Retrofit of 2 Messer Cortina DS Plasma cutting machines

1 down, 1 to go!
Did roughly 2 hours of test cutting today, not a single issue.
Here's the last shot of the innards, probably not the last:

And a quick and dirty video:

billykid wrote:

What gear ratio are you using for the z axis? I put a small reducer but it has a small backlash and deceives the thcad... I'll have to put the toothed pulley and belt

I used the existing DC servo motor and reduction, yanked out the tacho and bolted on an encoder. Also added another Gecko G320 as can be seen in the pictures to drive the Z axis.

How much does the torch move up or down from that backlash?
The weight of the torch should be enough to keep it always pressed against the teeth, so i see not reason for it now working, at any backlash amount.

The finished machine was busy today cutting 10mm thick plate all day long, not a single hiccup.
Meanwhile i was yanking out everything from the control box and the power box on the second/bigger machine, turns out i might be better off just yanking out the servo drive box/holder and mounting it on the back of the control panel.
Otherwise, again, the amount of useless wiring on this machine is astonishing, example, encoder wires go from motors that are on the gantry to the power box with 25 meter long cables, go in through connectors, reroute to other connectors and from those go through other 25 meter long cables to the control panel ... that is on the GANTRY!!!!
This is gona be a hoot !
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We sell wires, we sell lots and lots of wires.....

Took the drives from the smaller machine to my shop, found out the wiring for everything, mounted the Mesa 7i77 on one side of the drive box and 2 power supplies to the other side as the drives need 24V and +-15V to work, Mesa 6i25 is on the PC, installed everything inside the existing console but it is getting tight!
Had to cut the motor, encoder, and sensor wires and reroute them to the console, so today a lot of wiring ahead.
Will take some pictures and post here later.

Wires are cut, a bunch is removed, the drive box with Mesa 7i77 and 2 power supplies attached to it is also installed inside the existing console, PC with Mesa 6i25 installed and everything wired and tested, so today was encoder wiring and tuning day!
Took some running back and forth over the machine to disengage and engage the Y2 motor twice, but all three drives are tuned and running!
Was a good day for tuning, also managed to tune the Mazak X and Z motors drives.
Tomorrow more "removing cabling" and extending one of the encoder cables, i cut it to short, shame on me, then removing the existing Z axis motors (has 2 Z axis), trying to shoehorn a stepper motor, add a drive for it and another power supply, wire in the THCAD... hmmm with 2 to 4 hour days, to much???
I should do some pictures and videos, i think...

Sorry for the delay, the second one was finished quite a while back in 2022, but still waiting for the plasma source to do the final tuning and testing.
Also, the machine has been moved to another place in the shop, so aligning the rails is taking forever for them. I did warn them that the rails were off by quite a bit in the old place as i did notice that during tuning of the tandem axis.
Anyone need a 400A Hypertherm plasma source for cheap in Europe?