Escalation of a Maho MH400E Retrofit (LinuxCNC + EtherCAT)

Oh man! I will definitely follow this project, it will be interesting to see the changes! when you trouble shot the indramat did you try switching the motors with there respective "channels" to see if it was a motor or drive issue? I guess it doesnt really matter now that the cabinet is empty haha. I know a guy that might need an indramat drive lol

That’s not the point of no return, it’s the point of no concern!
Getting rid of thw old sh** drivers is one of the best things you can do.
I love old machines and mechanics, but 1980s servo controllers and PCs can drive you crazy after 45 years.I retrofitted an old DECKEL FP3NC with LinuxCNC and new AC Servos a few years ago. It runs like charm.Today I would use EtherCAT Delta Servos and the cabinet would be about the size of a shoebox.

I was never able to figure out if it was the drive or the motors, I just kept getting weird results. I also know a guy who might need an Indramat drive and I already sent him a message.

@suremetall Yeah, that's what my thoughts are exactly. I could keep messing around with the original hardware, waiting for one thing after another to fail, but once this retrofit is done I should be able to run it for years to come.

The biggest challenge for me at this moment is the motor adapter for the z-axis (ram), which doesn't have a lot of space. 

I already created a design, but I'm having some issues with the tolerances and manufacturability I can't really get my head around. 

 

 

 

i reused the original mayr safetycouplingers on my FP:
forum.zerspanungsbude.net/viewtopic.php?t=47794#p575058

Thanks, @Surmetall. I took a closer look at your solution and it looks very clean.The main issue on my side is that it appears MAHO did not use the same motor construction as Deckel.



I’ve been trying to find maintenance or service manuals to see whether the front bearing housing of the original motors could be reused, but so far I haven’t had any luck.

Another complication is the very limited space available for the Z-axis, which makes motor placement quite challenging. I’m planning to make a short video soon to better illustrate the space constraints and the problem I’m running into.