first one.
I am going to run 115VDC to those motors. The motors on the mill were 28ft/lbs and these should come in around 23 if my figures are correct. The oringinal motors would have to had new encoders to work with the Rutex drives. It wasn't much more money to buy those motors instead.

[Ken Bond]

Where did you get your ball screws

[MMT]

The machine already had ballscrews. Kent

[MMT]

Control Box with Rutex R90H's installed. It is almost finished. Motors and the forth axis drive should be here on Mar 14. Hope to have machine running by 17 Mar.

[jeffascher]

The servos on the mill you have are DC, and no the Geckos will not work with AC servos.