Triac fanuc advice/project help

[monkeybolt]

Afternoon all.

I've just joined and wanted to say hello, seen some really good advice and help on here and am hoping someone can steer me in the right direction with a Triac project.

I have just taken stock of a 1997 Denford Triac Fanuc ATC. I purchased it from a college in what I would call mint condition. It's had very little use as most of these do. I didn't actually see it before I bought it but was at a good price so just took the plunge.

I've now got several issues though...

Power - I was told it was 240v single phase, turns out it is 415v 3 phase. This is not a disaster as I could purchase a digital inverter and run it from that. However looking through the circuit diagrams etc most of the drivers etc seam to work on a much lower voltage. Would it be possible to run it at a lower voltage and replace/rewire the motor to acomodate this? I'm assuming the 415v 3ph is for the motor?

This brings me to the next idea - convert the unit to run on Mach 3. I've seen lots of posts using the older Triacs and converting them, my unit has servo motors, can this be converted? Can the ATC unit work with Mach 3.

I'm at a bit of a stand still at the moment, do I try and run the machine as is? Or strip it out and replace servos with steppers and new drive boards? Would the servos and drive electronics have any resale value?

I dont really want to start hacking up a perfectly good machine that may be more use as a complete unit to someone and try and sell /swap it for a smaller simple machine.

I'm open to ideas so what should I do? As always I'm limited on cost, I dont think I could run to servo drives so would need to be a stepper conversion.

Many thanks

Mike

[Martin]

Have you got the serial number? We may be able to locate the electrical record sheet.

I presume if as you say it is a True Fanuc control then converting it to Mach with the existing axis drives & motors would be a problem. I think that most Triacs were fitted with a single phase 240 volt spindle drive with a DC spindle motor. It may be the axis drives & coolant that run on 3 phases.

[angel-tech]

I may be able to offer you some help.

I've pm'ed you my contact details.

[jpmiller]

It may be 240v my servo one is 240v
But it has a input connection that is used
For 3 phase / check record sheet

[Martin]

Hope this helps.

[jpmiller]

Three phase by the look's of things right enough martin m8,my record sheet states 240v in the
power requirements box in the record sheet.

[Martin]

I presume the Fanuc axis drives will be 200v 3phase.

[Denford Admin]

I dont really want to start hacking up a perfectly good machine that may be more use as a complete unit to someone and try and sell /swap it for a smaller simple machine.

You're right -converting a machine like this to stepper is a backward step (IMO)
If I were you and wanted a smaller, single phase 240V stepper machine then I'd get this machine working, cleaned up, upgrade the memory, get drip feed working and demonstrate it cutting something decent - then sell it (hopefully for a good profit)

These posts may help
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=1234
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=2967
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=2097

[angel-tech]

you could replace the drives, probably the easiest option.

[monkeybolt]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the replys so far.

My main goal is to get the machine running as is if possible. I only have 240v single phase at the moment. Looking through the data sheets the only thing I can see that needs 3 phase is the suds pump, which I could easily replace.

So with that is it a simple case of changing the power supply to the correct voltages?

Has anyone any experience of doing this?

Cheers

Mike

[angel-tech]

i have a baldor controlled servo triac, and this was 3 phase.

On this machine the only thing 3 phase was the coolant pump and the worklight transformer, so a fairly easy convertion to single phase.

[Lone_Ranger]

Normally on AC Servo motors the motors themselves are 3 phase, often the drives will accept either single phase or 3 phase in but the output to the motors is normally 3 phase. That would mean changing both the motors and drives, pretty expensive. If memory serves me right the Fanuc control doesn`t output "step direction" so you couldn`t run stepper drives and motors anyway.

So I would tend to agree with Martin on that score.

In my humble opinion I`m with Denford Admin, it would in my opinion be sacrilege to start ripping apart a full Fanuc system, it is just about the best there is and I may be wrong but possibly a 1997 machine might just have the Fanuc 21 control which is a much better control than the older Fanuc 0M which had very limited memory, only 128Kb total, any reasonable size job would need more memory than that so it was always a problem. The machines I believe were sold with a lot less than that as Fanuc charged a small fortune for extra memory !!! The 21 would take a PCMCIA card (Assuming the Parameters were activated for it) that greatly increased the on board memory.

Either sell it on (Those machines are always in demand) or just go buy a good Inverter and run it as it was designed to be run, I agree also that any conversion would be going backwards on a machine of that calibre !!!

Contact Tom (angel-tech) and ask if he can find you a good 240Volt single phase one or put a "want" ad in the Classifieds for one, again I have to say, chopping up Fanuc systems is (to me ) sacriligious!!!

Regards
Rob

P.S. Tom, aren`t the servos on yours DC if they are Baldor ??

.

[Denford Admin]

Looking through the data sheets the only thing I can see that needs 3 phase is the suds pump

I'm pretty sure there will be a 3 phase 200V autotransformer in there for the Fanuc drives as well.
So, to get the axes working on single phase would involve replacing the drives and motors (I doubt you could get a single phase, AC motor drive that would know what to do with a Fanuc feedback encoder)
All in all I'd recommend running it as is, from a 3 phase inverter (have a good search through the forum as I'm sure someone else has run a Fanuc machine like this before)

[angel-tech]

Normally on AC Servo motors the motors themselves are 3 phase, often the drives will accept either single phase or 3 phase in but the output to the motors is normally 3 phase. That would mean changing both the motors and drives, pretty expensive. If memory serves me right the Fanuc control doesn`t output "step direction" so you couldn`t run stepper drives and motors anyway.

