Red Cap Fanuc Motors (late 1990's early 2000's) w/ LinuxCNC and Single Phase?

Anybody have any tips on whether I can get new controls for the early 2000's red cap Fanuc motors or otherwise retrofit a Fanuc-based machine so I can convert them over to single phase and use LinuxCNC with a Mesa card?

I'm tempted to do a conversion, but dropping in new motors seems like it would be a deal-killer. I can afford new controls though, if I have to go that route.

Last conversion I did I just picked up new ClearPaths and it was super easy, but I am assuming that the original Fanuc motors are far superior to the CPs.

Pico Systems (that's me) has an encoder converter that converts the proprietary Fanuc signals to industry-compatible quadrature plus commutation signals. I'm guessing from the date these are probably the serial pulse coder version.

We also have servo amps that can handle up to 20 A peak. And, we have a PWM controller board that interfaces to LinuxCNC. See

pico-systems.com/osc2.5/catalog/index.php?cPath=3

For more info on these products.

Jon

Thanks Jon and Andy!
So the motors are either α or α-i. My understanding is that the α-i motors used fiber optics for the data? Do your products support these?

For the spindle motor would I just want to look at a VFD?

Kind Regards,
FDP

I don't know anything about fiber optic encoders. Do you have pictures of the connectors?
I am pretty sure motors made in the early 2000's are not fiber optic. There are a HUGE number of different serial pulse coders that Fanuc made, so it can be confusing.
If you can get me the model number of the encoder or motor, I can try to look it up.
But, if these are Alpha motors, I should have converters for them. There are some later models like the (Beta)64iA that have a higher data rate, so my converter doesn't handle them.

Jon

Thanks, I am currently working on getting photos of the encoders/motors so I can get you this info.

After much talking to Fanuc/Fanuc techs I am leaning pretty heavily towards ditching the Fanuc control for LinuxCNC, but I would have to be able to do a full single phase conversion as part of that and not loose too much power in the process.

The machine is a meager 5kVA (2.5-5HP spindle), so from a power standpoint it should pretty easily fit on a single phase circuit. Is there a power loss if I use your boards?

Also, do you have anything to run the spindle, or should I just expect to have to use a VFD (with the commensurate power loss)?

Single phase is no problem. You can use a suitably-rated VFD to run the spindle motor. There should be no power loss for the spindle when using a VFD.

About power loss on the axis motors, if you are the guy who emailed me pictures of a motor label and some drives, the (Alpha) 12 motor (A06B-0143-B177#7008) motor is a pretty big one, 12 nm stall rating, and needs 43 A to deliver peak torque. The Pico Systems servo amps are rated at only 20 A peak, so you would get less than half the peak torque rating.

Jon

As for this optical thing, it is the connection between the CNC control and the servo amps (A06B-6096 series) that use optical communication.

The encoders used with this series are of the serial pulse coder style, using Fanuc's own proprietary protocol, but it is all electric.

(Just to set the record straight.)

Jon

Thanks Jon!

I'm a different guy (still waiting on pictures of the motors). It's good to hear that they aren't fiber optic!

I will get in touch once I get the motor photos (should be next week).

Kind Regards,
FDP

It looks like the machine has a 21iMA control.