Hardinge CHNC build

As much as I have learned from reading through other peoples build logs I figured I might as well post something of my own. My project is not terribly unique, as other users have converted similar machines.

The machine is a 1986 Hardinge CHNC II, purchased a few months ago on craigslist that had previously sat for years as a parts machine for another CHNC machine. However, only a few parts were ever removed.

The machine originally had a Fanuc/ General Numeric 10F control, siemens DC servo drives and motors, Fanuc spindle drive (dead) and Fanuc 7.5hp spindle motor.

Mechanically it is in good shape and ran with oil as the coolant for its whole life.

My goal is to retain the machines functionality while updating the control and electronics to something that I can easily work on and find parts for.

Here are some photos.

Thanks for the offer John, you have already helped a ton without knowing it....

I have seen your site, in fact I used your configs and wiring diagrams as a guide to get started. Worked great!


Amazingly enough, after I replaced some bad valves, my entire turret was completely plug and play with your classic ladder work...... I can't thank you enough.,.... the only things I changed were my I/O pins.

My machines wiring was very similar to yours.

This spindle drive came with the machine but was already removed after a tech told the owner the drive needed to be repaired. He did not know much else. I still need to investigate whether or not it is indeed dead, however I was able to get a brand new VFD real cheap so I figured I would go that route for now and if it works out ok I could sell the Fanuc drive, even as a parts board and make a pretty good profit on it. Those things are expensive!

While Fanuc stuff is very reliable, one of my goals is to make the machine easy to find parts for in the future ( and affordable) So I am getting rid of much of the Fanuc and Siemens stuff and replacing it with more modern alternatives.

-Justin

The machine thus far:

Intel D510MO with Picopsu power supply and solid state harddrive
I installed from the live CD, and run 2.4 now, but plan to upgrade to 2.5 soon to use some of the new features.
5i20, 7i33 and two 7i37s from the fine people at Mesa.
System has great latency right out of the box, as experienced by others.
15 LCD screen which fit nicely in the place previously occupied by big old Fanuc CRT.


Things I have working, many with the help of the documentation, this board, browsing mailing list archives, etc...
-The original keyboard works, with the help of a I-Pac keyboard emulator, this took a lot of rewiring but I want to keep the machine as close to original as I can.....
-The entire air system. This includes spindle brake (mechanical), pressurized way lube system, turret system, collet closer, parts chute and some other things I can't think of at the moment.
-Most of the buttons on the original control panel, which is a work in progress using both i/o from the mesa and another keyboard emulator with hal_input.
-Spindle override selector switch, feed override selector switch.
-Manual pulse generator
-Spindle is 90% done, the motor is a 7.5 hp Fanuc AC spindle motor. The VFD needs some fine tuning and probably a breaking resistor for deceleration. ( The machine runs very smoothly, I have run it up to 5500 RPM, which is faster than I will likely ever need to cut. The original max RPM was 6000.
-Turret is complete
-All encoders work properly, the x and z are very high resolution.



One big surprise with this machine is that it uses a ton of air. I am used to machines that use hydraulics for everything. This thing is going to give my compressor a workout.



The last big hurdle will be is the axis motion, after that I will also get the limits switches and homing working...hopefully.



-

So that brings me to the x and z motion.

The machine came with a Siemens dc drive and brushed dc motors. In my effort to modernize and then sell my old drives and still come out ahead I have purchased AC drives and Motors off ebay. Currently they are riding in a UPS truck somewhere out there.

The drives and motors are both current Yaskawa Sigma II.

They seem very widely used and should be easy to get replacements for a long time, and were quite cheap. 2 motors and drives (400w for X and 750w for z) were well under $1000 on ebay. I am looking forward to getting these going. Now a question....

The motors have encoders and the machine has encoders on the ball screws (driven by a belt) So that leaves me with redundant encoders. I imagine I can leave them both on and have the drive monitor its velocity via the motors encoder and emc monitor axis position via the ball screw encoder ( which are also higher resolution) Does this sound reasonable? I will interface with the drives with analog +/- 10V from my 7i33.

As you can imagine, I have a lot of Fanuc and Siemens items that I have removed. If anyone needs anything in particular, let me know.

Justin

nice build log, seems to be a nice family of chnc getting fitted now lo

abit odd how they used the crappy simens DC motors, but i guess they could not fix a fanuc yellow cap under the bed for the X.. but through on 2 and 3 they put it direct drive and put extra bit on the door for the X..

what encoders did you have on the X and Z? as 1 have a 2500, quad giving only 10,000ppr
5mm screws i think they are.. or are in chnc1 what are yours the same i guess, as same 10m/min in Z rapid, and 4.5m/min in X?
i plan to push mine abit harder with AC's and iv made mine 1:1 drive also now motors where they used to be.. just made new mounts.. check out my build thread..

what VFD did you go to? that would be intresting to know..
as motor is same size as our Mill that we VFD. we put a 1kw brake resistor on it, and it takes it all day long, tapping and fast starts and stops so id say you would be looking for the same, especially if you put a chuck on there that will take more stopping.

guess this is the little device u are on about for the keyboard and buttons?
www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html

rob