Adding Renishaw Probes (tool setter, and wireless spindle probe) to a FADAL 4020HT

Hi mflux,

I got my probe set up from eBay and I am really impressed with how complete it is! I have everything, down to the original packaging and packing slips. Doesn't look like it has ever been used...

I believe I found everything I needed for fuses, SSRs, and the circuit breaker.

So, I now have a couple of mechanical installation questions.

The "Probes & Scales" wiring document shows the OMM as mounting on the "Left Top Panel", meaning near the tool changer. Did you mount yours there? The only advantage I see over mounting it on the "Right Top Panel" is that the 4th axis might get in the way of communication with certain set ups.

You ran your tool setter conduit through the base casting side drain and out underneath the column. The maintenance manual says the TS probe is factory mounted on the left side of the table, but it also says, "The cable is mounted on the top right side of the sheetmetal and routed through the back of the machine over to the CNC cabinet." Were there any significant advantages to the way you routed yours? I was thinking of routing mine through the left side sheet metal similarly to how the X-axis motor cable is mounted.

Thanks again for your help!

-Jon

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Originally Posted by wozzwinkl

Hi mflux,

I got my probe set up from eBay and I am really impressed with how complete it is! I have everything, down to the original packaging and packing slips. Doesn't look like it has ever been used...

I believe I found everything I needed for fuses, SSRs, and the circuit breaker.

So, I now have a couple of mechanical installation questions.

The "Probes & Scales" wiring document shows the OMM as mounting on the "Left Top Panel", meaning near the tool changer. Did you mount yours there? The only advantage I see over mounting it on the "Right Top Panel" is that the 4th axis might get in the way of communication with certain set ups.

You ran your tool setter conduit through the base casting side drain and out underneath the column. The maintenance manual says the TS probe is factory mounted on the left side of the table, but it also says, "The cable is mounted on the top right side of the sheetmetal and routed through the back of the machine over to the CNC cabinet." Were there any significant advantages to the way you routed yours? I was thinking of routing mine through the left side sheet metal similarly to how the X-axis motor cable is mounted.

Thanks again for your help!

-Jon

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actually the way that i routed my ts probe was kind of a pain in the arse. i did it the same on my vmc-20 when i did probes on that machine just recently. the install went without issue, but maybe it could be easier another way. what i do like about having it routed in conduit back behind the y-axis is that its a pretty clean looking install. I then run the conduit up where the 4x connector is. i just used an electricians knock-out punch (see harbor freight or similar) to make a new hole for the conduit fitting. remember that you have to allow for full travel of the table, and also you have to make sure it will never bind.

if you mount the tool setter probe on the right side of the table, i'm pretty sure the universe will stop expanding sooner than expected leading to the next big bang in our lifetime.. do you want that on your conscience?

(if you use a vh-65 or similar 4th axis, usually they're on the right side like mine is so its in the way) my opinion on this is go thru the probe install in the most professional and clean way possible. you want to do it once and not have to fight it ever. I still run the check probe (UT, 3) every day to make sure there isn't some problem. you'll be putting the 4x on and off all the time, so why make that hard on yourself? just go through the trouble on the probes.

I'd highly recommend conduit anyhow seeing that if the wires get damaged you may have a very serious machine crash for a number or reasons. the conduit noted in the renishaw manuals is nice, but it isn't available in the usa. I just used 3/4" or 1/2" metal reinforced liquid-tight from home depot. you'll have to make a way to connect the conduit up to the mp probe. I used a flare fitting to npt because the thread is correct. you could also make a fitting of course doing some thread milling. that'd be a lot cleaner and probably cheaper.

my mi-12 box sits on top of the control cabinet, on the right side of the machine. its best to route all wires up into the wire routing on top of the enclosure because that goes right into the ctrl cabinet on the right side. its easy.

best of luck

Have had my probe and tool setter system hooked up and working for about a year now. Still not using any macros or any in-program probing, but even just their basic functionality has made setups so much faster and more accurate, and using the tool setter makes replacing broken tools infinitely easier.

