Need Help!- camsoft retrofit to a anilam crusader retrofit

[bowlingmac]

HELLO,

NEED HELP ON A COUPLE WIRING DETAILS. FIRST AN OVERVIEW. I BOUGHT CAMSOFT LITE WITH ICM-2900 IN SEPT. 07. YES,JUST NOW GETTING TO IT. THIS IS A ONE MAN MACHINE SHOP. I GOT BUSY AFTER BUYING CAMSOFT. SECOND;FINALLY FOUND SOMEONE CAPABLE OF WIRING MACHINE ,THAT WOULD COMMIT TO DOING IT. ENOUGH WITH EXCUSES. I'M MAKING TIME NOW!

I HAVE MY SCALE'S WIRED AND FUCTIONING. MY LIMIT'S WIRED AND WORKING IN MY SOFTWARE. SERVOS HOOKED IN AT THE MOCMDX/Y/Z AND GND. MY HANG-UP IS WHEN IT COMES TO AMP ENABLE X/Y/Z. ON MY ANILAM BLUE PRINTS,THERE'S A BOARD WITH 3 RELAYS. COMING INTO OR GOING OUT OF THIS BOARD IS AUTO/MANUAL SPINDLE TOGGLE,POWER OUT TO AMP DRIVES,E-STOP. AND 4 WIRES THAT LOOK TO BE COMING OR GOING TO THE OLD COMPUTER. THERE IDENITY,S ARE, SERVO OFF(OUTPUT),D/A OUTPUT,24 V.COM,+24 V. D/A OEM. I HAVE MORE DETAILS AND COMPLETE PRINTS FOR THE ANILAM RETROFIT IF NEEDED. THIS COULD BE A QUESTION FOR SUPPORT. BUT I KNOW THEY MONITER THIS FORUM. SO WHY NOT KILL TWO BIRDS WITH STONE. JUST A SAYING.

I WOULD APPRECIATE ANY HELP.

THANKS
DEE

P.S. KARL T.,I KNOW YOU WANTED FEED BACK ON VISTA OS. SO FAR,SO GOOD, BUT HAVEN'T REALLY TESTED IT ON CAMSOFT VERY MUCH. NEED TO GET MACHINE GOING FIRST.

[Karl_T]

I'd trash those drives. I'm pretty sure you have brush type DC servos. Double check this. Here's a drive info page:
http://www.a-m-c.com/content/prods/d...log_input.html

They are on ebay all the time. Maybe buy this one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Advanced-Motion-...QQcmdZViewItem

I've got AMC drives on two machines. They are designed to work well with galil. In fact, the galil drives are just re-labeled AMC drives.

[bowlingmac]

KARL T.,

YES THEY ARE BRUSH TYPE MOTORS (SEM 30M4-59 MFG. IN 1988).
CAN I USE THE SCALES AND MOTORS WITH THESE AMC DRIVES?
WILL IT BE HARD TO TUNE THE DRIVES TO THE MOTORS?
WHY DO YOU SAY TRASH THESE DRIVES I HAVE?

THANKS,
DEE

[Al_The_Man]

The drives you have are most likely obsolete Glentek or Westamp.
Modern drives use Torque or current mode of operation rather than velocity style of your old ones, this means that you can eliminate the use of the Tach feedback on your SEM motors, just take the tach brushes off. and leave un-connected.
Tuning the drives themselves is fairly simple, the gain pot is turned to max, the feedback pot to min.
You will still have to set the PID loop up in the controller though.
Do you have scales for feedback? or Encoders on the motors?
Al.

[Karl_T]

Confirm with the Pro's at Camsoft before doing anything. If I've seen one recurring problem with Camsoft, its folks trying to make a drive work that was meant for something else. You may get it, you may not. IMHO, its not worth the time and trouble, especially for the very few bucks for a drive designed to work with Camsoft and your servos.

I've not done the linear scale. I've read that you set up your servo with a rotary encoder and tune it like any standard servo. Galil WSDK makes this easy. You then put the scales on the auxillary encoder and use them to confirm you're exactly on target. With this route, you get the machine running, then add in this upgrade. Again, check with camsoft about this. And read up on it in both camsoft and galil literature.

Karl

[camsoft]

bowlingmac,

To confirm what has been said so far. We can work with the SEM motors, AMC drives, encoders and digital scales. We also don't require the Tach signals. We can also work with the existing drives. Hopefully someone can identity which of the Anilam wires would be the MOCMD and ground (+/-10v signals) here. If you wanted to go this route it would be best to contact us directly so we may put you in touch with an installer that can come out on site.

