Poorly N sick Fadal 15 VMC Will live again!

[JAZZCNC]

The resolver information for Dynomotion can be found at https://dynomotion.com/Help/Resolver/Resolver.htm
That example uses their old obsolete KMotion board, but the same can still be done using a KFlop + Kanalog.
If you did want to give it a try, I do have a spare KFlop + Kanalog board you could borrow.

I did do a quick bit googling, and this is the only active product I've found so far - http://addi-data.com/products/resolv...tal-converter/

RS do have an entire section of Resolver to Digital chips, but even the bare chips have some interesting price tags, so I'd imagine that converter will be at least a couple hundred euros, if not a lot more!

Thanks, Moray, to be honest, I think the Resolvers are going to get the bullet or like you mentioned earlier the 4th motor will get swapped out. They are just complicating the job too much and for no gain really. Replacement encoders are easily found and not expensive so for the price of a Resolver card they can be replaced and keep job simple.

[m.marino]

Jazz would a PWM to analog converter work with the motors you currently have in place? As they are an off the shelf item and do come in many different voltage tolerances. That would save having to replace the servos. I do know that some are used with upgrades of older machines in the Michigan. As the servos are stil rock solid the electronics go to crap well before the servo ever does on many older machines. Seems like they cut the corners on the wiring and boards over the motors. That or the tech to make high quality motors had already come down to reasonable prices back in the 80's and 90's, when a lot of these machine were being made.

Good luck on the the rebuild and will keep watching. Now you have my son Mario reading up on Linux CNC (which is a good thing).

[JAZZCNC]

Ok I'm seriously considering something along these lines. That's a lot of firepower for £2k with Absolute encoder motors/drives and all cables etc. I've also been in touch with someone who's been retrofitting machines using these particular manufacturers controllers for 2yrs and they say good things about them. So I'm not worried about the company or quality. They say it's not quite Siemans quality but does the job fine and reasonable to set up with good support.
I'm waiting for them to come back to me with prices because I want an extra panel for MPG etc and a slightly larger motor size. I also requested manuals.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3297...63f365f46csrYK

I'm also looking at Adtech controller with 10" screen with there Q series Drives/Motors which again if bought from China will come for around £2k mark. Not Absolute encoders but still decent quality.

http://www.adtechcnc.co.uk/adt-cnc49...ng-cnc-system/

It will probably mean I've got to change the motor on the 4th axis or find a DC brushed drive like Argon that will accept Step & Dir inputs but can live with that. Or as mentioned I'll just sell it on.?

The search still goes on, no stone will be left unturned or unconsidered.!

[Chaz]

For info, I moved Thor (CS Labs IP-A) onto Mach 4 yesterday to try it out. I had pretty much got Mach 3 working OK but was never happy with its stability and the tuning always seemed a bit off.

Took a few hours to work out how to set it up. Having got SIMCNC working helped a bit as they use some similar 'terminology' in their plugin.

The machine is not tuned property but its working. Some issues with spindle control but I suspect that is related to the VFD, not Mach 4.

My thoughts are 'that's nice, screens look OK etc' but I struggle to see the benefit of the extra work for Servo control where postition control via step / direction just works. Sure, you dont have any live encoder / DRO / closed loop control or knowing if you missed a step but if the machine is setup well, do you really need it?

So yes, moving to Position Control for simplicity must be high on the agenda.

[Neale]

Jazz - watch out for the carriage charge on the AliExpress controller! When I looked just now, it was over £116,000! I think someone's sums went wrong...

[m_c]

One thing to be aware off with the Chinese controllers, is the often quoted 'headline' price has limited axis interpolation.

When I was looking a few years ago, the standard price often only included 2.5/3 axis interpolation, if you wanted true 4 axis interpolation, you had to pay quite a bit more for it.

[Jonathan]

One thing to be aware off with the Chinese controllers, is the often quoted 'headline' price has limited axis interpolation.

When I was looking a few years ago, the standard price often only included 2.5/3 axis interpolation, if you wanted true 4 axis interpolation, you had to pay quite a bit more for it.

To me, this is the sort of thing that makes LinuxCNC more persuasive - the unforeseen features and functions a dedicated controller may lack. You'll have to learn how to set up either option, so better the one which leads to more options?

I like how they advertise the microcontroller:

"32-bit high performance low power industrial grade microprocessor, 400MHz CPU speed"

That's a $10 part:

https://www.digikey.com/products/en?...H743ZIT6&v=497

... but still appropriate. The issue is more that you're presumably locked into only whatever the existing firmware can do. If their customer service is good though it might be a good system.

[m_c]

To me, this is the sort of thing that makes LinuxCNC more persuasive - the unforeseen features and functions a dedicated controller may lack. You'll have to learn how to set up either option, so better the one which leads to more options?

I like how they advertise the microcontroller:

"32-bit high performance low power industrial grade microprocessor, 400MHz CPU speed"

That's a $10 part:

https://www.digikey.com/products/en?...H743ZIT6&v=497

... but still appropriate. The issue is more that you're presumably locked into only whatever the existing firmware can do. If their customer service is good though it might be a good system.

A key thing to remember, is there are probably tens of thousands of these controllers in use in China, so any bugs are likely to have been dealt with.

The big issue is getting support in English, as having seen a couple of the manuals, they are very much in classic Chinglish with lots of questionable translations.
I'd be happy to try one in a pretty basic machine, however I'm not sure I'd be confident to install one on a machine with anything needing some custom programming/setup.

[JAZZCNC]

Jazz - watch out for the carriage charge on the AliExpress controller! When I looked just now, it was over £116,000! I think someone's sums went wrong...

Ah ah didn't see that but don't worry this isn't my first rodeo, I've been buying from China long before most on this forum dare think about it.!

The link was just for reference, if I go this route it won't be that exact controller or motors and the price Inc shipping will be quoted beforehand in writing. I'll also have looked at all the manuals to verify does exactly what I need and what it says on the tin.

[JAZZCNC]

Nice machine. Bit odd how they leave the rails sticking outside the castings - does the carriage move onto that region or stop before?

You got me curious about these rails Jonathan so been to work today and wound Y-axis to the limits. The carriages stay within the casting limits and don't ride onto the overhanging rails at all so not quite sure why they would waste so much rail.? The only thing I can think to explain is that they do an XT version with longer travels and can not imagine the XT uses a different frame casting only longer rails and ballscrews so maybe it's got the longer rails on it.? That said the X rails only hangover 50mm each end so not sure about X.?
Put a longer ballscrew on Y-axis and could easily get another 200mm travel.