esab silhouette 500

[welder]

hello all,


I own a silhouette 500 from esab and was wanting to know what it will take to make it cnc. esab has the vision Le for this machine but seems to be worth its weight in gold. The machine has 2 pittman dc servo motors on it. I have mach 3 and was just wanting a good cheap control for it. Any info would be great.


thanks

[WoR]

anyone know anything about these? any info at all could be helpfull so post up!

What would be really nice to know is if there is an encoder made for these that "bolts" right on. The motors are MT9414C934 "motor-tachometer" ...

[linatrol god]

Did you ever get your questions answered?

[WoR]

Did you ever get your questions answered?

After alot of research by me and the actual owner of the machine, we found that you cannot use the original motors, nor fit them with encoders. We had to get different motors with encoders, and of course the drives to run them. It's up and cutting parts now.

I do have to say that the way this machine is built does not lend itself to very accurate parts. With the arm extending out from the gantry instead of the torch being mounted on the gantry (as in under it) there is quite a bit of bounce at the end of the arm which in some circumstances causes choppy lines unsteady of a nice straight line like it should have. Not to mention its about impossible to keep the torch height ideal because of the bounce.

I personally would not recommend retrofitting this type of machine, after all the time and headache you would prob. be ahead to get a machine that has the torch under the gantry instead of out on an arm. With it out on an arm it takes up twice the space and cuts with half the quality. I suppose if you already had the machine and were dead set on retrofitting it it could work decent as long as you have everything good and level, make sure all the bearings are good, and the tracks they run on, and keep the feedrate very slow (< 60ipm) to minimize the bounce.

[linatrol god]

Too bad I didnt read your post soon enough
We manufacture the Hl90 and we make bolt on encoders for them, plus we have a CNC that is also connects readily to the HL90.
The bounce is caused by the machine not running smoothly or just a poor quality make. Esab usually makes decent quality machines.
I have retrofitted numerous HL90 gantry type of machines with a CNC with little or no problems.
Good luck!!!!

Mark