Spindle Situation

Hi so I’ve made a couple posts on here and hopefully not annoying any of the moderators.  I guess it’s difficult to explain what’s happening in my situation so I made a  little quick short youtube video about it.  Its only about 3 min long and goes straight to the point besides a couple brain farts while clicking through the Stepconf wizard.  Anyways it has to do with configuring the spindle and I can’t understand anything about it.  If someone could have a look at it and maybe shed some insight I would really appreciate it very much.  So far, I can run the spindle in manual mode but I have to be there to turn it off after a job is running and also have select a different speed every time I change tools.  Anyways thanks?



Also should I completely otherwise just replace my spindle driver and maybe even the motor and is there any setups that I can still configure to work using parallel port?  I have a feeling that this spindle system I have is outdated and low quality because there no documentation on it

Can you post your hal/ini files and indicate what
kind of parallel port breakout card you have?

Hi PCW thanks for your trying to help. Im not sure what breakout board it is other than the one that came stock with a Syil machine. I took a couple photos of it and picture of the stepper drives. I also included uploaded the ini and hal files. Do you think i should get rid of the generic breakout board and replace it with something more modern?

OP:

Unless I'm seriously mistaken, that Syil has a BLDC spindle motor with three hall sensors going back to the spindle drive.  The spindle drive has no feedback output capability to the OEM controller (or LCNC for that matter).  I believe it's rated about 1.1kw and around 5k rpm.  There are no good datasheets on the motor, and if you pull it I bet there isn't a decent plate on the motor itself (with amps, torque, rpm, etc).  If there is a dataplate, take a pic and post it here.

Similar generation 300v-class BLDC import drives are notorious for poor RPM-holding capability.  Hunting, stalling, low torque at low rpm... they are usually a disaster.  Automation Technologies tried importing a series of 1.1 and 2.2kw BLDC motor/drive combos as replacment spindle motors, and they just sucked.  The original manufacturer was "Tonman" (I think), and they were sold to various vendors or machine integrators for a number of years.  Early Syil's included.

Even if you add an encoder directly to the spindle and LCNC is put in closed-loop, tuning will be a nightmare.  As soon as the drive acts up, LCNC will try to compensate and the drive will fight LCNC.  The motor itself isn't the problem... it's the dodgy drive.

Search YT for older "Mikini 1610L" videos and I bet you'll come across a few where folks are pulling their hair out over the crappy spindle drives.

So...you can live with it, or you can do one of a few things:

• Replace both the motor and drive with something that fits inside the head (or above the head with an adapter).  A 1.8kw servo wont fit inside the head, but you could fabricate a mount and have the motor sticking up above the head with the belt down in the head.
• Replace the motor with a ~2hp 3phase induction motor and a VFD, and add an encoder to the motor or spindle. Same mounting issue as above.
• Replace the drive with a high voltage BLDC drive that has some feedback outputs.  There are a couple of Chinese vendors offering 340v (300v class) BLDC drives on Aliexpress.
• Or you could give the motor a new brain and source a drive that will work.  Remove the motor, remove the hall sensors, and install a CUI commutation encoder for about $50.  Then find an older 240vac servo drive (300v class) which is 'agnostic' and has tuning software.  Allen Bradley Ultra 3000 and Copley Controls Xenus are two that come to mind.  You'll need about 8A continuous and maybe 15A peak for that motor.
  • This will turn your spindle in to a true servo, capable of holding a position, indexing, rigid tapping, all the bells and whistles.
  • If you start thinking about this route, keep in mind that older servo drive cables can get expensive or painful to make yourself.

Ok cool. You guys really know your equipment and apricate your helping me out. I think ill start with researching a CUI commutation encoder and maybe one of the Copley Controls Xenus drives. I see they communicate through serial connection so it would still only be one single LPT cable running from the machine to the computer. Then I can select the correct pins in Stepconf on LinuxCNC and get it all running at the correct RPM's. First just need to find an encoder that will install onto the machine and look nice and still compatible with one of those nice motor drives

BTW...