I recently got myself a 1997 VMC15, and immediately got a probe set up to put on it. Same everything, except this time I got an MP700 touch probe instead of the MP10. In getting ready to install all of this on the new (old) machine, I realized that I ran into some hiccups last time around and wanted to post my experience on here.

The Fadal "Probes & Scales" wiring diagram lists the various components that you have to install on the 1100-1 board in the control cabinet. Here is that document:

http://www.fadalcnc.com/media/pdf/te...and_Scales.pdf

The appropriate page for using the 1570-1 "3-probe interface" board is p.46 of the document (p.6 of 10 in the PDF), "Wrg_0007B_mp12_ts27_with1570_1_board".

It says to install 2A fuses into locations F10, F29, & F40, solid state relays into K16 & K41 (there is no K41- the appropriate location is actually K31, which is next to F40), and a 2.5A "Re-Cirk-It" circuit breaker into CB1.

Attachment 337010

This is a pic of what you should be buying. The part number for the SSRs is 70S2-04-B-03-V, the Re-Cirk-It is a KD1-2R5, and the fuses are just Buss fuses at 250V/2A. I was able to get all of it from Allied Electronics for ~$60.

I ended up mounting the MI-12 directly into the 88HS cabinet, below the keyboard. I cut a rectangular hole with a cutting wheel on an angle grinder by plunging it straight into the cabinet. Made a mess, but it worked great, and the location makes using the probe really easy.

Attachment 337012
Attachment 337014

Second time through, I just mounted the MI12 box directly to the top of the control cabinet, and drilled holes straight through it, and the 88HS cabinet to run the wires. This is a much easier way of doing it, if somewhat less slick.

Also ended up mounting the TS27R tool setter on the back left corner, and ran about 10' of flex conduit along the back of the table and up along the X-axis motor cable. I was able to source the correct 1/4" Anaconda continuous-flex conduit through McMaster-Carr, but I had to buy 100 feet of it... So, I have a lot of extra. PM me if you need a small qty!

Attachment 337018
Here's the Anaconda routing.

Attachment 337020
And here are the TS27R on the back left corner of the table, and the OMM on the right upper sheet metal.

Attachment 337022
Lastly, here is the 1570-1 board, mounted in the control cabinet, above the axis motor amplifiers.

The wiring for this board is rather simple, but the way it is shown on the schematic makes it nearly impossible to understand. Hopefully the following simplified description will be useful to someone out there.

The 110VAC input to Pins 1&2 powers the 1570-1 board itself (and come from pins 6&7 on the 1100-1 board).
Pins 6&7 are 24VAC for the MI12 (and connect to pins 16&17 on the MI12). Pins 12&13/14&15 are 110VAC to run the M66 and M64 (respectively) relays (and come from pins 20&RET / 36&RET on the 1100-1 board).
Pin 16 connects to the output trigger line that goes to J12 on the 1060-1 board.
Pin 17 gets the ground pins for both probe input trigger lines (blue wire on the TS27R, pin 23 or 24 on the MI12, and pin 11 or 12 of J12 on the 1100-1 board).
Pin 18 is connected to pin 23 or 24 on the MI12, and Pin 19 is connected to the red wire from the TS27R.
Everything else is unpopulated.

Thanks again, @mflux_gamblej for all the work you put into the rest of this thread. That made jumping into it for my machines seem much less daunting!

-Jon

Hi Guys;
I recently purchased the OMP-40 and OTS.
This is a newer Renishaw.
The problem I have is I can't figure how to wire it up.
As the new Renishaw include a signal conditioner built in, schematics showing the 1570-1 board are invalid.
Has anybody figured this out?
If so, please drop a line.
Thanks!
Mark

I made a .xls that will write g-code to drive the probes on a fadal. at the time i didnt have cam that could do it. these days I run solidcam, but that sheet is still a thing. if anyone's interested, PM me. I think the sheet is worth a few beers..

it does xyz single touch, holes, bosses, etc. you type in some part geometry, and it exports the codes. it is able to probe a feature that is not at the work offset zero. you need to type in the offset, but say you had your origin on a vise corner, you can probe a piece of stock away from that place, but using the offset, load the correct origin.

