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Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Hello everyone! First time poster here. This thread will be a log for retrofitting my Mazak VQC 15/40 mill. Hope you guys follow along and enjoy the show. I'm also looking forward to getting some tips and suggestions along the way so feel free to jump in at any point!
So I'll start off with a little back story. I've been working at my family's machine shop for almost a decade now and all we had were CNC lathes, no CNC mills just an old Bridgeport knee mill. Being an engineer I've always wanted to make my own creations but having only access to CNC lathes I always felt limited. So for a number of years now I've wanted to get my hands on a CNC mill. I eventually came across an old Mazak VQC 15/40 on an online auction site. Not much info was posted about the machine on the site but I figured if the controller was dead it wouldn't have mattered as I was planning on retrofitting anyways. I just hoped the machine was mechanically sound and knowing Mazak's reputation I don't think that was to much of a worry. I went ahead and bid on it and crossed my fingers. Luckily the bidding didn't go to high and made out with what I think was a good deal. That was back in November.
When it arrived at our shop I was able to take a close look at what I got myself into. At first glance the machine looked really well put together; a nice solid design. That being said though I don't think the previous owner has the word "cleaning" in their vocabulary. I don't think the machine was cleaned in a day of its life. It was caked with coolant and chips everywhere. So I knew I had a lot of scrubbing ahead of me. Check out the photos to get an idea.
The first problem we ran into was getting the machine into the shop. For whatever reason the z axis wasn't lowered onto wooden blocks and was left in the highest position and measuring the height as best we could we knew it was going to be a tight fit through the door. I looked around on the web to see if and how to lower the spindle manually and couldn't find anything. So I took off the covers on the spindle to get a better look. I noticed a brake on the z-axis ballscrew and tried to manually release it by pushing and pulling on the flanges but no luck. We decided to give it a shot and see how much we're off by. Long story short we had to take a piece of weather stripping off from the top of the door and remove 3 tiny hex screws that held the grill over the spindle cooling fan and then it just barely slide into the door way with the forks of the forklift skidding on the ground. I found out a way to lower the spindle manually so I'll do a short post about it when I get a chance so other's won't be stuck in the same situation I was.
Once I got a close look I was able to make a plan and set goals on what I wanted to get done.
So the plan:
- Remove all the panels so I can thoroughly clean the base of the machine and all the critical components (linear rails, ballscrews, etc).
- Sandblast the panels and repaint them to give the machine a fresher appearance.
- Fire up the machine to see if it even works and fix whatever needs to be fixed (hopefully nothing).
- Retrofit the machine with a new controller.
Here are some photos before I started to take it all apart. I don't know why I didn't take a wide shot of the entire machine or of the pallet changer.
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Here are the remaining photos from Day 1. I began to take panels off from around the tool changer magazine. It is here that you can see how bad the coolant and swarf is caked on to everything. Lots of fun ahead!
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Here are some photos from Day 2. I took apart the tool changer magazine to get a thorough clean. I'm amazed that this thing still functioned (assuming it was still functional) with so much filth everywhere. There's also a photo of the over machine with some of the panels removed as well as the pallet changer. Not much going on here just removing panels and cleaning.
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Photos from Day 3. Took off the x-axis way cover and discovered a heap of swarf sitting on the servo motor. These chips got in everywhere! They'll find any nook and cranny and just pile up inside. The photo is after I removed most of the chips away. I started to explore the pallet changer and just felt overwhelmed with the amount of cleaning needed to be done. As they say... one step at a time. In another photo you can see some good progress on the base of the tool magazine coming along quite nicely. I used purple power to clean all the dried up coolant. It does a good job at cutting right through that gunk.
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Photos of Day 4. I took off the main enclosure panel from the machine. I had to move the pallet changer away from the machine in order to remove the main panel. I used a car jack and placed it up against the base of the machine and pushed the pallet changer away. Then added some wood blocks and placed the car jack back in place and repeated the process until the changer was far enough out of the way for us to get the enclosure off. With all the panels off and out of the way you can begin to appreciate the solidness of this machine. Box ways on the z-axis and linear guide rails on the x and y axes. The one thing that I can already tell will be annoy is that I won't be able to have anything overhanging off of the table otherwise it will crash into one of the columns. It seems like it has happened before as there were a couple of dents on the main enclosure panel right in the line of fire.