#1 - you can disable the forced homing in your INI file for testing:
[TRAJ] NO_FORCE_HOMING = 1

Some other folks' issues with that spindle drive:
www.cnczone.com/forums/syil-products/357576-cnc.html

www.cnczone.com/forums/syil-products/357576-cnc.html

www.cnczone.com/forums/benchtop-machines...d-control-mach3.html

Nice AB drive compatible with the CUI encoder.
www.ebay.com/itm/395126551151

The Xenus (XSL or XTL are likely in your price range) can communicate via serial, but it doesn't have Modbus - don't plan on that route. I can't remember if the U3K has Modbus, but even if it does there isn't a plug-n-play modbus solution for LCNC to talk to the U3k.

You'll need to either use +10/-10v or step & direction...

Before you start buying anything, pull the motor out of the head and pull the hall sensor cover off.  Measure the shaft - prolly 8mm or 10mm. 

Take a pic of the motor and post it up here.  I'd hate to be feeding you horrible advice based on my memory of these things.

After we confirm what you've got, you can start thinking about which encoder.  I'd suggest the CUI AMT31.  Nice thing about that is you can use the free software (and pay for a programming cable) to set the simulated hall commutation output; no O-scope needed.  They really aren't hyper-accurate encoders, but are perfectly fine for a spindle motor.  And if you run 1:1 pulley you don't need a separate encoder for the spindle itself.
 

Alrite perfect, that's my goal for tomorrow after school I get back at noon and I'll be taking the motor out to gathery as much information about it as possible. I'll measure the shaft size and take the cover off the hall sensor for an inspection as well as get pictures. Again thanks for all the information and have a good evening then spumco

How’s it going and good day spumco,  so I took the spindle motor out of the machine and I’m taking a look at it to see if it will accept an encoder of some kind.  I’ve never done this before but I kind of understand what its purpose is from all my research after you gave me the recommendation.  The motor does have a sticker on it says it’s a 300v unit 4.7A with IP45 enclosure type.  I take it you’ve done modifications like this before and are very knowledgeable so as I appreciate your helping me with this.  My goal in the end is to have a control link through my existing LTP cable using LinuxCNC.  I’m still not completely sure where to start though but understand that if I do find an encoder to fit the motor that I will also need a special motor drive (Of which I also am not sure where to start lol.  Possibly the Allen Bradley Ultra 3000 or Copley Controls Xenus like you’ve mentioned)  Also I was trying to remove the hall sensors cap cover on the motor but I’m not able to without potentially damaging the bushing/holder as it appears to be glued to the shaft.  I did notice there’s a couple holes tapped on the cap cover that are potentially the rite size and dimensions to accept an encoder though.  What do you suggest I should do?  I’ve still got a lot to learn about this.  Thanks.  Ohh and also the shaft size in the front is 14mm and on the back hall sensor the shaft is size is much smaller 8mm

Edit: I just got the hall sensor off and the cover. (Cover probably wasn’t necessary lol) The hall sensor bushing pickup thing is still glued to the 8mm shaft though.

Ok I got an AMT312C-V and a Allen Bradley 2098-DSD-010-SE ULTRA 3000 lined up in a cart. Should i pull the trigger you think? Also I posted some pictures on here at the bottom of the forum. Let me know what you think?

SLOW DOWN.

Don't buy anything yet.

First thing... you're trying to use the LPT port on a computer to output signals.  I've never done that, so before you start buying stuff you need to get some more advice from some other folks here on what the LPT is capable of.  It can't do analog signals, so you're left with step & direction.

Next, the Xenus can't use single-ended step & direction signals.  Only differential, so I think that leaves the Xenus out of the running if you insist on using the LPT port(s).

The U3k can - I think - use single-ended S&D signals, but you should read the drive manual first.  I've got a copy but it's too big to post here.  Search the internets for it.  Same thing for a free copy of the drive programming software (Ultraware), which also requires a Win PC.

Is there some reason you aren't using a Mesa board for your setup?

Have you priced out cables?  Have you ever made a fiddly encoder cable?  You'll need a cable from the encoder to the drive, plus a connector to attach it to the drive.  Plus a cable from the drive to the LPT port (or other IO hardware).

I'm pointing this stuff out because you come across as rather excited at a potential solution... but this isn't trivial for a novice.