Clearpath Servos for Tormach?

[punkman]

I have a box of clear path servos sitting behind me waiting for me to start fitting them on my mill. I have a old syil super x3 that I brought back from the dead it only had a few hours of runtime, it is very accurate with no real backlash to speak of. The electronics are dying on it though so I am swapping in in clear path servos, new power supply and breakout board etc. I am going to try swapping them in one at a time first to see how easy it is to just retrofit a machine with them before messing with the breakout board and drivers and such.

[GLCarlson]

The Clearpath drives (which are 75V AC servos) have an output that can be programmed as a fault output that is asserted when a following error occurs

The SDSK drives take step/dir signals the same as the Leadshine drives that Tormach uses

Because they have a step/dir interface and there is no encoder feedback to the controller you lose some of the advantages
of a full closed loop servo system that LinuxCNC/Pathpilot can support (real time smart following error monitoring, homing to index
no need to rehome on estop/faults etc)

That's very helpful, thank you!

[SCzEngrgGroup]

That's very helpful, thank you!

Keep in mind.... There are many different "flavors" of step/dir interfaces. Some are active High, some active Low, signal levels vary, they can be driven by totem-pole drivers, or open-collector drivers, or open-drain drivers, or they may, or may not, be optically isolated, and different drivers often have wildly different setup/hold timing requirements. Without look in detail at EXACTLY what hardware the Tormach BOB uses to drive the signals, and what hardware the Clearpath servos use to receive them, there is no guarantee they will play nice together without hardware or software changes. A very small mis-match in requirements can lead to some VERY hard-to-find problems - like, for example, losing a single step every time the direction line changes from low to high.

Regards,
Ray L.

[PCW_MESA]

Keep in mind.... There are many different "flavors" of step/dir interfaces. Some are active High, some active Low, signal levels vary, they can be driven by totem-pole drivers, or open-collector drivers, or open-drain drivers, or they may, or may not, be optically isolated, and different drivers often have wildly different setup/hold timing requirements. Without look in detail at EXACTLY what hardware the Tormach BOB uses to drive the signals, and what hardware the Clearpath servos use to receive them, there is no guarantee they will play nice together without hardware or software changes. A very small mis-match in requirements can lead to some VERY hard-to-find problems - like, for example, losing a single step every time the direction line changes from low to high.

Regards,
Ray L.

The Clearpath drives use OPTO isolated inputs that are uncommitted (no common) and accept 5 to 24V signals,
so can work with pretty much _any_ step/dir signal. The also have quite short minimum timings so should work fine
with the larger timings of a controller set for Leadshine drives

[LazyMan]

I have clear path servos on some self built machines with very great performance. Very smooth, high accelerations, great for 3d tool paths. I find the ability to fault very useful. I have stepper machines crash and just keep going wrecking havoc on my machine while I was out of the shop. The clear path servos fault very quickly in a crash and the servos can sent a stop signal to your controller to tell all other axis to also stop moving. I probably wont build another machine with steppers again but with that said, I would not invest in them for a Tormach because the added benefits are not worth the cost for me. I use my Tormach for prototype low tolerance parts and squeezing every last second out of the cycle time is not important at all. I have a Haas VMC for that.

[sansbury]

In many parts of the country you can find a used Fadal VMC 15 or similar for the price of a Tormach. You'll get servos, a 10k spindle, and an ATC, and they can run on 220/1PH power. There are also deals out there on Mini Mills but I think parts for Fadals tend to be a bit cheaper.

The reason I bought an 1100 was I wanted a turnkey machine with affordable support, and I didn't need a lot of speed, power, etc. the clearpath servos look nice but I had built 4 machines already and didn't want another project.

