Reply with QuoteRight, Just pull the brushes, they are not needed.Originally Posted by GT390
It is not really mandatory, but I pull them just in case brush spring causes a problem with brush wear etc.
Al.
I am lucky enough to have two KMB1 mills, with one still hooked up, so was able to to test the ouputs of the limit switches on that machine, it does indeed pull the white wire to ground when activated, the encoder and limit switches are wired onto the same 5v and common pins.
A point worth mentioning, the in the gecko manual it states not to use the 5v terminal to power an encoder that needs over 50mA, an external power supply will be needed if this is the case, I checked the spec on my encoders and they consume 80mA, thus I cannot use the geko to supply them
I know you are not using the hurco encoders, but may be worth while checking what amps yours draw Bob
Right, Just pull the brushes, they are not needed.
It is not really mandatory, but I pull them just in case brush spring causes a problem with brush wear etc.
Al.
CNC, Mechatronics Integration and Custom Machine Design
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
Albert E.
I'll have to look up the specs on my E6 US Digital encoders. I already test ran one of them, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to double check.
Bob La Londe
http://www.YumaBassMan.com
The E6 is right on the margin with a maximum current of 55 mA. I'll gamble.
After playing with the head mounted monitor and my home made keyboard tray I am seriously considering going back to the Hurco arm. As I get more intimately familiar with the machine and my hardware selection I find myself wanting to add more controls and indicators for various things. Then I find myself trying to decide where to mount them, or trying to figure out how to fabriate a new mount/cabinet/shelf/box/tray. Cabling, mounting, fabricating.... The "arm" I took off already has all that. LOL.
Bob La Londe
http://www.YumaBassMan.com
I test ran my encoder monitoring the amps, it has other connections not used with the gecko`s, A- B- INDEX and INDEX -, so with all these not used, it must draw less, It draws 47mA at rest,
and actually drops by 0.5 to 46.5mA while running, regardless of motor speed, so is well below the quoted 80mA and should also be fine to run off the gecko.
As far as the arm goes, I am having exactly the same dilema at the moment, cant decide to take it off or not, have even considered mounting the PC mother board and power supply inside the original control consul, with a flat screen monitor I should have plenty of room
well, I managed to get the whole PC into the consul on the arm, now have good access to the DVD drive, and two USB sockets out the side, will have to put an extra cooling fan on the back
Have mounted a 20" wide screen monitor and it still leaves me enough room to add some buttons down one side, and along the bottom
Yes, this what I have done on my machine.
My oiler was full of old nasty oil and gunk. I ended up taking the whole thing a part and cleaning it. There is a small port that regulates the rate of the oil flow and it was plugged. Had to get a small piece of wire to clear it out so that I could blow air through it. Works great now.
My regulator for the brake was set at 60PSI that is where I have left it. Currently don't have that part hooked up so I can't say wither or not it's enough. Been spending way to much time trying to get my servos tuned. My drives alarm out after about 3" of continuous travel
Looking at your drawing of the air lines I'm not sure what is meant by "screws". Any way the air line coming from the brake regulator goes to the bottom of the oiler. The port at the top of the oiler goes to the distribution blocks for all the oil lines (black hoses on my machine).
Nice job you our control console. Due to space in my shop I got rid of my control arm and built an over head one. Picture below.
Thats not Bob`s control consul, its mine , I am doing a similar conversion to Bob, on the same machine, consul is far from finished, just put up pics to show that PC did fit inside the arm consul
Sorry, I guess this is my fault for pointing out that there are actually two oilers on this machine. The air tool oiler piggy backed on the regulator, and the machine oiler mounted seperately on the back of the machine. I "assume" you are talking about the machine oiler (auto lube pump) on the back of the machine.
Do you actually have it working at this time?
If so how are you controlling it?
Are you ?:
Just unhooking your air when you aren't using the machine.
Using an electric valve?
Other?
My thoughts are to have an electric air valve feeding it so any time the machine is powered up and not in E-stop there is pressure on the line.
