Gutting my machine questions

How’s it going, I had a couple quick questions was hoping someone could help understand?  So I just went ahead and halfway completely gutted the cabinet on my older Syil X4 machine because I’m jealous of everyone else having nicer machines than mine and wanted to perform a couple upgrades.  The goal is to replace the factory spindle drive and the main control board.  Anyways I came across a component that was connected to the power supply of old spindle drive and was wondering if its necessary to keep it installed or can I completely remove it?  What is this thing? 
 Also, I noticed there were two of these relays.  One turns on when I first flip the main power switch on the machine then the second one flips on once you boot the laptop or connect the parallel port cable with the laptop on.  Is it necessary to have two of these still or can I just run one only? 
 And a last question, is there a smaller transformer I can get to run all the axis drives?  This one seems kind of bulky and runs the 3 axis’s X,Y,and Z.  It has outputs for 40v(The drivers use) and 24V(The controller board uses).  Is there a smaller one I can get for it that’s compatible with 220v single phase? 
 And a picture of all the stuff I’ve pulled out so far for replacing. 
 Anyhow thanks

Ok will im all gutted an onto the reinstall. I figured id start the big red physical estop button and connecting it to one of the two relays that are available. Should I make it so the estop just kills all power to the control board(the 7i96s) or what should the the professional way of configuring the estop? I didn't pay attention to what all it shut off before I tore it apart. I do know that the motor drives stayed on even with the estop engaged originally though.

My best guess is configure it to kill the control board and kill the spindle power

Estop should kill power to dangerous things
This means things that cut and things that move
The ideal setup is estop kills the servo drive motor power input, and spindle power input.
Most servo drives have two power inputs: control power, and motor power
Do NOT switch the power out of a servo drive (wires between servo drive and servo motor)

Better not to kill power to control

Estop circuit should signal to Linuxcnc that estop has occurred.

Most servo drives will have a digital input that can be configured as estop/fault
When triggered the drive will actively stop the motor. This can be faster to stop than removing input power to the servo drive. There are big capacitors in the drive, so killing input power does not stop output instantly.

So mine will be setup with estop resulting in a digital signal into each servo drive AND cutting the power (using a contactor) input to the servo drive motor power inputs.
Servo drive control power stays on.

The "relays" are actually contractors
Pretty much the same.thing but designed for higher currents. Correct term may help you if need to search in the future

pippin88 wrote:

The ideal setup is estop kills the servo drive motor power input, and spindle power input.
Most servo drives have two power inputs: control power, and motor power

Estop circuit should signal to Linuxcnc that estop has occurred.

Most servo drives will have a digital input that can be configured as estop/fault

 

Ok well on the new spindle drive that I’m working with it has something in the manual that talks about estop signal but there’s no documentation on how to use it.  The other drives for the stepper motors to the axis's XYZ have no such thing.  I really think my machine was originally so old and cheap that the stepper drives didn’t have a control power option built in when manufactured, so it was designed to kill the control board all together instead.  I might have to do the same thing here with this estop or do something at least with figuring out how to signal the spindle drive to receive the estop alert then on the control board signal it the estop function but not completely kill the power to it?

For drivers with only one power input, I would kill the power input to each drive with estop.

Cutting power to control board only is not reliable way. What if stepper driver is faulty and runs away with no input? Need to cut power to the stepper driver.

tommylight wrote:

Are the motors brushed DC or brushless, or steppers?
If brushed DC there are also "extreme limits" that also cut power to drives.

Well I’m getting rid of anything and everything VFD related here lol.  Its a 100% stepper system.  The drives are cheap all though the new spindle drive is pretty nice just is difficult to understand how to configure it and all.  I’m pretty sure the spindle drive has some kind of limits functionality that can be programed into it, maybe even an estop command can be sent to it.  As far the other drives they only take power and step/dir input.  

I’m staring to think go with kill all drive drives power including spindle drive but leave the control board running and also get it to receive the estop signal.

Also do you know of any good 220v relays that are din mountable that don’t hum loudly when they are on? 

Thanks