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Originally Posted by mflux_gamblej

I made a .xls that will write g-code to drive the probes on a fadal. at the time i didnt have cam that could do it. these days I run solidcam, but that sheet is still a thing. if anyone's interested, PM me. I think the sheet is worth a few beers..

it does xyz single touch, holes, bosses, etc. you type in some part geometry, and it exports the codes. it is able to probe a feature that is not at the work offset zero. you need to type in the offset, but say you had your origin on a vise corner, you can probe a piece of stock away from that place, but using the offset, load the correct origin.

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I would be very interested in this :) PM me.

I would be interested as well...
BTW, What happened to all your videos in this thread???

Richard

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Originally Posted by rwskinner

I would be interested as well...
BTW, What happened to all your videos in this thread???

Richard

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I took all of my youtube videos down, I never made $0.01 from youtube and 90% of the work that I do is covered by NDA so it seems difficult to make money doing youtube videos; even if I feel like the content on a channel about my shop would be interesting to watch. Every once in a while I think about starting it up again and making a real effort to make a youtube channel but its just not super attractive and I never do it. I do watch pretty much all the youtube machining guys, I especially like this guy Peter who's channel is called Edge Precision out of TX. He seems like he is quasi retired and only does super challenging jobs to keep entertained.

I maybe could make a youtube video about probing again, and include info about my fadal g-code sheet. that'd be a much better way than mentioning it here.

mflux_gamblej, Did you ever get the HPA arm put on your Lathe?

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Originally Posted by Rick_B

mflux_gamblej, Did you ever get the HPA arm put on your Lathe?

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Hi Rick,

No, it didnt work out because the lathe didnt have fanuc macro language. You need to be able to do more than a G31 'skip' function you need access to the tool offset data, and also to be able to carry out simple math like add subtract divide (for averages).

I have added probes to some brother machines with the A00 control lately. They were meant to be used back in the day with a wired probe like a sony for example. but they work just fine with the wireless renishaw stuff. a little pricey because you need to run the modern smaller probe bodies in a bt30 machine. those machines dont have the needed macros, but they did have built in G functions to do probing cycles and those work fine.

fadals really hit it out of the park with regards to no firmware crippled features. where those 'H' men ... yea sure, give me $5k and we will 'turn on' HSM. what a load of sh**

I have another fanuc lathe right now with a 10T control, it also lacks macro language. I asked around about adding macro to a fanuc. nobody I talked to had 'ever heard' of anyone adding that feature after purchase... lol.

so thats a long answer, but the answer is no. If you're looking to buy my HPA setup I may sell it. I have the mount for the wall, the arm, the probe tip. It is not the type where it is on a motor an auto moves into measuring placement. you have to mount it, but its kinematic with 3 ball references or something so it goes back in the same each time.

mflux_gamblej,

I was wondering how you went fitting it. But I may be interested in the HPA, do you have any pictures of what you have?

I know its been a while since your post, but would you still happen to have some anaconda conduit for sale?

I used 3/4" flexible metal liquid tite conduit, had to do some clever fittings. If i recall a compression fitting will screw into the side of the renishaw tool setter and you can buy a compression fitting that on the other side is right for the conduit. sorry i dont have a part number but I think i bought this stuff at like ace hardware lol.

I have a VMC20 which I am going to sell. I'll be pulling the probes off of it to sell separately.

PM me if interested in a fadal probe package from my machine it will include the tool setter, wireless spindle probe, renishaw interface box, fadal 3 probes PCB, wires, conduits, renishaw wireless probe OMM (piece you mount on machine wall to read spindle probe). Everything you need to put tool and spindle probes on your fadal machine although the conduit is length enough for my VMC20. I'll sell this for about $3k. let me know if interested, i'll repost if not avail.