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  1. #21

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    The transformer cabinet is off the back now. I have the two big cabinets screwed together. I'm getting ready to start mounting a few things, but much todo has been made about noise in the past.

    I want to plan my layout to minimize noise.

    I suspect the VFDs (2 in this case) may generate a lot of noise so I figured they would go on the bottom cabinet with the disconnect 230 main disconnect.

    What about the 60V and the 115 output transformers? They are both 60 hz, but still. So far the 115 transformer is only going to be used to drive the cooling fans. The 60V will feed into my big bridge rectifier. I don't see any reason they can't both go in the bottom cabinet with twisted pair going to the fans for the one and to the rectifier for the other.

    What about the rectifier? Will it generate any real noise to worry about?

    I have a couple other small power supplies that will be needed, but their power levels will be so low I highly doubt the will cause any significant noise levels.

    What else do I need to worry about?

    Obviously the cabinets themselves form a pretty good Faraday cage.

    I'll have a Smoothstepper, C23 BOB, 80VDC power supply, 2 VFDs 2 transformers. Probably a 12VDC power supply and a 4VDC power supply. Step direction servo controllers. I figured to use twisted pair for everything to reduce noise except where it obviously doesn't matter like in a conduit from the box to the spindle motor, etc.

    Should I shield the Smoothstepper from the servo controllers? I have boxes, Or I can easily place sheet metal shields inside the cabinets that reach to the door.

    Or am I just worrying needlessly at this point.

    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com


  2. #22

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    I think I asked once before about brush life. Any good estimates on brush life of these ElectroCraft motors? Either in hours (questionable) or number of revolutions?

    Mach does keep track of inches traveled in the service log if its all working properly I think.

    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com


  3. #23

    Default Servo Controller Choice and Transformer Question

    Well.... I finally got around to picking a servo controller for the servos. I got paid for a small mold job on one of the mini mills yesterday, and today I ordered 3 brand new G320X servo controllers. I went with the G320X because of availability and price. This will help keep the price of 4th axis assemblies reasonable. That and the simple steps you guys mentioned reducing the secondary output on my 230/60V transformer.

    Now to look over the "dump" circuit diagram again.

    Hopefully I can pick up encoders soon.

    Speaking of transformers... after unwinding your transformer what did you wrap it with when you were done ? My dad suggested cloth friction tape. He was an electronics tech in the airforce, and has done electrical and electronics work ever since. Friction tape my be a pain to get through the frame and wrap. Probably have to do it in pieces if I go that way.

    Another thought I had was to go with fiberglass woven cloth. I have some left over from another project along with both epoxy and poly resins. Just not sure how hot the transformer gets. Epoxy resin will melt or burn from a basic butane flame. Not sure about poly resin.

    Any suggestions?

    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com


  4. #24
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    A friend of mine painted it after I modified mine with something I think was called Glyptol or something close to that. He said they use it to coat the insides of engine blocks and cover transformers. It has worked great so far.



  5. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by ov1mohawk View Post
    A friend of mine painted it after I modified mine with something I think was called Glyptol or something close to that. He said they use it to coat the insides of engine blocks and cover transformers. It has worked great so far.
    Well, yeah I was going to paint it with urethane varnish first.

    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com


  6. #26
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    Smile

    After i unwrapped the wire I didn't cut the wire till i checked the voltage first take turns off the transformer. just live the wire strung out in a pile. Hook a volt meter on each end of the secondary winding and keep checking the voltage
    until you get it where you want it. As long as the wire isn't through the transformer window, it won't affect the voltage. if you need to go lower and you can cut excess the wire, scrape the varnish to hook up the voltmeter and check again. When you hook up the bridge rectifier the voltage will be higher. I think the transformer info told what percentage to lower the ac voltage. When i got the voltage where I wanted it I soldered the wire back on the terminal, rapped the cardboard cover around the windings, taped it . I didn't varnish it or anything.
    Mine doesn't hum. That wire is heavy so it stays put really well. Hope this helps.
    If you need to contact me direct. Dave= k9dvl@comcast.net



  7. #27

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    My 320X servo controllers arrived today. Dang they are tiny. About a third the size I expected. The cabinets on the mill are huge, but when I start planning the layout I run out of space quick and still make everything come out neat. This will help. I planned to leave space for atleast two more servo controllers. Now I can put them all in the space I had planned for the first three.