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Day 5 photos. More cleaning progress. Some detailed photos of the tool changer magazine components being cleaned. I decided to buy new bearings for the sprockets and the Geneva cam driver shaft because they had a rough grinding feeling when they were spun and that's not ideal. Although there is nothing "high speed" about the tool changer I felt it was a good idea to replace the bearings just for peace of mind. Plus they were dirt cheap on ebay so it worked out alright. Again purple power making it easy. Just wear gloves cause it'll make your hands really rough and dry especially during the winter time.
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Day 6 photos. Nothing really interesting here. Just more cleaning. Started to clean the bundle of wires and hoses. I took apart the tool measure arm. I wish I snapped a photo but my hands were covered in grease and I hate having to go wash my hands every few minutes just to take photos but the inside of the tool measure arm was the most disgusting mass of crap I ever seen. It looked like a translucent yellow cottage cheese. It didn't smell good either. I guess the seal around the plunger wasn't a seal anymore and let coolant seep in. Once all the parts were cleaned up I took a close look at the seal. Seems like over the years the rubber material expanded and didn't form a seal on the plunger anymore. The seal is very similar to the ones used on SMC pneumatic cylinders so I look around on the web for replacement seals for a pneumatic cylinder with a rod diameter the same as the plunger on the measure arm. Ended up paying 5 bucks off ebay. God knows how much Mazak would have charged for a simple part like that.
The interesting thing here is that the measure probe uses proximity sensors. I didn't know proximity sensors were very repeatable but I guess they are. There's two sensors inside the arm and my guess (after watching: this video) is that the top sensor, when triggered, tells the control that a tool is touching the probe and to advance further at a slower speed. The controller then continues feeding the z-axis at a slow rate until the bottom sensor triggers. At this point the z-axis has probably over shot a tiny bit so it backs off at a very slow rate until the bottom sensor turns off and the control records the measurement at that instant. That's at least my guess on how it works or at least how I would implement it. Whether or not I use this for my retrofit I'm not sure but I would love to hear what you guys think.
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Day 7 photos. Here I reassembled the tool changer magazine. Things are looking a lot cleaner. I probably should have repainted the forks but I was eager to test the machine and see if it was functional so I just reassembled it completely. I will probably take the forks off and repaint them when I get to painting the enclosure panels.
Some things to note about the tool changer magazine for retrofit informational purposes is that it utilizes a number of different sensors. It uses 5 proximity sensors, 4 of them to determine which tool position the magazine is currently in using binary logic, and 1 proximity sensor on the Geneva cam driver to see when the magazine is in position. It also utilizes an optical sensor which shots a beam of light at a reflector (not currently mounted) and checks to see if any tools are in the fork so that the controller knows whether it can place the tool it currently has in its spindle away into the magazine. Luckily this setup requires just simple logic to implement so it shouldn't be to difficult to retrofit into the new controller.
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
what controller are you useing?
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Hey Aventtini! Glad you asked. I'll be using a Kflop along with a Kanalog board and a Konnect board for additional outputs. After studying the wiring diagram I concluded that I'll need 38 outputs and 58 inputs not including the analog outputs for servo amps and spindle drive or the quadrature encoder inputs. I'll be using the existing servo amps and spindle drive. The machine is currently equipped with resolvers so I purchased some high count encoders to take their place. I'll get into more detail in a later post so stick around!
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Wow, quite an undertaking you got there. I know how you feel about the endless cleaning. My restoration feels like 80% cleaning, 20% progress. Keep posting before and after pics, very satisfying.
Can you spin the spindle by hand? How does it feel?
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Thanks Nigel. Yea I know the feeling. Sometimes I feel like I take 3 steps forward and 2 steps back but luckily most of the cleaning is done.
As far as the spindle goes it spins very freely. You can easily spin it with just your pinky. The bearings feel very smooth and if you spin it up by hand as fast as you can it'll spin for a few seconds.
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
This post will basically sum up what happened between December and early June.
I was contracted to do a website in late November so I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time to spend on this machine for several months but at the same time I knew that the $$ would be vital in getting this project done. So between working at the machine shop, the website and a few other side projects I haven't had much time to put into working on the machine. In February I did buy a used air compressor that I then decided to rebuild. We needed a bigger air compressor for the shop and I needed something with some decent throughput to use for sandblasting.
Back in December I bought a gas powered pressure washer along with a sandblasting attachment. I thought this would have been more effective than using traditional dry sand blasting but it was a flawed system. When it worked it worked well although being drenched with water in mid December here in New Jersey isn't fun. However it was difficult keeping the sand in the nozzle from clogging up so eventually I just gave up on it and sold the pressure washer. That was before I had a big enough air compressor to do dry sand blasting.