Now, I do kind of see a use case for tool break detection. Thing is, many of the times I've broken tools, the axes never slowed down. Sometimes the spindle bogs and you snap a tool that way, while smaller tools just break without the spindle audibly changing. At a minimum, a spindle encoder may get catch some of these, while for others you'd need reall tool break detection sensing. I've also thought about using a sensor to monitor vibration to see if you could detect chatter, which could also trigger a fault under the right conditions, but all of these are secondary to the projects I bought the machine for and which it does well enough 🤓

[Labern]

I have actually changed the Rapid Feed Rate speed on my Tormach to 150inch per min on X/Y and 120 on Z.
It's so much nicer to use and it even sounds nicer when it Rapid moves.
There is a lot of development going into 3D printing to make the stepper motors silent. this is all done by the stepper drivers and there is a lot more smart control going into them. Changing step count to a higher number helps reduce noise but can also reduce torque.

[Cromaglious]

For less than 1/2 the price get some jmc-motor.com iHSS57-36-20 2nm (283ozin) motors. I bought 3 off ebay. If you go direct to jmc-motor.com they'll send you a turner box as well. They work wonderfully. When you get yor machine figured out then you can think about getting clearpaths.

[Zetopan]

For less than 1/2 the price get some jmc-motor.com iHSS57-36-20 2nm (283ozin) motors.

Why would anyone want to do that? The motor that you are recommending has less than *half* of the torque of the Tormach X and Y axis motors. The torque rating of that motor does not even specify the RPM (stalled?) where the torque is rated. Even if we charitably assume that the torque rating is still valid at the 110 inches per minute maximum machining rate of the Tormach, that motor is still significantly below the Tormach supplied X and Y axis motor torques. The Tormach Z axis motor has about 2X the torque of the X and Y axis motors. There is also the rather obvious problem that your example motor is a NEMA 23 while the Tormach axis motors are NEMA 34.

[Cromaglious]

They have a 2HSS86h external driver + NEMA34 86J18156ec-1000 12nm 2phase stepper 1.8 degree (1000 line encoder) closed loop stepper for $248 on ebay. I got 3 integrated closed loop NEMA23's for myself. I gave the JMC-motor.com so you could go look at what they have. They have open loop steppers and drivers, closed loop steppers and drivers, and integrated closed loop steppers. They have been very responsive to my questions. I also saw Leadshine has US distributors and they have pretty much the same thing as well as NEMA17 integrated closed loop steppers. Talk to Michael jmcxx@jmc-motion.com and if you do buy direct from Just Motion Control as to get a tuner box with your order -- no messing with COM parameters on a computer. (jmc-motion.com is their Chinese language website)

I've been using my 2nm iHSS57-36-20 steppers at 150in/minute at 450G acceleration and that's at 25vdc. They like nominal 36vdc, but are rated to 50vdc. If you want better specifications on performance email Michael and he will answer.

Cheers Robi

[smokediver576]

They have a 2HSS86h external driver + NEMA34 86J18156ec-1000 12nm 2phase stepper 1.8 degree (1000 line encoder) closed loop stepper for $248 on ebay. I got 3 integrated closed loop NEMA23's for myself. I gave the JMC-motor.com so you could go look at what they have. They have open loop steppers and drivers, closed loop steppers and drivers, and integrated closed loop steppers. They have been very responsive to my questions. I also saw Leadshine has US distributors and they have pretty much the same thing as well as NEMA17 integrated closed loop steppers. Talk to Michael jmcxx@jmc-motion.com and if you do buy direct from Just Motion Control as to get a tuner box with your order -- no messing with COM parameters on a computer. (jmc-motion.com is their Chinese language website)

I've been using my 2nm iHSS57-36-20 steppers at 150in/minute at 450G acceleration and that's at 25vdc. They like nominal 36vdc, but are rated to 50vdc. If you want better specifications on performance email Michael and he will answer.

Cheers Robi

Hey Robi,
So, are you saying that you are using these on your Tormach with PathPilot or in some other application? I think the questions surround how an alternative (ClearPath) would work with TM/PP.

Thanks,
Awall