    Thanks for the tips on the transformer. I found this site (posted earlier) to be quite useful for the math.
    http://www.k7mem.com/Electronic_Note.../unreg_ps.html

    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com


  8. #28

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    I am thinking I'll go with the PC in one of the cabinets, and just use a monitor and keyboard swingarm of some kind. Maybe fabricate a pendant mount to hang on the swing arm. I am hoping I can swing the monitor all the way around next to the cabinets and out of the way that way, but move it out front when I need it. I have to mull over that idea some more.

    Since I moved the mill over next to my office I am thinking I'll add a 6" duct to one of the muffin fans to blow cold air from the office into the machine cabinets. This makes me a little less apprehensive about putting the control PC in the machine cabinets. My shop is not air conditioned and I am in southwest Arizona.

    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com


  9. #29

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    I was looking at the mill this morning with an eye towards keeping the cables from the motirs and encoders as short as possible. I noticed there is a long thin enclosure on the back of the table. Is that just limit sensors like the ones on the head?

    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com


  10. #30

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    I've been making stuff for other folks lately and haven't had time to play with the Hurco. Finally got back to it again for a little while today. Figured I'ld get the power supply for the servos dialed in. I thought the transformer was bad at first. I hooked it up, pulled two wraps off the LV side and got zero volts. No smell. No heat. So I knew it wasn't shorted out, but dang. I put the meter to the HV side and got 230. Stranger and stranger. Shut it down pulled the power from it, and carried it over to my work bench for a look see.

    Cold solder joint on one of the HV terminals gave up the ghost. I resoldered both of them, and checked it again. WE HAVE POWER. It was a little high so I removed one more wrap.

    I was shooting for 57 volts on the LV side. I guess this will have to do.

    Finally found what should be the simplest way to rewrap my transformer also. 3M sells "Varnished Cambric" tape by the roll in both adhesive and non adhesive.

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails KMB1 Conversion-ac-servo-power-jpg  
    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com


  11. #31
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    Bob,

    It looks like you have it going on!


    Once you start you can't stop.

    It was hard for me to stop working on the retrofit to do my paying jobs.


    JAckal

    Everything is bio-degradable, if you run over it enough times with the lawnmower.


  12. #32

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    Soon I will have no excuses for proceeding with this retrofit. I finally ordered the last thing I think I need to complete the basic build. I went with US Digital E6 1000PPR encoders. I'm a little concerned with the cable length, but Marcus at GeckDrive doesn't think it will be a big issue. He thinks USD is pretty conservative with their length limitations. I ordered 14' cables figuring if I need the length its better than splicing, and knowing that its easier to shorten a cable than to lengthen it. Z should easily be less than the 6' USD reccomends, but X may be close to 12' at full right movement of the table.

    E6-1000-500-NE-S-H-D-B
    US Digital | Products » E6 Optical Kit Encoder

    I also ordered some heat sink. I was just going to make some on one of the mini mills, but this one isn't much more than the cost of the raw mill rolled aluminum. I bought two pieces. One has more than enough surface area for all three gecko drives, but I figured it would be nice to plan space for more stuff if I decided to make this into a 4 or 5 axis machine in the future.

    10" Long Aluminum Heatsink Audio Amp - Transistor and Diode HSG-0710 | eBay

    I'ld like to get a VFD rated for the full 5HP of the spindle motor when run on single phase, but as long as I keep my power loads under 3HP I should be fine with the current VFD in the machine. Drives Warehouse has a nice one by Speedstar rated for a full 5HP with only single phase input, but I spent my toy budget for the next couple months already.

    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com


  13. #33

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    Finally did some actual work towards restarting the machine today. As you may recall this mill has 2 separate 3 phase motors inside the spindle motor housing. One is a straight 3 phase 5 HP motor labeled to run from 3hz to 120hz. The other is a fan motor intended to run on 60hz continuous to cool the other motor. I don't know for sure what its horsepower rating is, but I can't imagine it needs to be more than 1/2 hp since all it does is spin a fan.

    When I originally opened the motor case to figure out why there were so many wires sticking out I found that a couple blades had broken off the fan. I still haven't gotten around to ordering another fan blade so for the time being I broke the opposite two blades off the fan so it wouldn't be grossly out of balance.