So I would tend to agree with Martin on that score.

In my humble opinion I`m with Denford Admin, it would in my opinion be sacrilege to start ripping apart a full Fanuc system, it is just about the best there is and I may be wrong but possibly a 1997 machine might just have the Fanuc 21 control which is a much better control than the older Fanuc 0M which had very limited memory, only 128Kb total, any reasonable size job would need more memory than that so it was always a problem. The machines I believe were sold with a lot less than that as Fanuc charged a small fortune for extra memory !!! The 21 would take a PCMCIA card (Assuming the Parameters were activated for it) that greatly increased the on board memory.

Either sell it on (Those machines are always in demand) or just go buy a good Inverter and run it as it was designed to be run, I agree also that any conversion would be going backwards on a machine of that calibre !!!

Contact Tom (angel-tech) and ask if he can find you a good 240Volt single phase one or put a "want" ad in the Classifieds for one, again I have to say, chopping up Fanuc systems is (to me ) sacriligious!!!

Regards
Rob

P.S. Tom, aren`t the servos on yours DC if they are Baldor ??

.

Hi Rob, i think they're brushless ac motors

[Lone_Ranger]

Hi Tom

Quite possibly brushless DC motors, if so then yes, the drives would likely be 240V single phase in and and out, also probably runs sinusidal commutation from the motion control card.

I have a set of 3 Aerotech DC brushless motors and drives with a 4 axis motion control card, I/O board and Opto Isolated extended I/O that run just like that, going to get it all hooked up and running hopefully over the Winter for a project next year, would make a great setup for a nice benchtop router Has CAD/CAM software on the PC as well to produce the G code

Regards
Rob

.

[jpmiller]

Normally on AC Servo motors the motors themselves are 3 phase, often the drives will accept either single phase or 3 phase in but the output to the motors is normally 3 phase. That would mean changing both the motors and drives, pretty expensive. If memory serves me right the Fanuc control doesn`t output "step direction" so you couldn`t run stepper drives and motors anyway.

Hi sorry to hijack/jump in on the thread here, as a newbie to cnc/machining at present my knowledge is very limited and I am a little confused here. I have a triac vmc servo 8 station atc - hmk drive with the denford control, on the electrical record sheet the servo motors are sem 3 phase, however this machine is currently running on 240 volts ac, on the test record sheet it states 240v but on the machine info plate it states 415v
somewhat weird me thinks,the machine has a 1.5hp spindle motor /sem and a dsp386/486 rack type computer,I have searched the net
for info on upgrading the hardware to something more modern but no joy as yet. The machine itself is in really good nick but it won't last forever with this control,but just now it will do for the purpose of me learning the foundations of cnc but what are my options for the future of this machine
as regards to what and how much this will cost,it's a shame the better machines of there day are harder to bring upto date.


best regards scotty

[angel-tech]

the motors may well be 3 phase driven, but the drivers are run off single phase.

[Denford Admin]

the motors may well be 3 phase driven, but the drivers are run off single phase.

That's right - the Fanuc drives were always 3-phase Input supply and 3-phase Output to motors.

As for the Triac Servo machine - it's possible to get servo drivers which accept step+direction input so if you can find some that match the SEM motors + tachos then you will be able to update to Mach or similar. (something like this maybe ? http://www.jrkerr.com/boards.html)
Another option would be to remove the servo system and fit stepper motors and drives - this is much easier to setup and control and is going to be cheaper to maintain. It will probably work better as well- with the servos you're always fighting against drift, lag and replacing tacho / motor brushes etc etc..

[Lone_Ranger]

the motors may well be 3 phase driven, but the drivers are run off single phase.

That's right - the Fanuc drives were always 3-phase Input supply and 3-phase Output to motors.

As for the Triac Servo machine - it's possible to get servo drivers which accept step+direction input so if you can find some that match the SEM motors + tachos then you will be able to update to Mach or similar. (something like this maybe ? http://www.jrkerr.com/boards.html)
Another option would be to remove the servo system and fit stepper motors and drives - this is much easier to setup and control and is going to be cheaper to maintain. It will probably work better as well- with the servos you're always fighting against drift, lag and replacing tacho / motor brushes etc etc..

The whole Fanuc AC servo setup eliminates any kind of drift, lag, brushes etc, the system uses encoders on the motors not tachos and the encoder signals are fed back directly to the Fanuc main board which gives a full closed loop system which is constantly monitored by the Fanuc, also all the velocity, acceleration and very importantly any backlash can be set/compensated for using the Fanuc Parameters.

Yes, there are some servo drive/motor systems around that are relatively cheap and will accept the step-direction output from Mach3 but there is no closed loop to Mach3, only internally to each individual drive.

To get a system the equal of the Fanuc using Mach3 or emc2 from Linux you would need to be using something like a Galil motion control card with full Opto isolated I/O board and that would be fairly expensive.

IMHO I say again, sell it or buy an Inverter

Regards
Rob

.

[Denford Admin]

The whole Fanuc AC servo setup eliminates any kind of drift, lag, brushes etc, the system uses encoders on the motors not tachos and the encoder signals are fed back directly to the Fanuc main board which gives a full closed loop system which is constantly monitored by the Fanuc, also all the velocity, acceleration and very importantly any backlash can be set/compensated for using the Fanuc Parameters.

I was referring to jpmiller's machine which is not Fanuc like the original posters - it's a DOS Denford machine with (SEM?) servo drives instead of steppers...
Updating that machine to Mach would make sense