Retrofitting a 1986 Maho MH400E

Just below the ground rail is a red wire and three small pink wires going into some type of block having three orange stripes on the outside. What is that --- a wire junction block?

Yes, it is made by WAGO
It's the 12VDC for the EXE.

Nice Progress Hanno! Bet you had air punches on that!

I remember reading somewhere that you don't want to save HAL files in MS wordpad as it adds such characters.

I am on an eight hour layover in Doha on the way to Auckland. Will be visiting family in February, so it'll be March before I get back to the MAHO.
Mark

"on the way to Auckland" Must be nice., wish I could spend the summer in New Zealand .
Get a Photo of the DMG field office,if you can find it.

Hi Bob,

My Maho (with the Philips control still in it) does 1500mm/min which is several times slower than a lot of stepper motor machines. What I was thinking was that an i7 8 core processor, running on a very efficient system (Linux, as opposed to say Windows) with an SSD hard drive and plenty of RAM is overkill for driving that machine.

The block processing speed on the LinuxCNC interpolator would probably go over the entire program before the Maho completes its first rapid

My comment really came from the fact that I want/need to use what I already have on hand for my retrofit and I find the contrast amusing, putting that kind of hardware in a machine that's fine with an M8 CPU (whatever that even is; on the CPU board there's a whole bunch of chips, rather than a single larger chip, like with the x86 CPUs of the late 80s; I've no idea how fast that board is).

I mean, the Philips control runs on hardware that's way slower than an Amiga and it's been good enough to pretty much centre most of my little business around it. Modern hardware just sounds crazy.

I don't know much about machine speeds from that period, I only know that Deckels usually did 6 m/min in rapids (more than twice as fast as my Maho). I have no idea what the programmable feeds were, I'd have to spend some time on machineseeker to find out. Fair comparisons could surely include tool room mills made by Deckel, Mikron, Kunzmann, etc.

I don't think even modern tool room mills are really fast, if the machine isn't designed for large production runs then it's kind of a waste of resources for the builder to cram it with linear ways and turbo fast servos. In the end, in a factory setting (where new mills always go) the tool room machine is going to be manned by a guy smoking a cigarette watching it peck drill a hole in a fixture at 150 mm/min when he's not tending to a lathe. The workhorse mills are all VMC/HMCs.

The Maho is kind of unique because it has micron grade linear scales and it can be used for very precise cuts, such as mold and die making where a lot of these old machines used to work at first. So now it's better equipped than a standard VMC, but without an ATC and at those speeds there won't be any shop owners jumping at the opportunity to buy a used unit for retrofitting.

Hi! My nama is Denis and i'm from Russia. I've start to retrofitting Maho MH440T with Mesa boards: 5i25, 7i77 and 7i73 for pendant/JOG. I have some questions about this. Can you give me your email?

Hello Denis,
Welcome. Post your questions here, as the answers may be interesting to others.
Mark

Hello! First question is about link gearbox library from github to LinuxCNC. How i can do it?
I was analize schematic of MH400T and don't understand how tool change works. I mean, it works like simple trigger with two states? I found time-relay in relay box, in schematic it corresponds to tool change. What is role of this relay? And, finally, i want to ask you: can you send me image of your LinuxCNC (HAL and ini)? More is better. Thank you!

PS: this forum works very bad on my PC, i'm trying to post this message 3rd attempt...

Best wishes, Denis.

Hi Dennis,
download the code:
github.com/jin-eld/mh400e-linuxcnc
look at the wiki:
github.com/jin-eld/mh400e-linuxcnc/wiki/...-Component---Testing

it says:
Copy the entire set of downloaded files from github into a folder such as /home/linuxcnc/gearbox_sim
cd .. up to you linuxCNC folder
sudo halcompile --install mh400e_gearbox.comp

But this code is only for the gear change, not for tool change.
You own one of the rare 400T models with a tool changer.
I would love to have one on my machine
Can you upload the schematic of the tool-changer ?
I can upload my latest configs (HAL, INI) tomorrow.

Hanno

Hi Hanno! I'm talking about tool hold/release circuit, not automatic tool changer. My MH400T doesn't have automatic tool changer. Upload your HAL/ini please, it can be very usefull for me. Thank you!

Best wishes, Denis.

On my 400E, the tool is held by springs, and release hydraulically. There is only one Relay. You connect that relay to a HAL pin, and button of your choice. Push the button, hydraulic pump turns on and kicks out the tool. To put in a new tool you push the same button and when you release it, the gripper springs pull in the tool.
Mark