Gildemeister NEF 480 Retrofit

I am still waiting for the new servo drivers to arrive. So no real progress here. Fiddling around with belt tension and installed a lan to Modbus gateway. Next is to wire in the VFD and the servo drives. More or less it is for load but maybe I try to control the spindle by modbus instead of mesa. Not sure yet

Long time ton progress on the lathe. But yesterday the new drives arrived, so I put them in the cabinet and also connected the z-axis servo:

But I didn’t had the palls to power them on.

Instead I disassembled the old spindle encoder to get the axle now I need to figure out how I connect it to the new encoder and how to mount it back on the lathe. Looks like I will spend some time Drawing an aluminium adapter plate and Housing for 3d Printing.

Also I installed the new mpgs After i fired the old ones by connecting them to 20V DC instead of 5V :dry:



So there might come a day where I really can fire this baby up.

But I found two pieces of sheet metal where I have no clue where they came from. It must have been to obvious to make a photo or I was to to exited to stop to make a picture… :whistle:

today I gave the new servo drives a test......

and no smoke, no blowing fuses.



but didn't get the servos to move. I think the z drive should be set up correctly, so I can start to configure linuxcnc for a first test.
I also ordred a nes pulley to get .001 mm increment on the z axis.

then Itried to fit the new encoder in the old encoder and started by making a coupling:



and the first test looked quite promising





but after I mounted everything properly



it would fit, so shortened the old housing and will print a cover for the new encoder later



no I just need to find the old mounting plate again, which I thought I wouldn't need any more :whistle:

Stopped searching and just made one

​

​

Nice !
I am still learning 3D modelling, have to do mounts for encoders on a retrofit that spent to much time waiting.
Already did a test, model > slicer >3D printer and it was OK ! so now i have to complicate things a bit and run another test.
Yeah i am doing it in plastic, pretty sure it can handle an encoder, and hopefully the motor temp does not go above 80C, PET-G gets soft there = flying encoder parts !

With 3d Modeling im am really slow I never learned it and only do it once in a while.
I cover the encoder with some 3d printed parts. 80° sounds enough I never pushed my machines so hard that the servos went this hot. Not even the spindle.
But I never thought of using 3d printed parts for mounting the encoder. I guess I am not really used to having a 3d printer. ANd I think milling the parts were much quicker. :dry:
This is the downside of 3d printing. But als it looks now I can have the lathe running again in autumn