Brother TC-225 / TC-229 adventure!

sweet! that seems to be exactly what we need here.

thanks.

well the machines have arrived. i need to have a 220v 3 phase plug wired, and i can plug the first one in and see whats going on. initial inspection suggests its in good shape.

chips! sady, not new ones. haha. yup, they are a bit filthy, but ive gone over them some more, pulling way covers off and they seem in good mechanical shape. dont feel any play, doesnt seem to be any backlash manually turning the screws on the x and y.

im pleased so far. ive determined that both machines should turn on, as is. so, that is the next step. still waiting on the plug wiring.

fun fun.

so, to the second machine for a moment. the tc229. ive found that the servo drive use 2.5mb/s rs422 serial communication. it suggests its a proprietary 6 byte data block. i assume it transfers both encoder and command, and other data in those 6 bytes.

any thoughts on if this could be deciphered and made to talk to linuxcnc? i can find some basic info on the chip, but not much detail yet. the interface chip is called sanyo ga1022, and is both on the motherboard and in the drive.

thanks, thats a start: "it is possible". now we just need to find out how

is this something the mesa 7i74 8 port serial board would be used for? or is it not that straightforward.

in the meantime, i did turn that machine on last night, and the drives arent getting power (contactor not engaging), so i need to determine whats wrong there, and see if we can get this thing fired up and working under its stock control. i wish i had an electrical manual for this thing.

well, at least one of the drives seems damaged in the tc229, so, all this serial stuff might be for nothing, and ill just buy new/used drives/motors.

gotta see what i can obtain inexpensively. hmm.

yup, all drives are dead. i got the wiring diagram from the brother distributor, and its become clear the last owner tried to change it from 380v to 220v with some transformer meddling, and failed.

so, that answers that.

on the bright side, the TC225 (analogue machine) turns on, jogs, and generally seems to work. so i think im changing my plans around a bit. i will use the tc225 as is for the moment, and convert the TC229 by buying new servo drives and whatever else it needs. so now, to find some analogue drives that will work with the sanyo motors, and not cost alot. the spindle is the hard one, 3.7kw. eep!