Hardinge CHNC Retrofit

[cbucner]

Well I was thinking if I start the Shizuoka retrofit I will do the lathe in the same time since I have to deal with the same kind of stuff anyway.
So Here we are, got this Hardinge CHNC cnc lathe for retrofit and started taking off the servos today to see what's going on.
Now after i took the servos out , same thing as the shizuoka , tach and resolver for feedback.Looks like all the 80's machines were this way, no encoderrs .
Check first pic of the tach, resolver assy
Now the best thing is that there is enough space to install a shaft encoder .
unlike on the mill.You can se in the picture the 1/4 inch shaft that the tach/resolver assy is using to get the feedback off the ball screw .
I will have to find a nice 1/4 shaft encoder.
The problem that I have is the dc motor.
Both work but the labels were off so I have no ideea what kind of motors they are.They are the same but both had missing labels.
Anyone here has any ideea what's thje specs on these motors??
I attached a pic of the motor.
It's the original motor that came with the lathe.The lathe is around 80's chnc4 model , at least that's what I heard from the owner before.
Any info will be appreciated.
Thanks

[NickA]

The axis drive motors are 90V dc with a 7 amp fuse to hold them.
The encoder your looking for is a 2000 line hollow shaft model that you can fit to the end of the leadscrew without the shaft coupler

An ongoing page starting for retrofiting is at http://www.janick.com/cnc

[cbucner]

Hey Nick, thanks for your reply man, what are you going to do with the turret tool changing??
Can you use that encoder which is already there or what??
I'm still thinking what to do on that.
what kind of system is that turret anyway.I did not get that far, I'm just done with my mill retrofit and I'm in testing .
Once I'm done with the mill i'll start the lathe but any info will help.
I've seen some 4 way air valves and an air piston .
Any info helps
Thanks

[Karl_T]

The turret encoder is an absolute encoder. it uses four inputs and counts position in base two. I'm using it on my CHNC retrofit, Camsoft.

The turret itself has two air solenoid outputs. One raises the turret and indexes. The other fires a stop pin.

FWIW, I've had REAL trouble with the air index unit. I ended up adding an exhaust brake output to fire one turret position before the stop pin fires. before this, I couldn't get the turret to reliably start indexing without opening the exhaust set screw up more. When opened, I couldn't get the stop pin to fire quick enough to catch the right turret position. I may still try to find a way to use a step/servo motor for index. Apparently the new CHNCs have this standard.

Karl

[actionman]

Hello,
I have a Hardinge HXL I am thinking about retrofitting
but all the threads (from NCCAMS) I've read got me to rethink
As i figured it was fairly simple because Im just replacing an old
control
I was planning on using existing motors and whatever else I could
go with mach 3
Maybe rutex servo drives
breakout board
not sure about spindle

Any input would be helpful

[NickA]

Originally Posted by cbucner Hey Nick, thanks for your reply man, what are you going to do with the turret tool changing?? Can you use that encoder which is already there or what?? I'm still thinking what to do on that. what kind of system is that turret anyway.I did not get that far, I'm just done with my mill retrofit and I'm in testing . Once I'm done with the mill i'll start the lathe but any info will help. I've seen some 4 way air valves and an air piston . Any info helps Thanks

That turret encoder is obviously fried and I already bought a new one. The controller I am looking at is EMC2 and that is for the following reasons:

It includes a programmable plc to control the turret so you don't have to buy another one. I've been in touch with somebody who has done it for EMC1 and is willing to work on recoding it for EMC2. Hopefully we can get it to work a lot better than Karl got his to.

EMC2 uses the analog signal for +/- 10 volt signal for the axis drive which gives it an actual smooth rotation. The rutex drives are better documented but it pulses that servo as though it were a stepper motor. That does not bode well for finishes on a lathe. The rutex is designated as step and direction control which Mach3 control also uses so basically I'm stuck with EMC2.

I'll be updating my site (http://www.janick.com/cnc) this weekend with more pictures of where the rebuild is at now with the Ajax crap still attached. The only thing I will be using is the encoders which I have already mounted which I will be using with EMC2. These are 2000 line quadure differential encoders which will act as though they have 8000 steps or control positions. Most of the cards I've looked at are looking for exactely this type of encoder feedback so I'll keep this one.

I've set a pc up with a dual boot for Windows and Ubuntu Linux with the prepackaged EMC2 software. It looks like I have EMC2 running but I am still fiddleing with config packages and getting a handle on what this will do. So far it looks like it will handle this Hardinge and anything else one might wish to control. You just have a learning curve like one does with any new software you get into.

I'm obviously staying away from Camsoft because of the price tag and the expensive control cards that it wants to use. For 5 or 6k I'm willing to sit down and do an awful lot of learning.

Ajax/Centroid control package is a total waste of money and is down the crapper where it belongs.

I'll keep posting as I progress.

[actionman]

Check this guys turret out

http://www.issintl-inc.com/latheturret