New member from Germany - CNC retrofit of a Leinen FM1

Dear members,

I would like to say hello and introduce myself.  I'm a 66 years old Chemist and since 2 years retired from the industry. I am living in the northwest of Germany, near to the Dutch border and the city of Münster. One of my hobbies are old watchmaker machine tools.

I am grown up in an analog environment. I can not program any computer language (but I have a son, who is capable).
I understand pretty well electrics & electro-mechanical matters. I understand electronic circuits up to a level of using components with a maximum of four soldering feet (eg. bridge rectifiers).
All other components, like IC or even EPROM are a "mystery" to me.

I own a small coordinate milling- and drilling-machine. A Leinen FM1, which is equipped with controls from the mid 80s of the last century.

It uses Heidenhain glass scales on the x-, y- and z-axis and ESCAP 12 V DC Tacho-Servomotors for the movements of these axes.
The indication of position and the positioning to a set coordinate is done by a Heidenhain TNC113 unit, connected with an analog control panel. Furthermore there is a dividing unit with a rotary axis, served by a Heidenhain rotary encoder.

The unit is fully functional. But I`m fearing electric defects in the control panel, without having in hand any documentation of the board layouts, the circuits and the connections. If, after 40 years, a capacitor or a diode would become defective, I would be lost. If needed, the Heidenhain TNC113 can be still repaired by specialists, but a repair is very expensive.

My idea is now, to buy 4 Heidenhain EXE610 on the second hand market and connect them to a newly built LINUX CNC.unit. Could somebody be so kind and advise me, which boards I would need to buy for:
- the INPUTs from the four Heidenhain EXEs
- the INPUTs from the five DC motor tachos (4 from the axes and 1 from the spindle)
- the OUTPUTs to the DC Motors amplifiers/controllers(I have already a second set of amplifiers for the spindle motor of 66 V and the axes drive motors of 12 V).
- some other INPUTs (digital and analog) like limit switches on the axes, emergency switch-off etc., potentiometers
- some other OUTPUTs for indicator lamps/LED

What is the target of this excercise:
- preserve the existing controls in original condition
- plug-in of the existing connectors/interfaces (between the machine and the control panel) to a new CNC unit
- the new CNC unit does not need to be highly sophisticated. I would be happy with a program, which activates the 4 axes in sequential mode. I would guess, that high precision, when running several axis simultaniously, would be impossible to realise with DC Tacho-Servos.

Any feedback is highly appreciated.

Thanks a lot and best regards

Hartwig

Hi Andy,

thanks a lot for your response. I will try it and buy the recommended MESA Board.

Yes, you are right, the tacho signal can be connected directly to the DC motor amplifier. I have only one amplifier for the 3 axes. So I can run them only in sequence.

I hope, I will find out how to interpret the inputs (TTL ?) from the Heidenhain EXEs.

Is there any chance to get connected to the LinuxCNC developer in Münster?

Best regards

Hartwig

I have two ebay bought used  EXE's on my mill. 602D/5-F  and 602/1-F.  I never did figure out Heidenhains model numbering, so I ended up with one providing 1µm resolution, and the other only 5µm.
How I wired them up is here:
www.forum.linuxcnc.org/12-milling/33035-...0e?start=1340#152364

Those Leinen FM 1 are lovely machines. Please add pictures to your thread. Lots and lots of pictures
Cheers,
Mark

Hi Mark,

here I'm adding some pictures. The spindles accept 8 mm Watchmaker collets from Boley & Leinen and G.Boley, Unfortunately Schaublin B8 does not fit because of the too narrow slot on the shaft of the collets. 

       

Best regards

Hartwig
 

Here two pictures of the PCB board, which receives all the signals from the Heidenhain TNC113.

Clearly a prototype and it would be extremely difficult to perform a re-engineering and create the circuit diagram.

   

Best regards

Hartwig