Centroid Community CNC Support Forum

Please excuse my newness. I am retrofitting a Milltronics VM17 with an Acorn controller. The machine runs Yaskawa SGDB-10ADG Amps and servos on the X,Y, and Z, and a Hitachi WJ200-075LF on the spindle. All are 3 phase units. I have the amps and VFD in my custody, but I don’t have the servos, as they are still on the machine being delivered, but according to milltronics, they are 48 inch lb servos. The spindle is a 10 hp.
My acorn parts arrive tomorrow, so I am reading manuals and drawing out my preliminary wiring schematic. I have searched this forum, and a few others to see wiring examples for these drives to an acorn board, without any luck. I have found some videos and information about Yaskawa Sigma drives, but not my model of drives, which are of 1997 vintage. Two of my Yaskawa amps were just rebuilt before I bought the machine, so I would like to retain them if possible.
I don’t mind learning, and willing to invest the time to research using these drives, but before I invent the wheel, can someone tell me if it’s possible to use these drives with an acorn board. If so, can you provide me any reference sites I can access to learn the proper wiring of these drives.
My past CNC experience was strictly plugging in a pre-assembled and configured system. I purchased the acorn board because their ad states it supports Yaskawa drives, but can either use this board on another project , or purchase servos and drives that will work. Any help is greatly appreciated and once again, I have tried to answer this on my own, but no success.

SGDB drives are Sigma-series drives. The CN1 connector pin-out should be the same as for Sigma II (SGDH) and Sigma V (SGDV) drives.

You can refer to Centroid Tech Bulletin 295 for some setup guidance. TB295 is for an Oak board in position mode. The only major difference is that Oak uses A-phase/B-phase control, while Acorn uses Step/Direction control (so you would set Cn-02 = 00).

Thank you very much. I didn’t realize my drives were considered Sigma series. That helps a lot.

I've got a Sigma drive on my Acorn driving my 4th axis. They have been around for years and are now on the 7th generation. I think mine's a Sigma 3 or Sigma 4.

They are incredibly versatile, which means that there are hundreds of setup options and parameters. You need to download the software and connect to the drive using a serial cable ideally - and even then the configuration could drive you round the bend. And the documentation is in a Japanese equivalent of Chinglish - the guys who wrote it knew what they meant etc.

Be aware that the step/dir inputs are 5V compatible but the S-EN etc inputs are 24V. You need to fit dropper resistors if you use a different drive voltage. I managed to cross wire one of mine and had to replace one of the input circuits - best avoided! I'm claiming that the manual wasn't very clear on that part....

Mizzenmast, Thanks for the input. The owner told me to retain the Yaskawa’s if possible because they are very high quality units, and two amps were just rebuilt. I have downloaded the software from them, and also have the handheld controller programmer. After reading the manual last night, I just hope I’m not over my head, but hey... if fried boards in the past, actually I’m pretty proficient at performing that task.

Don’t know where my phone got that name for you???

Haha been called worse in the recent past!

Yes, I think they might be described as the gold standard for servo drives. I bought mine second hand from one of the Korean scrap dealers. I recently bought a couple of Chinese Lichuan equivalents (pretty much clones) with a motor thrown in for the same price new as the used Yaskawa. The Lichuans have a tiny subset of options, which at least should make setup somewhat easier you'd think. Sure enough, I have just powered them up and they worked pretty much out of the box, which is handy, as there's no setup software and everything has to be done through the front panel.

I struggled to work out how to set up the Yaskawa drive for a rotary table. The problem was the sheer number of setup options combined with the confusing descriptions. If you are starting from fresh with them, you need to come to terms with the S-EN (servo enable) and P-OT / N-OT (positive and negative overtravel switch) inputs. If you can't even get the things out of Base Block (BB) mode, they will sit there laughing at you.

Great info and much appreciated. If they give me too much grief, the amps snd servos will find a new home, and I’ll buy drives snd servos that are commonplace. The only reason I’m trying to retain them is because two amps are freshly rebuilt and the servo motors are 48 inch/lbs so replacement is a little pricey.