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[TOMBOLDUC]

HELLO ALL

I am brand new to this forum and therefore lack any experience on forum ethics so I ask for your patients with me upfront.

My reason for joining is that I am toying with the idea of upgrading my 1980's vintage Tree lathe Up1000 that actually still basically functions, however it is very unstable when operating using the stock controller (I.E. axis will suddenly take off uncontrolled, spindle speed not stable, I can not load a program into memory using the rs232 port , however it will load a program in MDI mode but that is a real nightmare to do).

I spoke with Centroid customer service, he gave me several ideas but also needed me to find out additional information to be able to proceed forward.

I guess at this point one of my biggest issues is the spindle controller. Its a DC spindle motor controlled by a Semens Simoreg 6RA2627 6m v30 1a ( I actually have 2 spares of these in the box that came with the lathe when I bought it) so I would like to reuse that in the conversion to help save costs. The issue is I have no clue as to what it requires for the control input signal ( 5v, 0-10v, +-10v, etc.), I am hoping someone here may have some knowledge on interfacing it to the new control.

Another issue Centroid brought up is the tool changer. It has an 8 station changer that actually functions now, hydraulically operated with what appears to be an encoder mounted on it as well, however I have no idea on how I would program the logic to operate that.

The last major hurdle would be the x,z axis drives, IF AT ALL POSSIBLE (I REALIZE IT MAY NOT BE POSSIBLE but I guess it does not hurt to ask) I would like to reuse them also if possible. They are Westeck drive amplifiers that I also have several spares of.

I am under the impression that there are several members who have done the control conversion on this lathe and would like to contact them before I embark on this project. My knowledge concerning this is extremely rudimentary.


Thanks in advance for any help offered,

Tom

[Chaz]

There's many of us that have done similar mods. The Wizards for the ATC programming help and Ive just done a pocket based ATC, first one ever, no coding needed. On my lathe conversions Ive needed to code.

Do you know what the encoder type is on the lathe turret? Grey logic / absolute positions or just a counter on one or all positions? That will determine how best to do the ATC code / approach.

[TOMBOLDUC]

THANK YOU FOR REPLYING.

To answer you question concerning the ATC I do not have a clue about the logic, how can that be determined?

I am searching the Centroid site for the atc wizard in hopes it may give me clues, but I cant seem to find it.

Thank you I do appreciate you responding, I need all the tips I can get on this project.

Tom

[richardb15]

Hello!

You need to get hold of the installation manuals or review the machine wiring diagrams to identify the control connections for the spindle and axis drives. Without that info you won't get far. You need to know the connections and functions. Once you know which connections do what, you can stick a multimeter on them, run the machine/spindle/jog the axes and see what voltages/signals are going into the drives to do stuff. Do you have the manuals and machine wiring diagrams? If not get googling I'd suggest.

[centroid467]

I dug up a very low quality faxed copy of a manual for some part of the SIMOREG 6RA26 series and it claims to have +/- 10V for speed reference input on A1 terminals 56, 14, and 70.

This may not hold true for yours as the part numbers I have found in this document are 6RA26xx-6DV50 and so on so there may be differences with your 6RA26xx-6MV30 model. Do you happen to have the manuals for your DC spindle drives?


What are the exact part numbers of the axis drives? Do you have the manuals for them?

[TOMBOLDUC]

Thank you Centroid467 and RichardB!!!! that may be very useful info.

I do have a digital copy of the manual however it is all in GERMAN, I could try to post it here if I can figure out how to do it (I am all thumbs on this stuff) but I could try if for nothing else it may help others in the future.

I also have digital on the axis drives that I think is for my drives (I have to try to verify that first before posting it )

I was looking at my semoreg and the control pins that have wires connected are #17,#13,#68,#56,and #14.

I have been trying to figure out how to attach the digital file here but so far no luck in that department, if some one could chime in on that it would be appreciated.

Once again thank you advance

Tom

[TOMBOLDUC]

In response to Richardb15's post above,

How would I try to measure the input voltage to the control input, pin to pin, or pin to ground?

Thanks again
Tom

[richardb15]

If you use the full editor & preview button to write your post it will allow you to attach files so you can post them here.

To measure the voltages with the machine turned on, and spindle running, connect the multimeter black to an earth point then with it set on DC volts just move along all the connected signal inputs and note what they are reading. One or two are probably close to zero all the time, they are likely the 0v reference points. Others will change to a set value of 0v when off, maybe +5v or +10v when on, and one pin will change voltage with speed hopefully between 0v and 10v. Give it a go and see what happens. Just don't be measuring the thick wires ones from the power boards as they are the feed and motor power, and some old DC stuff runs several hundred volts DC, that is not good voltage to be touching. Signal wires will be small, maybe 0.5mm2.

[TOMBOLDUC]

Thank you for your reply Richardb15

That is kind of what I thought about measuring the voltage, I just wanted to make sure ahead of time.

Below I will try to attach the semoreg files ( lets see how that goes, there are quite a few pages all in German)

[TOMBOLDUC]

Well I guess that did not work that well as far as attaching the files.
They are all on a usb stick,if anyone knows how I can attach them here please let me know, I am at a loss on that

Thanks in advance