Does this mean that you do not have air to the machine oiler (auto lube pump) yet? If so is it getting the same pressure (60 PSI) as the brake? I just ran air into the main regulator just to see what it was set at. It came up to about 84 PSI. That sounds about right. The spec on page 2-4 of my manual says The connection of the compressed air line to the CNC KMB-1 is via a standard 1/4 pipe fitting. A regulator valvle controlls the air pressure into the machine, and a pressure control limit switch shuts off the control voltages if the pressure drops below the factory preset limit of 60 psig. A source capable of 10SCFM at 60-90 psig is sufficient.My regulator for the brake was set at 60PSI that is where I have left it. Currently don't have that part hooked up so I can't say wither or not it's enough.
If you do have the auto lube pump hooked up can you make any estimate of your oil consumption yet?
Do you know why its alarming out? Current? Position? Something else?Been spending way to much time trying to get my servos tuned. My drives alarm out after about 3" of continuous travel
Which servo drivers are you using? I might be able to help you there with a little more information if its Gecko drives. I have not run the machine yet, but I did some heavy burn in runs on one motor off the machine at speeds upto the equivelant of 250 IPM (I know, no load), and the only time the in position indicator even blinked was on full speed hard reversals. Not something you are likely to ever run into in actual usage.
Oil to the machine. Screws, ways, bearings etc.Looking at your drawing of the air lines I'm not sure what is meant by "screws".
Cool thank you. Now to determine how much pressure I want to feed it and from where exactly.Any way the air line coming from the brake regulator goes to the bottom of the oiler. The port at the top of the oiler goes to the distribution blocks for all the oil lines (black hoses on my machine)
Not me. I am the one with a home made keyboard shelf suspended below a monitor arm. I am thinking about eliminating it and going back to a console just so I have a good place to put buttons, joystick, estop, etc.Nice job you our control console. Due to space in my shop I got rid of my control arm and built an over head one. Picture below.
Bob La Londe
http://www.YumaBassMan.com
I decided to go ahead and use the pressure switch to monitor air pressure. I am thinking if I tie all this "stuff" into the e-stop circuit I'm going to want to know what exactly tripped the e-stop at a glance. Some things like air (since the compressor may kick on and bring the pressure back up) might not be easy to diagnose unless I just happen to be looking right at it when it trips. I am thinking I need some kind of latching configuration indicator strip to mount on the cabinet or in the console (if I go back that way).
Maybe a little DPST relay strip. One side opens the circuit and the other turns on an LED? Maybe there is a more elegant solution? A restart button to clear relatch the relay.
I would be very concerned about relay response time consistency though for things like home and limit switches. Limits are not as critical to indicate separately though. Mach does say a limit has been tripped even if it doesn't say which one. For the most part I should be able to tell which one by looking at the machine. Then manually jog the machine off the limits. I do plan to program soft limits just short of the hard limits, and a slightly longer slow zone before the soft limits if I understand the setup properly.
If I use separate limit inputs on my breakout board and go ahead with my idea to put a Lexan panel in the door (wire screen backed to keep the Faraday cage affect of the cabinet) I can look at my breakout board which has its own individual input LED indicators.
The more I learn the more I realize I have to learn with this retrofit.
The main regulator assembly (probably not original although it is Hurco Blue) was just zip tied to the mounts so I need to figure out how I want to mount it. Since I am going to rebuild the assembly probably only saving the regulator itself I may just make a sheet metal hanger for it.
Bob La Londe
http://www.YumaBassMan.com
Steve Stallings at PMDX gave me a great tip on the limits, I had hooked all mine up to seperate inputs on the break out board, but as youy say, mach does not know which limit it has hit, but it does know what direction it was travelling in when it hit the limit, as I intend on using my limits also for homing, with an offset, and the hurco homes bottom left hand corner, close to x- and y- , and at z+, only these three limit/home positions need seperate inputs to hook up to, the other three limits x+,y+ and z- can all be daisy chained togeather to one input, hence saving two inputs / pins for something else
Yes I was talking about the auto-lub. Yes it is working in the since that my screws and ways are getting oiled. Right now I have it connected to the 60psi regulator at the brake assembly. I cycle it by turning on/off a shut off valve that I have setup at my air supply in to the machine. I like being able to disconnect the machine from the air supply when I'm not using the machine. Other wise the oiler would have pressure any time you have pressure on your air lines.
