Nice thread! My Emco 220 has very low hours as it was used to make prototypes for a medical company and they logged the hours it was used 4 hours 38 minutes when I got it. Since I got all the manuals and a box of extras I find the controller rather confusing to understand but this machine is like new and everything works (mine takes the 3 1/2 floppy disks) built in 1993. I would like to convert it over so I don't have to use this confusing controller and run Mach3/4 but I'm not sure what spindle motor or steppers to use nor what else needs done as I want to keep the parts catcher and all. So any help in that area would be great. Maybe a spreadsheet of of parts needed and where to source them? Thanks much! I'll take a few photos later and post them.
Dennis
Hi, thx, if you start to read this thread from beginning you will see what electronic I use (I started with Quntum lathe, small chines lathe , I wanted to convert that lathe, but in meanwhile I bought Emco), anyway here is video with electronics . I put link just for example, I did not buy from this seller, you need to search alone from whom you will buy. If it is not secret how much cost Emco lahte with so little working hours (mine have probably over couple of tens of thousands ) , I buy equipment as I go, so do not have any list. Now it is left to control electro - magnetic valves ( today I was cleaning them) and tomorrow will start to play with them over Mach3 (spindle works). Probably will need to buy PLC because this card have only 8 inputs and there is lot of things that need to be controled, but like I said when I come to that step will post what I have done or bought. So I think this thread good starting point if you have no Idea what you need to do , what to buy, etc. I will help if I know , just ask if you have some questions.
P.S. you can use same motor as me (same rating, same card , and you will be able to use part catcher and all that nice things), I want to have fully functional lathe as it was with Emco controler (pneumatic tailstock, part catcher, power chuck, oil pump, flood coolant, alarm rotating light, and so on ).
check this thread also http://www.cnczone.com/forums/vertic...p-rebuild.html
Pete is using special card to operate tool changer
If someone have better code for this please share it
QUOTE=zmajmr;
If someone have better code for this please share it [/QUOTE]
This may help Denford Orac Turret working on Mach 3 macro
Denford Software & Machines ? View topic - Denford Orac Turret working on Mach 3 macro
VB Code included.
Hope this helps,
Iron-Man
Hi
Iron Man, thank you for trying to help, I looked link that you provide and I think that I do not see there what I need. I made perfectly working macro for tool changer only thing is that I need to postion/rotate turret manually before I can use it, and it is based on assumption that turret is made symmetrical (which is true). I added optical sensor that need to stop turret when it is being activated (I can set when it needs to be activated by rotating plastic ring with small hole).
Basically I need code that will stop movement of stepper motor when my sensor is activated , it sounds very simple but I can not find part of code on internet where I see that that is going on so I can use it, this is what I am looking for.
So I give order to stepper motor to rotates by pressing button REF and I want to rotation be continues and I want to motor stops same millisecond when sensor is triggered.
I manage to use loop for my idea (do while) but it only works like this:
rotate rotor of motor for certain angle and check is sensor triggered, if it is not triggered then rotate it again, to be able to find random hole on my plastic disc rotation of rotor need to be for small angle and that means motor needs to cross through loop lot of time and that makes process very slow, and I do not like that but I do not know how to make it faster (continues rotation that will be stopped when sensor is triggered).
I hope I described detail enough what I am trying to do.
Thx in advance to everybody who will try to help.
Marko
Can you provide a picture of your set-up? If I understand you correctly, you need to manually move the "tool changer" to a known position before it operates correctly. You may need to add a second sensor just for initial reference. The Denford model uses "Gray Code"
Iron-Man
Hi
I manage to make what I wanted with only 1 sensor, I am uploading new video so I hope it will be understandable what I wanted to make.
And answer on your first question is yes.
This is what I was looking for:
How to stop a movement when input is active?
And I reedited for my use in this shape:
Thank you for your response,
Marko
Today idea crossed my mind how I could try to solve soft limits problem. I used Machscreen editor and copy pasted z part of DRO and button for zeroing values, I renamed z to y and changed functions to influence on y values instead z value, basically I have data about y axis on my turning screen and I can set them on zero , why because I need to make y values inside some limits before I can activate soft limits button and actions that it provides (like crashing metal on metal, I had couple of events during day ) , so first step is to make this:
Next step is is to determine limists for y axis, for z and x axis I determined before and those values are basicaly how much machine have travel in x and z direction , apsoulte value for x is 45 mm and for z 155 mm. For y axis I entered huge numbers like 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 to -999999999999999999999999999999999999 what is mistake because those huge number I guess can became negative so some problems may accrue so by experimenting I got value of y max = 1000000 and for y min = - 10 even though y min is always positive number because turret rotates always in same direction and y only become bigger and bigger
And when you determine limits which you do not want to cross you need to bring machine inside of them, if you bring outside of them you can not activate button Soft Limits:
Probably will make video about this.
But thing that makes me trouble is that I need to write on MDI G90 if I want to activate HOME ALL button, because it does not work in incremental mode or when G91 is active.
I tried to solve this problem by writing command Code " G90 " after executing Code "G91G01 Y9 F40"
for example
in macro above I use incremental mode but I want to bring machine back to absolute distance mode inside macro ( so when I have generated G code for some part I do not need to manually write code "G90" behind every tool change operation plus there are other bad things if machine stay in incremental mode ...)
so I made macro like this:
Even thought I just wanted to write code "G90" not Code "G90G01 z-9 F200" but in that way I can see does Mach3 even feel/see that part of command because I did not see anything (go from G91 mode toG90 mode), in this way I saw that first was moved carriage to location z = -9 and after that turret was rotated till sensor "saw" light. Any way I do not understand how come first
was done z axis movement and not m111 code?
If somebody know what I can do please let me know, all I want to do is when I call macro for tool changing which works in incremental mode (G91 ) after movement is finished to return inside macro to absolute mode G90 so machine can execute rest of G code without of weird effects.
I bought Partmaster Lathe from Dolphin so want to try it but no how to solve this problem.
I joined to Mach forum and asked for help but for now suggestion did not help me so I made new video what is problem that I have , if somebody have solution let me know
Here is update from my problem, I will just copy paste what I wrote on Mach3 Suport forum:
I just wanted to try new idea from B459 s post , because I got no luck with my experimenting and after I turned on my computer other day and Mach3 I was surprised that code that I wrote actually works correct
so this works good:
Code " G90 "
Code "G91G01 Y9 F40"
While isMoving()
If (IsActive(Input1)) Then
DoOEMButton(1003)
Code " G90 "
End If
Wend
Now I was wondering how come it did not worked day before, I had idea that maybe I need to write like this "G90" instead " G90 " (with no space between quote marks and letter and number), so tired to play with this and that does not have influence.
Thing is that I was using MachScreen editor to connect button in Mach3 screen with execution of code, and I learned that function in Mach 3 (in Mach3 macro folder) must match with function you can access when you are in MachScreen editor, I even deleted macro in Mach3 (its content and you could still have it to work ) , and why it worked, because content was not deleted in MachScreen editor.
Anyway if you are not aware of this things you can try to modify macro all day and you can not see changes in work if you not change it in MachScreen editor. And after change it is good to close Mach3 and open it again so you can be sure that changes are refreshed/ updated. For macros that are not connected with buttons , I mean the ones I did not added in MachScreen editor there was not problems , change was updated after I clicked in File Save option.
Anyway hope this will help to someone, I was really out of hope on this there was no logic to me , I mean why it did not worked.
Thanks once more for help BR549 Smiley
Last edited by zmajmr; 11-10-2015 at 04:46 PM.