    As mentioned the fan motor is also 3 phase. I do not have 3 phase power in my work shop so I bought a used KB Power VFD off of Ebay. Its capable of 0-120 hz and is rated for 1/2 HP. I have a jumper across the start pins and its wired for now directly to my mains into the cabinet. I set minimum frequency to 24 hz (the highest minimum would set to) and added the speed control 5K linear POT. Its jumper selected to 60HZ max so all should be good. I could probably just use resistors since its always going to be run at 60HZ, but I had the POT already.

    I spun the POT to MAX and turned on the cabinet mains switch. NOTHING. Good thing too. LOL. I forgot to connect the other end of the leads to the motor. They could have been touching and things would have gotten exciting. Powered it down. Waited for the lights to go out, and then hooked up the fan motor.

    Spin the POT to MAX, flip on the cabinet mains, and WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Sounds good and no odd whine, whir, or vibration that would indicate a gross out of balance. I'll probably run it with that fan until I have the machine fully operational. Then it will be time to buy one or make one. I can see me needing it since the spindle motor is rated down to 3hz and 96 RPM. If I put a good tach or encoder on it that speed could be used for rigid tapping.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNXvepEVC0Y]IMAG0048.AVI - YouTube

    I hope its not that loud after I put the motor cover back on. Anyway, for now I have it wired to be on any time the mains power is on, but I think I will remove the start jumper and hook it to a relay so that it only turns it on when MACH has an M3 spindle command in operation. Maybe set a decel and a delay so it stays on a few seconds after an M5 is processed.

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails KMB1 Conversion-busted-fan-jpg   KMB1 Conversion-kbvf-23d-jpg  
    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com


  14. #34

    Default

    Just getting the hardware layed out in the control cabinet now. That heat sink is mounted on an angle bracket which hangs it about 5 inches out from the back plate. The backs of the servo drivers are liberally coated with heat sink compound and screwed to the heat sink. They are deliberately spaced that low on the heat sink to give room for a small screw driver to adjust the pots on the heat sinks, but high enough to put wires in the screw terminals without removing them from the servo drivers.

    I can remove that whole assembly with just two screws so I can get it out of the way to drill and tap standof holes, and exhaust and intake fan holes etc without getting any metal chips in the electronics.

    There will be an exhaust fan at the back of the cabinet directly in line with the fins on the heat sink. There will be an intake fan in the back at the top.

    I tried to leave room to mount a second heat sink in line with the first in case I decide to add additonal axis controls (servo drivers) to the machine in the future. I just checked and in order to clear the fan I will have to move the first one over to the right about an inch. Fortunately I have plenty of room to do so. It will make that first servo driver a little tight to get a screw driver on, but there will be room.

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails KMB1 Conversion-servo-drives-jpg  
    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com


  15. #35

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    Every little thing on this machine seems to take forever. All I accomplished today was to mount he C23 breakout board and Smoothstepper on standoffs on the back board in the cabinet, and mount one of the two cooling fans the cabinet will receive.

    I drilled and tapped the backboard for the standoffs. Then I studied the back of the c23 circuit boards. Its got a coating on it, but there are a couple traces on the back that are awfully close to the mounting holes. Off to the store for some nylon washers. I put nylon washers on both the front and the back of the board on every mounting screw to prevent any issues with possible shorting to hardware.

    I reversed two of the standoffs that came with the SmoothStepper, cut off a couple screws, and used them to sort of stabilize that edge of the board to the C23 board. The other side was two far from the back board to mount so I used a couple nylon spacers with a couple small flat washers behind those to secure that edge of the SS level with the edge secured to the C23. I drilled and tapped holes in the backboard for those too.

    Then I took everything out while I used a hole saw to cut a hole for the exhaust fan. The first pilot drill snapped off when I bound the saw. The second one was dead soft and kept bending. Finally a thrid pilot drill seemed to be up to the task. I also fried got my cordless drill really hot. It won't switch back into high gear anymore. Still works fine in low gear though.

    Drilling and tapping the cabinet to mount the fan went really easily, but I couldn't find the plug that connects to the electrical pins on the fan. So before I could mount it I soldered an appliance cord directly to the pins, and slipped a piece of shrink tubing over each connection. Every time I kill a power tool that isn't worth rebuilding (for one reason or another) I strip a few parts out of it. Any good bearings, brushes, switches, and the power cord. These things have allowed me to make quick repairs many times. In this case I have a nice appliance cord on this fan now.

    I just put everything back in. Don't think I'll take it out again though. I'll just tape a plastic drop cloth over it when I am drilling and tapping for other things.

    I guess its about time to clean all the junk out of the bottom of the cabinet and move it over to a tool cart.

