Retrofitting a 1986 Maho MH400E

Have you posted the source to your gearbox.comp on github? It would be interesting for us to see where the solutions are similar and differ.

Regarding HALUI, I use gmoccapy, and also expected it to net into the halui pins, but Norbert has found a different solution to hook straight into linuxcnc without netting pins.
Mark

Also you can always just place a bouton in the spindle control window for neutral and one for the brake. And connect them with the comp file.
John

Hi, what do you guy’s thing, is it a good idea to put the vfd below the indramat. Or should I have to redo all the cabinet arrangement, rip off everything and wire everything from scratch with the idramat and vfd side by side.

The cooling unit is in the door in front of indramat and vfd

The VFD manual will have specifications for the minimum spacing above and below (The Indramat probably also has, but that might be harder to find)

I think that as long as you stick to the required spacing it should be OK.

Though side-by-side would look more conventional.

Hello Mark, John and others!

Thank you for this thread, I read it twice now. I've been working on a Maho MH600E machine for a little over a year now and I'd love to do a LinuxCnc retrofit as well. While the Philips control is really nice - easy to use, well-designed, very functional, has all the G-codes that you have to pay for in modern controllers - it's all of limited use due to a memory limit of 17kB with no drip feed and only 2 axes simultaneous motion. So, no contouring or surface finishing, and a PITA to transfer programs to the machine from an 8 year-old laptop equipped with an RS232 port (at a glacial Baud rate with occasional errors of course).

My plan is to change the controller and leave all the old parts. My machine is almost the same as Mark's - 18 stage gearbox with the same speeds, Indramat driver and DC motors for 3 axes, a relay board on the door and LS403 scales from Heidenhain. The difference seems to be the work envelope (600x400x400 XYZ).

The only thing that broke so far was the CRT monitor which I replaced with an LCD, using a fantastic Chinese invention for converting vintage industrial graphics card signals to VGA. That's some serious money saved vs getting an ersatz display on ebay.

The first bit of bad news that I got just today was the quote I got from DMG Mori for the electrical schematics (which did not come with the machine) - ca. 750€! Ouch. This exceeds all the money I need to spend to make the retrofit using Mesa cards and my old computer... But I think it's a necessary evil, especially since I use this machine for work and wanted to do the retrofit in around a month when I have some down time. I don't have the luxury of time if I go with this plan. I'm going to read all I can and buy all the parts, and then find a good timeframe to do the work.

Should I start a new thread in this forum? Also, Mark, did you end up creating any repositories or pdfs as you planned in the beginning?

All the best,
Marcin

Hi Marcin,

Given that your machine is basically the same as my 400E everything in this thread should be applicable. If you want to post your retrofit into this thread go for it.

We made a github repository for the gearbox control comp here.
github
Its wiki has all that we learnt about the gearbox in it.

Send me your email and I can send you my draft "how to retrofit the 400E" document I have been working on. It is mostly complete, but I still want to make a Pendant , and we are still working on improving the way the gearbox.comp plays with LinuxCNC's spindle stop + spindle speed = 0 behaviour. There are two other german guys who are also working on retrofits using this draft as a basis. Maybe we could move to a Wiki, and all contribute to making a really robust "How-To retrofit Mahos" for all.

You should be able to prepare most of your retrofit without touching the MAHO. Set up the PC and Mesa Cards on a backplate which will mount onto the same nutplates as the Phillips used (See attachment, this is the plate which fits where my Phillips was). Since MAHO never seemed to make the same machine twice, your control cabinet may be different.


Things I'd do differently...
You have seen my ITX PC installation. If you do it similarly, rotate that PC through 90°, so that the MoBo edge connectors are at the bottom. I didn't have much space to get the various connectors in there.

In addition to the MESA 5i25 & 7i77 plug and go kit, and a 7i84 to interface with the MAHO relay panel, I'd now recommend you add a 7i73 to interface with a user control module. Also get a 7i74 and DB25M-IDC26 cable from MESA,so you can connect the 7i73 and 7i84 with patch cables, and not have to muck around reterminating them. I also bought Mesa's din rail adaptors. Not strictly necessary, but made mounting easy.

If you use the Heidenhain EXE board, make short cables from the 7i77 encoder inputs to dSub connectors, so you will be able to plug and play the Heidenhain's exe output cables.

I hacked the MAHO ribbon cables to connect the relay panel to the 7i84. You could also make up new cables in advance, so that you don't have as much down time.

I used a 17" Elu touch screen. It really doesn't need to be that big. If I did it again, I'd use a 15", but get a better screen, as mine has a crappy viewing angle.

Mark