Tech Support
CamSoft Corp.
951-674-8100
support@camsoftcorp.com

[Al_The_Man]

What I have used with these motors in the past is a DCBL amplifier, this way, if ever the original brushed motors fail, you can easily upgrade to DCBL without the extra cost of the amp.
They install no different from the Brushed amp. of course you would need to add the commutation wiring with the DCBL motor.
For drives, I have successfully used Aerotec, AMC & Copley, providing they are adequate power.
If using the AMPEN on the Galil, you need to do a bit of external logic as the AMPEN just disables one amp which is usually not desirable to leave the others on, and also create an E-stop.
There are several ways to do it, for e.g. you could OR the amp fault OUT so that any amp shut down would effect an E-stop.
Al.

[bowlingmac]

"I've read that you set up your servo with a rotary encoder and tune it like any standard servo. Galil WSDK makes this easy. You then put the scales on the auxillary encoder and use them to confirm you're exactly on target."


ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THE ENCODER THAT IS POSSIBLE ON MY SERVO MOTOR, OR A SEPARATE ROTARY ENCODER? WHERE WOULD YOU HOOK AUX. SCALES ON THE ICM 2900? I AM LEANING TOWARDS REPLACING MY DRIVES. THEY ARE WESTAMP DRIVES. THE POWER SUPPLY FOR THESE AMPS IS +/- 15 VOLTS AC. WILL THAT ALSO HAVE TO BE SCRAPED TO, OR WILL IT WORK FOR THE AMC DRIVES. I DO HAVE A POWER SUPPLY THAT I REMOVED FROM OLD COMPUTER AND REMOUNTED IT. IT HAS 5V/12V/24V OUTPUTS.

I DO HAVE GLASS SCALES IN X AND Y AXIS. ROTARY ENCODER FOR Z AXIS. I DON,T KNOW IF THE MOTORS HAVE ENCODERS. HOW DO YOU TELL?
THERE IS 5 WIRES COMING FROM THE MOTOR. ONE OF THOSE IS THE SHEILD.
2 WIRES ARE POWER AND 2 WIRES GOING TO THE DRIVE.

CAMSOFT, I HAVE 2 WIRES COMING FROM DRIVE LABELED "X AXIS SIG" AND "X AXIS COM", WHICH I HAVE CONNECTED SIG TO MOCMDX, AND COM TO GRD. I BELIEVE THIS TO BE RIGHT.

[camsoft]

bowlingmac,

You wrote "CAMSOFT, I HAVE 2 WIRES COMING FROM DRIVE LABELED "X AXIS SIG" AND "X AXIS COM", WHICH I HAVE CONNECTED SIG TO MOCMDX, AND COM TO GRD. I BELIEVE THIS TO BE RIGHT."

Yes, these looks like the right ones. If they are labeled as 10 volts than these are them. Perhaps some one can confirm this.


Tech Support
CamSoft Corp.
support@camsoftcorp.com
PH 951-674-8100
Fax 951-674-3110
www.cnccontrols.com

[Karl_T]

I'd mount new encoders right on your servo motors, probably where the old tach comes out. USdigital.com is a great source. I've just learned the hard way, don't scrimp on single ended encoders,get the differential units.

I just learned something, it looks like the 2900 does not have connections for the aux encoder like the 1900 does. No big deal, the aux encoder connections come off a separate 26 pin header on the galil card. You'll need a terminal strip for this. the pin out is on the galil site. I'd really check out what your scales have before going too far here.

For AMC drives you need a 50-80 volt dc supply a bit bigger than the max draw of the drive. You can build your own, if you're in to that. Or, a DC switching supply is a good choice.

Your 20 year old machine is unlikely to have encoders up to today's standards. More than likely, you've got resolvers. At any rate, install a new encoder on the Z axis also. A differential unit will have eight connections, +5V,0V,A+,A-,B+,B-,Z+,Z-. Double check if the 2900 has all this, its on the 1900 ICM

Karl

[Al_The_Man]

AMC have models that go up to 190-400vdc, so you should be able to use your existing P.S.
If using both encoders and scales, you require a machine with very little backlash to avoid hunting.
The Galil site has a video demonstrating the dual feedback method of tuning the PID loop split between scale and encoder to avoid this.
If you need the pin out of the Westamps, I have the manual.
With only 4 conductors coming from the motors, the two smaller ones will be the Tach, which you do not need if going with new drives.
Al.

**see post #8 here http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...hlight=westamp

[Ben Olson]

this is a reply for the folks at camsoft... please stop saying that you can use your old drives and encoders for your controller to work properly you NEED torque mode drivers and Differential encoders.... anything else will result in your machine being unreliable , sketchy and possibly dangerous.... just because it would work does not mean it will work well and be safe