Dyna Myte 4400 No.2 retrofit

[vintageracer]

Now that the Dyna Mechtronics section has been added to CNCZone, I can post the retrofit/rebuild of my second DM4400.

We'll start off with a picture of the machine from the ad I found online.



I rented a 24' truck, drove 18 hours round trip to pick it up in York, PA.

Timothy

[Fastest1]

Woo Hoo! I cant wait to read about it. It looks good!

[vintageracer]

After the long drive and the 4am drop off (had to get the truck back to the yard by 8) I spent the next day getting the machine in position and leveling it out.

This was actually my second DM4400. I bought this one specifically because it was fully functional. I had traveled down to HMC to see it powered up and running two weeks earlier.



Timothy

[vintageracer]

I connected 240 single phase to the machine bypassing the three phase needed to drive the spindle and fired up the control and the steppers. Everything was in order, the table and the head moved and the ATC changed tools.
I pulled up a chair and the manual a started to teach myself Dyanlan.
I tried, really I did. I just could not get it to make a circle.
My electronic tech friend Rich came over and asked what the problem was. I handed him the programming manual and told him to make sense of it. After reading it for 20 minutes he replied ' you gotta get rid of this'

So... off came all the electronics. All that was left was the three steppers and the home switches.



Timothy

[vintageracer]

First thing on the list of things to do was to decide what electronics I would need to complete the retro fit.

After an email to Marcus at Gecko Drive, the original steppers would work perfectly with the G540. This also made the wiring simpler by having a breakout board and two relays all in one package.



I bought a packet of 3.3k ohm resistors from the local electronics store to set the current limit on the G540 but I should have bought the EZ G540 connectors from Soigeneris.



Timothy

[vintageracer]

The spindle driver was next and after a bit of online research I decided to go with a Bardac 3200i DC driver. It takes +-10v singals and has tach generator input too. Luck would have it and I found the larger 3600xri version on eBay for an incredible low price, so I bought two.



Timothy

[vintageracer]

A trip to HGR Industrial Surplus in Clevland provided me with the computer cabinet I needed and a stack light.





The light is just for looks for now. I have a small relay circuit ready to install that turns the green light off and the red light on if there is problem.

Timothy

[Fastest1]

Timothy
It is looking good why the spindle speed controller/driver? Couldnt the old one be reused? I believe there is a sensor for rpm built in also. I would think the G540 might be able to process that info correctly. I dont know yet. I have found quite a bit of interesting parts within my cabinet. I am still trying to figure out why I have an air powered door?

[vintageracer]

The original spindle driver required 460vac 3 phase input through a very large transformer on the back of the machine.
The Bardac is a 240vac single phase input, so other than a large breaker at the wall panel, no transformer is required.
Also, the driver was over 20 years old. I made a promise to myself to replace all the electronics with new stuff.

Timothy

[vintageracer]

As soon as the Gecko G540 arrived, I went to work installing it. I started with a sheet of 1/8" aluminum bolted to the inside of the cabinet and fastened all the components to it. I reused the power supply for now cause it was already there and provided 48vdc, 12vdc and 5vdc for the steppers, home switches and fans.

I didn't really worry about making it neat and organized, I just wanted it working.



Timothy

[vintageracer]

After tuning the Bardac spindle driver and setting the home and soft limits in Mach3 I was ready to make some chips.
However, the little table surround was hardly up to the task of keeping everything contained, especially when the 2" face mill was going full blast at 4800rpm.



I even added the alert light on the top of the control cabinet.



Timothy

[vintageracer]

So needing something quick and inexpensive, not to mention something I could finish on a Saturday, I designed a shower curtain enclosure for the machine. There was already four threaded holes on the top of the column so I made a plate that bolted on, bent up some 1" tubing I had and went to the hardware store to pick up a couple of clear shower curtains.





Timothy