Morbidelli Author 600KS - retrofit / tear down

Hi All,

Barney here.

I've just traded in my 'Alibaba' 6040 for a Morbidelli 600KS.

Why? Because I wanted to build a bigger CNC that could cut a foam windsurf board and other projects on the side. I work for myself out of this factory unit doing fiberglass repairs.

First idea was to build a 3axis Mach3 machine from scratch, but I found this website and now I'm stuck here.



I chose this Morbidelli because it has a lot of clearance under the gantry, 430mm. Enough room for a windsurf board.



Unfortunately, I can only access this clearance if I remove the pod and rails. Another negative is the existing Z axis travel is also only about 200mm, so I'll replace the 'cabnet making' setup with a simple spindle with more travel.

Maybe I can remount the electro spindle and even the tool changer?



The computer is old, and reading a few threads on here it's pretty common to upgrade the controller. I'm hoping for advice and guidance on this next step.

The servo motors are...
Yaskawa
SGM-09V2ABB
0.85KW
1500
7.1A
200v

Servo Drivers
Yaskawa Servo pack
SGDB-15VD Y104



Unfortunately I don't know much past basic Mach3, and I know next to nothing about Linux!

Any tips on the next step would be a great help!

Find the PDF datasheets for the drives, check if they are controlled by +-10V analogue, check if they do work, buy a Mesa 5i25 or 6i25 or 7i92 together with 7i77 and start figuring out what is connected to whet and how. Basically that is it, but it takes a lot of reading and learning for a successful result.
As a reward you will end up with a very usable machine and get work done with joy instead of painfully messed up software Morbidelli uses. As that is a machine built by Italians, be ready for some surprises and not the nice kind, but all in all it is a quite capable machine.

The drive manual is here:
yaskawa.com.cn/technology/download/Manua...rvo/TSE-S800-16E.pdf

The drivers and servos can be used with step and direction position control or +/- 10V analog velocity or torque control.

if you are used to Mach3 then you might prefer to use step/dir position control and you could even consider using the parallel port. However you would run out of IO pretty quickly if you wanted limit switches and tool-changer support.

Using analogue velocity control and closing the position loop in LinuxCNC might give better performance (as it allows feed-forward control). That will need some external control hardware (such as the 7i77 previously mentioned)

Pick a strategy and we will advise you on how to make it work...

Thanks for the advice Andy and Tommy. As recommended, I've now got a LinuxCNC PC with Mesa 5i25 card and the 7i77 is still in the box.

The current strategy is 'analogue velocity control and closing the position loop in LinuxCNC'

I've roped my Dad into helping.

meanwhile I've committed to converting this morbidelli back to a basic 3 axis router for simplicity and because I want more Z axis travel down the track. I've stripped well over 100kg of motors, drills, tool changers and I hope to remount the main spindle back on the current Zaxis plate(?) -



So far we have just one question - We are trying to get an understanding of the Pncconf Wizzard and are unsure how to set up the 7i77 for +/-10v... The only options are step mode or PWM (Pulse width modulation>?)

any help would be appreciated - hoping we're on the right track?

PBR2000 wrote: The only options are step mode or PWM (Pulse width modulation>?)

Read "PWM" as analogue voltage. That is how the FPGA creates a variable analogue output voltage[1]


[1] Actually the 7i77 might use digital potentiometers or dedicated DAC's, but that's not really important)

Hi mate, any updates on the retrofit? I've had plans on retrofitting an Author 502 for a while now. Just need more spare time and a bit more research.

I think we've even spoken on the phone, as I was selling the machine at one stage.

Any feedback on your current progress would be great. My main concern is wiring and tuning the servos. As the guys here have mentioned, I need to be prepared to do A LOT of reading.

Hello, do you start retrofit? I have som question about servo drivers. Can we be in contact?