MotionMaster Upgrade

This is the swivel head that I want to insstall. It comes with Yaskawa servos and digital drives. The rotaries that I intend to install will also have digital drives so I think I will be using the analog drives and servos that come with the machine on one Mesa card, and doing all these more modern stuff on a second card with a 3rd handling all the sensors.

Question: The current setup with the 16hp columbo spindle is about 100ish lbs. This AC head is another 100ish lbs. I wanted to sell the columbo, and just install a spindle that is closer to what I need... about 6hp (max). The machine comes with an air piston that reduces the load on the Z axis servo drive. I'm not sure how much weight it can handle. I image this is a function of air pressure, gaskets, and how the thing is built. If this air lift thing is calibrated right, there should not be any additional load on the Z axis servo, so I'm going to assume that problem away. I sort of have no doubts that the gantry and bearings can take the extra weight... been climbing up there to check stuff out, and its just built solid, don't know what else to say. I think this was welded together as a bridge, and then machined to get a flat surface. I will need some sort of an L bracket and some hackery to stiffen that Z axis. This L bracket will put a moment arm on the linear guides, so I was wondering if I needed a counter weight. I know I will also have to alter the position of the tool changers because the swivel head will push the spindle a little further forward. That's no big deal. I wanted to add more tool holders anyway.

Do you guys see any major concerns? I know all this stuff is mechanically stressful which is why I bought this machine to upgrade instead of rolling my own joint with extruded aluminum. I think I don't have to worry about mechanical integrity, but again, I've never done this before. Thoughts? 

Will have all the faceplates and schemes up tomorrow, then I want to order this swivel head parts once I am sure that I can make this work.

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spumco wrote:

Before you make any decisions, you've got to sort out power
 

THat's what I did today:
The VFD takes 480V directly from source (I am going to replace VFD and spindle, so it doesn't matter).
A 480V single phase line powers the DC bus which in turn supplies power to all 4 drives.
The transformer ties two of the lines into a neutral-ground, and outputs 120V to power the controller and peripherals. I replaced this with 120V AC to test if the controllers are working. Was told by seller that it takes a while to boot. It's abootin as I write this.

The servos are all 140V 65amp max. I do not need the maximum capacity (I am carving wood, and I am doing low throughput. I was thinking to sell the drives (they are out of production and I imagine someone who is running this machine in a production setting would want parts) and replace them with step/dir ones as someone else had recommended. The VFD takes 3 phase power at 360 to 480. I was wondering if I could just supply 220V power 3 phase to the VFD and have it power a 220V 3 phase spindle. This would make the work a lot easier, or just replace it with a single phase 220V VFD to power a 4ish HP spindle. That would work too. Either way, I really don't see why I should stick to 480V single phase since the part that is drawing power is the spindle which I really do not need.

I think you are on the right track.

Single-phase to the machine, and use 220vac step/dir drives and a 220 vac single-phase-in, 3-phase-out VFD for your spindle.

Based on some low-cost (maybe Stepperonline A6) servo specs, you've probably got enough power budget to realistically drive 4/ea 1kw servos (XYYZ), a couple of 750w servos (A&C), plus a 4-6kw VFD for a decent ATC spindle.

If you want a big vacuum for hold-down or dust collection, you might need to put that on a separate circuit.

I'd recommend planning on using timer relays (hardware or software-driven) for the drive and VFD main contactors.  Cheaper drives (and some expensive ones, too) don't have great inrush-limiting features and turning everything all on at once can strain (or overload) the supply circuit.  If you break up the inrush over 2-3 'stages' with some on-delay timers it'll be a lot more gentle.

Clear the estop and you'll hear clunk...clunk...clunk... over a few seconds before everything is ready.

Single-phase to the machine, and use 220vac step/dir drives and a 220 vac single-phase-in, 3-phase-out VFD for your spindle.

This is what I came up with. I can easily send 240V single phase on a 30amp circuit. That plus a 750kvA 32V boost guarded by a 30amp breaker on 10AWG should supply me with enough power for all the drives as they are right now. That's $200bucks for the transformer plus some scrap wire lying around. I want to get the movement of the machine sorted out while the swivel head takes its time to get here on a boat. I believe I'll need an analog mesa card for this setup. The swivel head will have Yaskawa brushless servos. For these, and the rotaries, I will just run them on step/dir drivers. They can be another 20amp 220V circuit. That leaves me with 30amp - 40amp 220 single phase to feed a spindle. Thats a 6-hp spindle - much more than I need. I'll run the raspi off a power bank in case it overloads the system. 

Thanks for reminding me to do this first. This was important. It would have been silly to work on other things not knowing if I could power it all up. Taking apart the control box next. I've confirmed the Fagor controller is working, and that means I can put it on FB marketplace.

motionmasterupgrade wrote:

The VFD takes 3 phase power at 360 to 480. I was wondering if I could just supply 220V power 3 phase to the VFD and have it power a 220V 3 phase spindle.

Probably not. I have yet to see a 480 volt vfd that will run without errors on 240 volts. When I have to run a 480V VFD on 240V, and replacing it is too hard, I use a big step-up transformer. Which tends to cost as much as a new VFD.