AB-Electrocraft Ultra100/DDM Drives

[wassa64]

Hello
I have several DDM 009X and 019 Drives set aside for the retrofit of a 1978 Mori Seiki SL3A lathe that currently has a Fanuc 5T. I have a few questions that I need answered,
1. Which of the AB/EC motor types would suit lathe cnc applications the best
N,H,F,Y or MPL
2.Does anyone know were I can obtain a curcuit diagram of this series of drives?
3.Does any American CNC machine manufacturer use these drives or motors on theX,Z axis or turret. As I am trying to size the correct motor/drive.
4.Has anyone retrofitted a similar machine with a PC based control like Mach2/3 and is analog or step/direction the better way to control the motors?
Any infofmation would be greatly apprieciated.
Regards Craig Skene

[unterhaus]

I think the DDM019 drives are definitely big enough to drive your lathe. I don't recall the max horsepower that the drives will produce. Gidding and Lewis sold these drives, I'm guessing they used them in their machines. Do you happen to know the power/torque of the motors that came off of the machine? That seems like the place to start.

I'm not sure what the difference is between those series motors. Given a particular power level and torque, there could be a problem with inertia matching between the different motors. Are you planning on buying them retail?

I've never seen any offer of schematics for these drives.

Step/Direction is better than analog since it is a lot cheaper. Mach can't use an analog control in its current configuration. When the geckodrive GREX is integrated, it will be able to do so. I'm going to try Mach, but I'm planning to use EMC. In the greater scheme of things, analog is probably better, but how much I'm not sure.

The only issue I see with the step direction approach with these drives is that the input is differential. I'm planning on driving mine single ended and hoping for the best. Otherwise, there was some company that sold a differential to single ended conversion board for about $20 U.S.