Brother TC-211

:woohoo: Machine is here. Still in the bed of the truck but here. The machine is fully functioning, but does not accept an rs-232 or g-code.
As far as I have read the machine servo motors are 70v +-10 volt direction.

Ok now some info from the manual
x-y-z power supply has the following connections

l1, l2 +dc, +dc, +dc, +t, -t, pb, -pc, -pc, -pc, e


the servo drivers are
r1?, r2?, bc?, (can barely read them) then u,v,w,e,


The servo motors have the following designations

x,y,z servo motors
Connector a

amp pin no resolver signal name hondo pin no driver pin no

1 plug

2 plug

3 R1 3 CN8-3

4 R2 4 CN8-4

5 R3 5 CN8-5

6 S1 6 CN8-6

7 S4 7 CN8-7

8 S2 8 CN8-8

Connector b


amp pin color code pin name

1 red U

2 white V

3 black W

4 green E


Spindle motor

connector a same as above

motor leads

color code pin name comments

red us 2y-4

white vs 2y-4

black ws 2y-4

green e r2-4


krickson leads


color code pin name comments

red ch pc4009m

red ch pc4009m


So the big question. Can I use these drives and servos and if I can what do I need for cards controllers etc. and any help would be greatly appericiated. I will work on getting the tech pages scanned asap.

Also any one in the north east (CT) i would be interested in hiring some pro help. As long as I get to keep both arms and legs

mblaszkiewicz wrote: So the big question. Can I use these drives and servos and if I can what do I need for cards controllers etc.

You probably can keep the servos and drives, and it will almost certainly be easiest to do so.

U V W are the three motor power phases, with E being earth/gnd

It sounds like the servos have resolvers, but I am a bit puzzled by the R1 R2 R3 S1 S4 S2 designation.

Is this a bare machine with no controller? It sounds like you only have power, servo motors and servo drives. (Which is probably ideal for a LinuxCNC conversion).

Is there any chance you can produce a diagram of how things are hooked together now, paying special attention to anything unconnected that looks to be where a controller would go.

There is one on YouTube converted to Mach3 which is a sign that it is probably a fairly simple conversion.

It is a full functioning machine with a brother conversational control. As soon as I get some of the manual scanned I will post it here. Only 480 more pages to go

Since this is a low hp machine. 1.5 hp spindle. Is it possible to run the whole machine on a static phase Converter in the three to five hp range? Also any advice on how to start on tHis project cards etc would be helpful

mblaszkiewicz wrote: Since this is a low hp machine. 1.5 hp spindle. Is it possible to run the whole machine on a static phase Converter in the three to five hp range?

Quite possibly. Have you checked that the input transformer isn't configurable for your mains voltage?
(What is your mains voltage?)

Also any advice on how to start on tHis project cards etc would be helpful

We can't really advise until we know what the control signals are from controller to drives. (and the other way too)

Machine is finally off the truck

The power is 230 3 phase.

I am looking in the manual for how the controller talks to the servos. I will get back with the info asap

I'm not sure if this is the needed info for the controller/servo. if not let me know, and a clue as to what I am looking for

i1357.photobucket.com/albums/q757/mblasz...0271_zpsa2fbf373.jpg

It seams that your drives accept +-10V analog signals.
If the drives are in working conditions the retrofit will not be expensive or too much hard (well it will be easier)
I would recommend a 5i25 + 7i77 for the control of the servo motors. Probably a 7i74 and a 7i84 will be needed after if a lot of IO is needed (if you want to maintain the control with physical buttons, that I personally like).

Thanks its a start. Now a newbie question. What do all the cards do, and I would love to create a modern panel, and have full use of the tool changer, add a tool setter, and possibly a probe in the future.

emcPT wrote: It seams that your drives accept +-10V analog signals.
If the drives are in working conditions the retrofit will not be expensive or too much hard (well it will be easier).

I would suggest that the first thing to do is to find where the analogue control signals to the drives are connected, and perhaps see if you can make the axes move with a 1.5V battery or similar.
(this needs to be done with some care).

The motors have resolver feedback to the drives, what isn't clear is whether the drives convert that to encoder pulses for the controller or not.

LinuxCNC can work with resolvers (my own machine uses them) but I am not sure if the converters have to create the excitation signal too. (sharing encoder signals is easy, sharing resolver signals might be less easy).

This problem goes away if there are linear scales on the axes.