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails KMB1 Conversion-small-progress-jpg  
    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com


  16. #36

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    I shifted the heatsink and controllers to the left closer to the fan. I started worrying about where and how I would be routing wires between the cabinets and trying to limit induced noise. All wire pairs are twisted, but that may not be enough so I moved a few things around. I'ld have been further along, but I hooked up my bridge rectifier wrong and let all the magic smoke out of it.

    POOF! BWOKEN!

    The day job has picked up so even though a replacement rectifier arrived last week I didn't get around to hooking it up until today. I think the forward voltage drop is greater through the recitifier than anticipated. My math says I should have about 78-79 no load voltage off the cap, but I have 75.01 VDC. I don't think its really critical unless I try to get 300ipm rapids with lots of reversals and a heavy load on the table. Hurco only speced the machine originally for 250ipm (Section 1, Page 1-3, Table 1-1). I was thinking I'ld start at 100 and work up from there. I am going to have 4 vises on the table most of the time so I can setup multiple parts or single long parts. The table won't be light, but nowhere near the 500 lbs Hurco speced in the same table.

    As soon as my cap finishes discharging (its been atleast 45 minutes and it just dipped below 40 volts) I'll mount the rectifier to the backboard and snap a couple pictures. I was going to ignore the suggestion for a dump circuit, but I can see why Gecko Drive reccomends it. I think that long discharge time has convinced me.

    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com


  17. #37

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    Air line / oil line purposes routing.

    Can anybody give me a rough rundown on what goes where?

    This machine has three oil sources. A big device on the back, an airline oiler on the regulator, and the tank on the front.

    I'm pretty sure the tank on the front is for cutting lubricant. Its got what feels like a fine grade oil in it, but not much. There is a big thing on the back, and then there is the air tool oiler piggy backed onto the filter and regulator.

    Then I need to know what uses air?

    I mean is the coolant tank powered by an air powered turbine or something?

    It looks like a couple air operated calipers on the spindle motor brake. Is that it? Do they need to be oiled from the air tool oiler?

    There are three air taps on the filter regulator oiler assembly. One after the water seperator, one after the regulator, and one out of the air tool oiler. What is each of these for.

    GACK! The electronics are easy compared to figuring out the air and oil on this thing.

    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com


  18. #38
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    Hello,

    I just got all my air/oil lines connected on my KMB1 retrofit. Here are a couple of pictures of how they were hooked up before I had torn the machine down to clean it.

    This is how I hooked them up. I don't have the air line hooked up that is the 1st one before the regulator. That line went to the electric air valve, which on my machine was located on the left side when looking at the back of that machine, it is about 1" in diameter.

    The line that comes out of the electric air valve went around to the front of my machine were the box was located on the knee. I think this was for coolant. My machine didn't have that box when I got and that air line was just capped off.

    The next air line just after the regulator goes to the air pressure sensor. Square box located next to the air valve. This one is only needed if you are going to connect this up with your software to give an alarm if the air pressure is to low.

    Last air line goes up to the regulator at the spindle brake assembly. My best guess on how this works is when there is air pressure the brakes are on. You have to supply 120V to the brakes to disengage them. This is a safety feature so that if you ever loose power the brake is applied and it stops the spindle.

    The air line for the oilier comes out the top brake left side port. I think how this works is when you apply the brake it release the pressure on the oilier so that when you turn the brake off it does another pump of oil. I don't have a picture of the brake are.

    A lot if this is guessing and I don't have my machine fully running yet. I have run gcode on it finally and I'm getting very close to figuring out the spindle/vfd.

    These pictures are not the best but hopefully they help.

    Good luck.

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails KMB1 Conversion-085-jpg   KMB1 Conversion-086-jpg   KMB1 Conversion-088-jpg  


  19. #39
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    Yes on my mill that has the limit/home switches in it. There is also one on the right side of the knee for the y-axis.



  20. #40

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    snipes44 thanks. That information will help.

    ANYBODY? I'ld like to see how you laid out your keyboard, mouse, & monitor. I have just finished putting the pull int he cabinet, and I think my next step is going to be to put 120V in the upper cabinet for the fans and the computer.

    I'm off to the store now to get some longer screws to mount the fan so I can use them to attach the the filter with wingnuts on the outside of the cabinet. I have two fans like I said. One will draw air into the cabinet (filtered) and one will draw air out of the cabinet (unfiltered).

    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com


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