The oiler air pressure needs to be cycled other wise you are only going to get one pump of oil. Not sure how long that one pump of oil is suppose to last but since the machine was setup to cycle every time you did a tool change I would guess that it needs to be done fairly often.
When I have everything done I will have my oiler connected in to the brake assembly via the 60PSI regulator. Just like the original machine.
As I don't have my machine fulling running (making part) I'm not sure yet on oil consumption. I just have it rigged up so while I'm trying to get my servos tuned the screws and ways are getting some oil.
Well I know that the following error limit is being reached. I'm using Dugong drives from cncdrive.com. Currently I'm limited to 50IPM on my Y-axis (heaviest load). Old manual for the machine has feed rates at 0.1-150. Hopefully I can get that out of the new electronics. I will be starting a new post about this problem.
Thanks for the offer.
Really think this should be feed by the brake system. Or a timer. Should be 60 psi from what I can tell.
Ya I saw that. I know that I really like the panel I have set up.
I would not have the air supply pressure tied to you e-stop. Not having air pressure for a few minutes is not critical. Only things that needs air are the oiler and the spindle brake.
I would just have this on its own input, have have mach setup to show an alarm of low air pressure. Not sure that I would have it setup to stop the machine if it was running.
HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD WITH THIS!!!!
Same on my machine. The one that you have looks like the one that I have. Mine was held on with plumbers tape. I made some aluminum mounts to hold it to the cabinet.
I'll double check tomorrow when I am playing in the shop, but I am pretty sure my manual says upto 250 IPM rapids and 150 programmable for cutting.
Obviously with Mach it can be set for anything from a single step to max speed set in motor tuning.
Not sure about the air. I might set it to a latching buzzer then, or maybe tie it to a 24hr trouble zone on my burglar alarm and program it to send me an SMS signal on my cell phone... that's for down the road when I have the machine running reliabley.
I'll have to do some experiments on oil usage then as far as how the oiler works then. I could certainly hook it to an Altronix 6060 timer easily enough. Since the 6060 timer is hardware configurable I could set it up and to cycle an air valve and then only power the 6060 when the machine is powered up. I know that souds overly complex, but I have a couple electric valves, and some 6060 timers on the shelf.
Bob La Londe
http://www.YumaBassMan.com
1. Yes, my manual says the machine should be capable of 250 IPM rapids. (It does show cutting at a max of only 100 ipm) I suppose that will vary by year and specific model. I had heard some early models actually ran these 45VDC motors with a 45VDC power supply instead of a 90. I'm running 78VDC.
2. Speaking of manuals... I was fortunate enough to get the original machine user manual binder with my mill. Its quite useful for refference.
3. For each refference item I find for the mill like the page on the proximity sensors, the documentation on the break out board, the setup manual for my smoothstepper, or the manuals for the servo drivers. I print them out, stick them in a 3 hole punch and save them all in a big three ring binder. Every piece of equipment I am putting in the mill that has any documentation is going in the binder as I work the build. The binder gets stored for now on the tool cart, and when I am nearly finished I'll store it in the cabinet with the original machine manual.
3b. Sometimes its kind of a pain to keep all the docs especially when some minor but necessary component has one of those little half page folded up wads of paper as the total documentation. This morning I discovered my old flatbed scanner will not work with Windows XP (or maybe it just doesn't work anymore) and I tossed it in the trash. Then I ironed out the sheets and photographed them so I could print them on a full size sheet to go in my binder. Then as I was putting them in my master binder I thought, "You know, that scanner might have some stepper motors and a couple linear rails in it that I could scavenge for something." LOL.
4. Not knowing what your following error is set for I would suggest starting by bumping that up. My next suggestion would be to reduce your acceleration, and I guess first rather than last would be to make sure your power supply can really handle the current. A scope will be necessary to show ripple, but they should be able to handle quite a bit of ripple. A simple test with a volt meter to check for voltage drop (average voltage) while running the motors will tell you if your power supply is up to the task. If its power supply current just adding another big cap might do the trick. I think I recall reading somewhere you should use equal size caps if connecting them in parallel to reduce ripple. Earlier in this thread I posted a link for a site with calculators for voltage, caps to set percentage of ripple based on current etc. I've refferenced that page several times to check my results against the math.
