H.E.S. 24NCS Lathe (24 X 60) conversion

Thanks for that tip on checking the thrust bearings. In hindsight it is so obvious it hurts. I will check that out tonight.

I read a few threads on here concerning wiring in resolvers and then the Hal files to make it work. First I am going to check the resolvers to see if they are still good. I could change them to encoders easily but don't want to spend the money if I don't need to, plus it seems like there will still need to be work with the Hal file with encoders on the dials for manually driving the carriage and cross slide.

canner wrote: I read a few threads on here concerning wiring in resolvers and then the Hal files to make it work. First I am going to check the resolvers to see if they are still good. I could change them to encoders easily but don't want to spend the money if I don't need to,

I don't know of any cheap and good ways to read resolvers. Both Mesa and Pico make good solutions, and I am using the Mesa card on my own machine. It only works with the N x 50pin Mesa PCI cards. (5i20, 5i23. Not the 5i25).
I have a cheap (but not good) way of doing it: wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ResolverToQuadratureConverter which might be adequate for MPG.
The Pico device converts resolver output to quadrature pulses, and that ought to work more readily with digital inputs. pico-systems.com/resolver.html
You might find it more cost-effective to swap to encoders, though.

If you were to find some suitable resolver-feedback servo motors (which seem to be cheaper, due to lack of demand, despite the fact that resolvers are more expensive and better than encoders) then the 6-axis Mesa card starts to look like a good solution.

I have gone ahead and ordered encoders from automation direct, mostly because I don't have a wiring diagram for the old machine. I could not figure out how the motor generators connects to the resolvers and what the function was for the different pieces. I am saving the generators and resolvers, maybe they will be useful at a later date.

I have everything stripped out of the control box and am starting to remove all of the shielding and the paint. I will use a Sherwin Williams industrial paint to repraint and try to come close to the original color.

I am working on this machine again and have a question about the stepper motor drivers. The current drivers are microkinetics dr8010. I have not been able to find the information on these drives that I will need for setting them up with linuxcnc (stepon time and such). I have called the company and emailed them as well without getting an answer. if someone know that the timing requirements are for these drives that would be great. If not should I look for replacements or is there another way to figure this information out.

I could also replace them but then which drives to go with, the motors are 7.8amps so if I went with the Gecko 203v I would lose 10% of that. I am tempted because these drives have worked so well on the mill. Can anyone tell me does the morphing from microsteping at low speeds to full steps at higher speeds really make a difference? I have not found, to my knowledge, other drives that offer the same feature.

I am open to ideas on this and any suggestions that are out there for making the current drives work or replacing them.

canner wrote: I am working on this machine again and have a question about the stepper motor drivers. The current drivers are microkinetics dr8010. I have not been able to find the information on these drives that I will need for setting them up with linuxcnc (stepon time and such). I have called the company and emailed them as well without getting an answer. if someone know that the timing requirements are for these drives that would be great. If not should I look for replacements or is there another way to figure this information out..

You can just guess. The times just have to be "long enough" and 5uS (5000nS) is generally long enough.

However, the manual:
www.microkinetics.com/pdfmanuals/DR8010.pdf
Says 50uS for the LO level (which is space, but as the driver input circuit is shown as active-low this is a little confusing)
I suspect that the 50uS they quote is related to the max step rate of 16kHz. If you tell LinuxCNC that there is a 12.5uS step length and a 50uS space length then you should be pretty safe.

They say that the inputs need 30mA, so some parallel-ports might struggle. However, it is shown wired as a sink (you can get a handy 5V for the control inputs from the PC USB port) so should be OK.

As a suggestion for the drives, I would consider Granite Devices. They can handle the power you require and they can be used for steppers (not sure if one drive can handle 2 steppers, but they can handle 2 DC servo motors).