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Potential Acroloc Conversion (Comments Appreciated)

Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2020 9:59 am
by martyscncgarage
Have a friend in my local metalworking club who acquired an Acroloc CNC mill with quite a number of tool holders.
He's interested in upgrading to Centroid. Acrolocs use Yasnac controls.
Initial look at the pictures and video tell me the drives and spindle drive are probably too old to be compatible with Oak, but I really have no experience with Acrolocs and Yasnac controls so your input, thoughts advice appreciated.
I do believe they are old Yaskawa DC Brush Servos

Pictures can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Video of the ATC repairs he made, uses a series of microswitches to tell the control what tool number is present. Just a motor to turn the turret:


My first thought is All in One DC with a PLC1616ADD board, and some custom PLC programming. He may need to replace the spindle drive. He says there is no tag on the spindle motor however. Tools are unique to the Acroloc. I don't think there is a spindle orient but not for sure.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and advice.
Marty

Re: Potential Acroloc Conversion (Comments Appreciated)

Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2020 12:31 pm
by TD-4242
This is my machine. I've been trying to drum up as much documentations as I can find. Most of the motor nameplates are missing except for the Z-axis servo which I've attached.


Re: Potential Acroloc Conversion (Comments Appreciated)

Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2020 1:35 pm
by cncsnw
Voltage and current ratings are in the right range for an Allin1DC. There is no way to know how it will tune without hooking it up and trying it. You would likely need to fit new encoders to it.

Re: Potential Acroloc Conversion (Comments Appreciated)

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 5:00 am
by TD-4242
they have tachs in them so an encoder upgrade would be very likely.

Re: Potential Acroloc Conversion (Comments Appreciated)

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 6:34 am
by joneg
why do you think the drives would be too old?

the old drives are probably +/- 10 volt analog velocity drives, an oak is supposed to operate velocity or position drives, you would just have to add encoders for the cnc

Re: Potential Acroloc Conversion (Comments Appreciated)

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 11:31 am
by martyscncgarage
TD-4242 wrote: Mon Apr 13, 2020 5:00 am they have tachs in them so an encoder upgrade would be very likely.
Bill, do you have a manual for the drives you can upload as a .pdf?
Same with the spindle drive?

Re: Potential Acroloc Conversion (Comments Appreciated)

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 1:55 pm
by cncsnw
It is not out of the question that you could run them with the Oak. They almost certainly do accept +/-10V analog velocity reference. As long as they can accept a 24VDC pull-down-to-enable enable signal -- which is more likely than not -- then you can hook them up and run them.

Again, you will not be able to run them under control until you also provide quadrature differential encoder feedback. The old system surely had resolvers somewhere for position feedback: either built into the motors, or perhaps coupled to the ends of the ballscrews.

If you install an Allin1DC to run the old motors, and they prove not to work out, then your "plan B" is to buy new 40 in-lb DC servo motors, and if necessary change the pulley ratios. The old motors are a little over 40 in-lb continuous torque, and have significantly higher peak torque.

If you install an Oak to run the old drives and motors, and they prove not to work out, then your "plan B" is to buy new Yaskawa or Delta (or Estun or DMM) drives and motors. That would be more expensive in the moment, but (at least with Yaskawa or Delta) would give you simple setup, good performance, and long-term reliability.

Re: Potential Acroloc Conversion (Comments Appreciated)

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 3:15 pm
by TD-4242
I have almost no manuals for this machine except the ones Yaskawa supplied for the Yasnac MX1 controller.

I did finally find the motor plate on the spindle driver it's a big DC spindle:

Re: Potential Acroloc Conversion (Comments Appreciated)

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 4:22 pm
by TD-4242
as far as the servo motors go, from the google drive linked above:


This is the Z axis servo motor and the only one with a visible nameplate (linked in comment above)

(Also the spindle motor on the right side)

These four pictures are the best I could get of the X axis servo





And the Y axis servo

Edt: found the nameplate on the Y axis, same as the Z

Re: Potential Acroloc Conversion (Comments Appreciated)

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 4:30 pm
by martyscncgarage
Bill, the suggestion was to possibly reuse the Acroloc servo drives in the cabinet. I would really think you would need the servo drive documentation to see if its possible.

Marc (CNCSNW) gave you scenarios with each possible control All in One DC vs OAK. All in One DC has 3 DC brush servos built on and theoretically could drive your motors provided they can be tuned. Sounds like Marc has never worked with these particular DC Brush Servos.