Bob La Londe
http://www.YumaBassMan.com
FRL Bracket Moidification
Ok, so its not as elegant as the original application was intended, but I think it will work.
This is definitely a reason to have a small machine handy and already working before starting a build or retrofit on a big machine. I didn't even do this on the Taig. I hacked it out in a couple minutes on the cheap Chinese router.
The first FRL bracket I just drilled out to fit the nipple I have going through it. This one I cut a square profile (with corner over cut) to fit over the square body of the "T" fitting. This way when I tighten it all up it will hold the FRL assembley upright on the back of the machine. Since the other FRL just spins on the nipple it will be very easy to bolt them both to the cabinet.
It just galls me to make parts I already have even if the parts won't work for the current application. LOL. They do now.
I'm thinking if I drill and tap for a set screw I can lock it down to eliminate vibration too.
Last edited by Bob La Londe; 09-16-2012 at 09:21 PM.
Bob La Londe
http://www.YumaBassMan.com
Air Valves
Ok... I have the top side air pretty well figured out now. Its just two simple electric valves. I use similar valves for other things. One is configured normally open. One is configured normally closed.
The one for the brake is always open locking the spindle brake whenever there is air pressure. You have to energize it to release the brake. (Or, as the last tinkerer did, disconnect the air line.)
The other one is normally closed. When you energize it then it opens. If the lube pump requires this to open and close to pump oil, then there has to be something that will energize and de-energize this valve every so many minutes to pump oil. Now to determine how often that should happen and how long it should be open.
Both air valves come off the regulator on the head. I'll need to get up there with some cleaner to remove the grunge and see what the gage says, but 60 psi seems about right. The brake locks up pretty good even with all the air leaks.
The main regulator was set at about 85.
I wondered how good all those stupid friction fit hose barbs, zip tied, hose clamped hoses and fittings would do when I finally put air to the machine... They leak like a sieve.
As you can see I finished my FRL assembly and mounted it using the FRL brackets that came with the machine. I used all insert compression fittings to connect the 1/8" air lines on my part. I guess I am going to need to plan on getting more air line and a whole bunch more insert style compression fittings to fix all those air leaks. I can't believe Hurco set it up that way to begin with. I guess even back then companies were shaving pennies.
The original main regulator gage had worked, but the lens had long since gone the way of the dinosaurs. Rather than buy a new rear entry gage I used a street elbow and a gage I already had to replace the original gage.
Bob La Londe
http://www.YumaBassMan.com
So how often do you think I should cycle the valve that goes to the lube pump?
How long do you think it should be energized each time?
The air valves have separate control leads going down. (Which makes more sense to me me than what I thought was described.)
I am thinking of moving the secondary regulator and the valves to the back of the cabinet and mounting them below the air sensor with just a single air line going up to activate the spndle brake. I know it will look busy on the back of the cabinet, but it will give more room to work to replumb that mess, and it will be easier to repair if a line bursts or a valve fails.
Bob La Londe
http://www.YumaBassMan.com
First just want to thank you for documenting your retrofit here, very helpful. I am also doing a retrofit on a KMB1x and had a question you could probably help me with regarding the servo voltages.
My servos are ElectroCraft E703's, the servo spec sheet (attached) I have says the max terminal voltage is 45 volts. Do you have the same servo models by chance? It seems like I have seen a few people with the same mill running their voltages at 78-80. I'm also using Gecko 320x drivers. Just trying to make sure I'm not missing something here because I bought a 50v power supply that was recommended by the supplier, and want to make sure that I shouldn't try to return it before it is fully installed. Here is the power supply I bought: https://www.antekinc.com/details.php?p=577
Thanks in advance for the help!
The suggested minimum for a power servo power supply is minimum 10% above motor max. rated voltage, this if you want to achieve the maximum RPM.
See Power-Supply Considerations For Servo Amplifiers
If you will never need the rated RPM in your application then the supply should work for you.
Al.
CNC, Mechatronics Integration and Custom Machine Design
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
Albert E.
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