New to me 1994 VF3 Rigid Tapping option

[dustincram]

Hi all! A few weeks back I posted about buying a new to me vmc, thanks for all your input, I went with a 1994 VF 3 with an HRT 210.

I made a nice pile of parts this week and really got to know the machine. I have sprut cam talking to it, soldered up a 9-25 pin rs232 cable with a usb converter, got the air hooked up, coolant etc. I also got all my new glacern tooling broken in a bit and mounted the two new 6 in double station vises using a new 3d taster. All without crashing anything!

Anyway the machine was advertised as having rigid tapping, I got to tapping holes and read in the manual that the diagnostics page should read actual spindle speed in the analog section, and it just reads zero even with spindle on. So I searched the forums and thought the encoder belt was broken. I looked around by the spindle motor a bit and found no encoder, so I called up haas to ask if that serial number had rt. they said it did and the bit was set to on in switch parameter 57. So I read the the manual more and found drawings of the encoder and where it should be, crawled up there and no encoder or pulleys. So I guess it has no rt encoder, and my question is can I just add the hardware and plug it in or do I need to pay haas to turn something on in software? Has anybody ever just added an aftermarket encoder?

I also have several other questions about the machine but unrelated to rigid tapping, would it be best to start new threads?

Thanks in advance!

[edge540]

I have a '92 VF-2 with RT. If I have an answer I will share it. Which usb converter did you get. The radioshack one I have (giga something or other?) wont load anything other than a small program and wont dnc.

[dustincram]

I have a '92 VF-2 with RT. If I have an answer I will share it. Which usb converter did you get. The radioshack one I have (giga something or other?) wont load anything other than a small program and wont dnc.

Hi edge540. It is a Belkin converter, not sure of the model exactly, I could check on Monday. Also I have not tried DNC, not sure how to do it yet but with 70kb available memory I will probably need to figure it out.

I spent a bit of time getting the rs232 settings right, at first it would not do things fast, now I am using Xmodem mode and teraterm as the software to communicate with it. Now I am loading programs at the highest rate, it takes about 5 seconds to load 40kb. I can give you the exact settings on Monday.

On your vf2 does it read out spindle speed actual in the analog diagnostics screen? (where you can see the dc bus voltage)

Dustin

[edge540]

Hey Dustin, not sure if it shows revs in diag but I will check tommorrow (saturday) I know it shows it in "current commands". to DNC hit MDI twice then its ready to receive. definetly a requirment for any 3d stuff.
Bill

[dustincram]

Hi all! A few weeks back I posted about buying a new to me vmc, thanks for all your input, I went with a 1994 VF 3 with an HRT 210.

I made a nice pile of parts this week and really got to know the machine. I have sprut cam talking to it, soldered up a 9-25 pin rs232 cable with a usb converter, got the air hooked up, coolant etc. I also got all my new glacern tooling broken in a bit and mounted the two new 6 in double station vises using a new 3d taster. All without crashing anything!

Anyway the machine was advertised as having rigid tapping, I got to tapping holes and read in the manual that the diagnostics page should read actual spindle speed in the analog section, and it just reads zero even with spindle on. So I searched the forums and thought the encoder belt was broken. I looked around by the spindle motor a bit and found no encoder, so I called up haas to ask if that serial number had rt. they said it did and the bit was set to on in switch parameter 57. So I read the the manual more and found drawings of the encoder and where it should be, crawled up there and no encoder or pulleys. So I guess it has no rt encoder, and my question is can I just add the hardware and plug it in or do I need to pay haas to turn something on in software? Has anybody ever just added an aftermarket encoder?

I also have several other questions about the machine but unrelated to rigid tapping, would it be best to start new threads?

Thanks in advance!

Ok so I found that the wiring for the rigid tap encoder going from the processor stack up to the flex conduit up to the head. Also haas says the machine has rigid tap and it is on in the control but the encoder is missing. I have the manual with parts list but the encoder and belt are not listed. They are shown in the drawings but there are no callouts for the parts. Anybody have the part number for the encoder?

Also the electrical diagrams show the cable 1000 "spindle encoder" but not the individual wires in the cable. Does anybody have a diagram of the individual wires? There are 6, I am assuming +5, gnd, shield gnd, index, a and b channels. Just not sure which is which. I'll call haas on Monday but thought I'd ask.

Thanks,
Dustin