Deckel Retrofit FP4A

Hello dear linuxcnc community
As i am new to the community i want to introduce myself first.
I am Christoph from Munich, Germany studying mechatronics in 2nd semester and this is my first cnc project.

Well starting in July i started messaging RotarySMP because we were thinking of getting a cnc mill in our local makerspace and i was thrilled by his in my opinion perfect maho retrofit. due to political reasons and corons this got cancelled and i wanted to buy a cnc mill for myself instead. one of the typical cnc routers as you can find them on youtube was to weak for what i wanted to do with an cnc mill so i came fast to the conclusion that i need an real piece of machinery.
Luck has it that i obtained an deckel fp4a for quite a bargain only a few kilometres from my house so it was decided i would get it.


Well. After spending the past half year getting my workshop renovated i started working on the actual retrofit in december. But have only been able to gather all necessary sources and get proper new servos mounting flanges and fitting mesa cards.

Workshop pre renovation:

Workshop after renovation: (Hole in the Wall got closed up in the meantime) Backroom picture coming soon)


Servos and Servo drives from Lichuan:


Component wise, the FP4A consist of a Gearbox similar to the Maho machines
it offers 3 different optical linear scales from Haidenhain which i bought fitting Haidenhain Exes for so ive got 3 Different TTL Inputs
The Deckel offerd automatic lubrication by a vogel oil pump and pneumatic tool clamping

Originally the FP4A got controlled by a dialog 4 which connected to a PLC (SPS)
I decided to RIP both out and sell then to a spare part vendor as i cant afford buying replacement in case of something dying through that i nearly got the entire price of the machine back

Hardware wise myself i got an Mesa 5i25 connecting to an 7i77



I created this threat for multiple reason
for peoppe interest in my journey. Helping people with similar problems and of course getting some anwsers and help related to my project aswell.

Upfront i've got mutliple questions and things i'd like to hear others opinion on

First will my 7i77 be enough for the Gearbox the pneumatic pump, cooling pump, 3 different linear scales, etc and when what extension card should i get.

Should i try to simulate the old PLC (SPS) through the ClassicLadder and emulate all old functions like the gearbox through that or should i trigger it all directly

And second of all i cant seem to find the correct relais in the wiring diagramm for the gearbox
could one of you please take a look and help me out? ?

I scanned the electrical documentation of my machine and uploaded it for anyone interested and which is necessary for giving any advice i guess

I hope to hear back from some of you and i hope i can get this done till the end of summer. I planned myself 3 Hours a day in for this retrofit
we will see haha ?

Cant upload it here due to file size limit Documentation
drive.google.com/file/d/1L1OZL46JG6bs0GX...qw/view?usp=drivesdk

Done

Nice project.

The gearbox comp which my friend wrote for the MAHO is here;
github.com/jin-eld/mh400e-linuxcnc/wiki/...Gearbox--Description

There is a flow chart in the attached documents, which you could use to understand what this one does, and to identify the changes you will need to make to get the code working on the Deckel.

Did you sell the SPS? That might not have been a great choice, as you will need some way to interface between the MESA's I/O's limited current capacity, and the various high current contactors. I guess you can do it all with classic ladder and a few relais, but the SPS would have had logic implemented which you will have to duplicate. Was the gearbox scheduling in the SPS or the Contour? By the Mesa, the scheduling was in the Phillips, and instead of an SPS, there is just a dumb Relais board.
Mark

Well one of the SPS(PLC) Cards was broken and other people in the german CNC community discord advised me to throw it out as the deckel sps likes to give weird errors without actually giving the proper reason for it

I am keeping the old spindel configuration as i dont like the lost torque from and vfd
which is why i want to use the old gearbox
though i might replace the main spindle motor with an 5kw Servo when i got everything running for a while and got the money *cough* students poor

MrSpeaky wrote:

Well one of the SPS(PLC) Cards was broken and other people in the german CNC community discord advised me to throw it out as the deckel sps likes to give weird errors without actually giving the proper reason for it

Good point. Forty year old electronics can be a nightmare.

Where did you buy the Lichuan servos?
Mark

Hi,

i have the same Machine FP4A with Heidenhain TNC355 Controller.

The difference between the Deckel and the Maho Gearbox is, that on the Deckel the Gear Motors are able to drive continously...

An important point is the valve Y10 on page 28 of your pdf. this is for the lubrication of the vertical head. normally you get no notice if this function works, at my machine the plc output was broken and sadly the vertical spindle bearings got no oil for an long time....

this should be the same gearbox forum.linuxcnc.org/12-milling/35316-retrofitting-a-deckel-fp5nc

I bought them directly from lichuan i messaged the email i got from aliexpress. So through that i managed to get then quite cheap
2 x 1.3Kw and once 2.6kw with a break with drivers for 980€ Plus shipping and Customs

Though now that i got then
the reason i bought them is because they support the +-10V from the Mesa 7i77
But i noticed that they also support Fancy Modbus over ethernet cable might actually be easier to controll then through that cause you can just connect them together but i dont know how that works