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Ohh yes, there were no updates here. But mainly because the machine is running since 3 years production. 
Plan to be better in the sharing-back side of things!Very happy with the system overall, not much left to do I think.

Only main thing I consider to upgrade it to an external ATC system, but this will be quite some work. I had some process reliability issues with the internal tool changer as I do a lot of micro machining with Aluminium dust on the tool holders ruining my HSK25 spindles, not so much fun.

So went back to manual spindles for a bit. Ahh and making the Datron probing work again, thats on the to do!
The build went pretty straight forward. Would always recommend Delta A3s again as their auto tune is very valuable.
Maybe next time I would give it a shot to go Ethercat, as a few years back it was not that well documented.
Made parts down to 0,01mm repeatable. Below that its a lot about how good your spindle is (ER collets suck there)

Mechanical changes
- removed top and replaced with PC to have daylight in the machine
- Upgraded a Microjet 1L cooling system to make it 10L
- just bought a larger tube and sanded of the ends //don't do this at home^^
- Blum Z Nano for more Z-Precision between tool changes (required for sub 0,01mm)
- Schunk Vero Tool Change palette, controlled by a switch next to the emergency-off, oiler unit in the pneumatic cabinet under the machine
- 3d printed chip covers on the sides, so the chips fall down

 
 
 
 


Z-Axis
- Completely changed because the previous one was really unpleasant to adjust and I needed a connector to quickly swap spindles
- Probe is still to be done, but not super relevant for the things I do

 

User Control panel
Went with a 22" Iiyama TF2215MC, touch works well, only a bit glossy, but just looks nice.
Thought about getting an older larger hardware interface panel with it, but as most functions are implemented nicely in the Gmoccapy UI, there was not much I was looking for.
I used mainly the tool eject as hardware button, light and one led for Low-Air alarm together with feed control encoders. The encoders work very well as you can adjust the value either by the UI (switch to 100% with one click) or fine tune it by the knobs in 5% steps.

 


VFD
A bit more messy side of the machine, but works. Liked to have it seperate from the servo controls as I had troubles with that before. Not worth the trouble for solving it for 2m extra cable. 
Started with cable based IO but Modbus is soo good with all the feedback, would never go back ;D
Only thing left is combine the 380V into the machine, as it originally ran on 220V.

 


Electrical Cabinet
- generally very happy how it turned out, but would plan the cable-inlet section a bit better next time!
- used some flexible cable protection, really pricy (especially the end-parts) these things, but looks awesome and keep away the dirt -> really oversize them! Pushing in cables in undersized ones is really painful!!
- Control computer is a Lenovo Thinkcentre M73 with 16GB upgraded RAM, great performance only a second ethernet port is missing

 


Total conversion costs around 4k€ for the electronics, exclusive toolsetter zero plate fixture etc. not so much hobby budget, but still way cheaper than "professional" retrofits I never was down in 3 years for more than a day at 0€ technician costs. Maybe not so reasonable for a scaled business but great to start out as it is way cheaper to break things compared to a new machine. And once you did one machine I would feel comfy to implement it in another in a month of time.

Hope to give some inspiration to implement!

I ran sudo apt purge r8168-dkms then rebooted now I have no internet connetion on that pc so I can't install anything via apt...

JT

-to be deleted-

not sure Gmocappy supports probing yet.
Have a look at QTdragon. It works nicely.
you connect your probe to motion.probe-input  type man motion to read further

yes, but I think rotation is applied to the current coordinates. qtdragon and QTplasmac already support part rotation the way you describe..