Mazak VTC-20B and Mitsubishi Servos / Drives

I just wanted to make a quick post about Dmitry over at yurtaev.com/ and the interface cards he has developed. I recently purchased a Mazak VTC-20B with Mitsubishi electronics and did a retrofit on it because it didn't have the add-on for g-code programming. I searched everywhere I could find on the internet looking for a solution to re-use the existing servos and drives. There is very little information on doing a conversion like this. Dmitry's solution is the only one I found. Below are the details of my setup for the benefit of anyone doing something similar. Its by no means complete, mainly because I add features as I need them, but the machine is up and running and making parts very reliably.

Machine: Mazak VTC-20B 1999 Model
Factory Control: Mazak MPlus
Servos: Mitsubishi
Drives: Mitsubishi MDS/MELDAS
ATC: 24 Tool Umbrella
Taper: CAT40

Retrofit Additions
Computer: Old enterprise Dell from eBay
Monitor: 22in Dell touch screen from eBay
Control cards: MESA 7i76e and YMDS2P from Dmitry
Pendant: Generic 6 axis unit from eBay
Tool setter: From eBay
Probe: Renishaw from eBay

The YMDS2P is plug and play via a single cable to the servo drive power supply and all the drives are daisy chained off of it with factory cables. It controls all of the servos and the spindle. The 7i76e is there just to add all the extra i/o and encoder interface for the pendant. Everything is controlled from the z axis brake to the way lube pump and the ATC. The attachment is a zip of my entire config directory, again its not complete and it may be a bei messy but everything works. I hope it helps someone out.

As a final note, I do want to emphasize the awesome customer support provided by Dmitry and the ease of use of his product. He has always been quick to offer assistance with any hiccups that I've had and his product has performed flawlessly.

This is good to hear. I have a pile of these Mitsubishi servos and am seriously considering the inexpensive drives available everywhere-but they're the optical-SSCnet drives. Dmitry is the only source for the parts-and I am glad he's made them!

Great to hear the YMDS2P adapter card is working for you. I am in the middle of a LinuxCNC retrofit to a 1996 Howa MSN 320 VCJ vertical machining center, and am using a YMDS2P to daisy-chain 7 Meldas MDS drives with corresponding Mitsu motors and encoders.. I'll give another thumbs up to Dmitry's excellent support and response to questions about his product.

I've removed the original Meldas 500M control, and am replacing it with a SFF HP I3 desktop, which will fit inside the existing machine cabinet. The YMDS2P occupies the single PCI slot, and a MESA 6I24 Anything IO card occupies one of the PCIE slots. I drew up custom optoisolation IO boards to interface with the MESA card, available IO on the YMDS2P, and the existing Parallel Port. The PCBs are being burned for me to populate and solder in my shop.

I'm curious as to why you settled on the 7I76E? I figured since I needed a lot of IO and Dmitry's card was set up for PCI, I'd stick to the PCI and PCIe bus.

I went with the 7i76e for a few reasons. Peter has equally great customer service and support on their Mesa products, familiarity with the product, other machines running the same card, spares and interchangeability if I ever needs them, and it checked all the boxes I needed, encode interface for pendant, enough i/o for all of my inputs/outputs, and the step/dir interface runs the hybrid servos on my 4th and 5th axis.

That makes sense, especially with your need for step and direction. All 7 servos on my machine are Meldas (spindle, x, y z, a for jig changer table, ATC/drawbar, and tool magazine). Between the 6i24 and the few IO pins on the YMDS2P, I just cover the OEM machine IO count.

I am assembling my own optoisolation boards because the MESA 7i37's are input heavy - 16 inputs + 8 outputs. I need closer to 40 inputs and 40 outputs, as I am keeping almost all of the original control panel hardware and console. The old 9.4" CRT is being replaced with a 10".LED capacitive touchscreen, and the original keypad is being replaced with a compact USB industrial keyboard. I figure on simple GUI with several tabs/windows, along with the hard-wired buttons, switches, and indicator LEDs I'm used to.

This machine only had 3 axis originally so I reused all of the servos and drives that were there. The step/dir interface lets me use virtually anything I want for the extra axis/features. I took the entire mplus control off the machine and have it sitting here on a shelf. Nothing was wrong with it and I thought someone might have a need for one at some point and I could swoop in and save the day. On the Other hand I've got gmoccapy on all of my machines that I've retrofitted and its a great interface. I run machines with everything from a Fanuc 0T, 32ib, Milltronics, Centurion 7, 9000 and of course the retrofits. gmoccapy is my favourite and easy to switch between them.