At some point in December I managed to hookup the Mazak to some power and air and fire her up. I was pleased to see that everything turn on and seemed to be in good working order. I first had to figure out how to home the axes. I fiddle around with that for a bit and finally found out that you have to jog the axis away from the home switch an inch or so and then jog the axis back towards the home switch until you hit the switch. The machine then runs through its homing cycle for that axis. If the axis is already on the switch then as you jog away from the switch the controller will see that you were already on the switch so it runs the homing cycle as soon as you come off of the switch.
I then proceeded to run the spindle. Everything seemed fine there. I ran it up to its max (6000rpm) and it sounded good.
I then decided to do some simple backlash tests to see what condition the ballscrews were in. I placed an indicator on the table and indicated off of the spindle to get backlash readings for X and Y axes. I would move the axis using the hand wheel a couple of inches until a reading would show up on the indicator. I would then zero the indicator and back off .0001 and see if I would get a reading. To my surprise I had 0 backlash in the X and Y axes over different points of their respective travels.
The z-axis on the other hand had some backlash. I was getting just under .0005 backlash on the z. At first thought backlash on the Z doesn't really make sense since the weight of the spindle would always be pushing down on the ballnut and as long as an external upward force would not exceed the weight of the z-axis assembly there should be no backlash. This machine, however, uses a hydraulic counterbalance which negates the weight of the spindle but in turn adds a slight amount of resistance to z-axis motion. Add the slight stick slip from the box ways and that will be enough resistance to cause some backlash. With a properly preloaded ballnut the backlash shouldn't be this high unless there's a lot of static resistance in the setup. I'll have to retest the z-axis backlash across different points of its travel and see if I'm getting consistent results. The machine uses the double nut type ballnuts which use a spacer between the two nuts to provide the preload. Maybe I'll add a shim or make a thicker spacer to remove the backlash. If anyone has some experience bringing new life to old ballscrews jump on in.
I also played around with the pallet changer using the manual controls. Everything seems in good working order which was a big relief considering I bought the machine blind with little to no information about its condition. There were only two minor issues. When the pallet door is closed the solenoid leaks air so I'll probably replace it with a new one and there is a very minor air leak coming from the spindle; probably the spindle air blast solenoid leaking.
After that I really didn't touch the machine until early June because of all the other things I had going on. I'll leave it off at that and in the next post I'll start off with some more current stuff.
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For those who are wondering how to manual release the z-axis brake here's what to do. The brake is up towards the top of the z-axis ballscrew just above the belt pulley. You'll probably have to take off some panels to get to it. You'll need to undo the two wires going into the brake and apply a voltage. The brake is rated for 24v but I managed to get the brake to release at 12v. I used a battery pack that had 10 1.2v NiMH batteries that I had laying around. I know this technically isn't manual brake release but it'll get your spindle down if your machine isn't hooked up to the panel. I'm not sure if the brake has a polarity but just to be safe I applied the - side of the battery pack to the "G24" wire which is the ground for the 24v power supply and applied + to the "60" wire which is the 24v signal. In my case the hydraulic counterbalance kept the z-axis from running away. Instead it slowly went down but your setup might be different so be prepared by holding the pulley and use caution.
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
So back in early June I managed to snag a good deal on a Kflop + Kanalog on eBay. Soon after I bought a wiring diagram from Mazak. After studying the wiring diagram I noticed that all the digital I/Os that I was interested in were going through 4 cables (CND1, CND2, CND3, CND4). I'm not sure what CND5 and CNA10 are used for. I suspect they are for options that are not implemented on my machine. So my thought is to buy 4 MR-50L Honda connectors and wire them to my kflop setup and plug them right in to the terminal board that way I don't have to touch anything past the terminal board.
I made an excel spreadsheet, which I'll post down below, with a list of all the digital inputs and outputs that I'll need to interface with and a list of the pin connections of the 4 connectors. If you have a VQC and are planning on doing a retrofit please don't use this info without looking at the wiring diagram that is specific to your machine first. There are many variations to the VQC and are probably wired differently and have different options so use this info only as a starting point.
As you can see there are way more I/Os required than the kanalog can handle on its own. Originally I was going to buy a Konnect expansion board which has 32 inputs and 16 outputs and make my own circuit board that would interface to the FET relay drivers and the 8 inputs and 8 outputs found on the 40 pin IDC header on the Kanalog. However I decided to scrap that idea and just go with 2 Konnects. This will get me 64 optically isolated inputs and 32 optically isolated outputs plus the 8 opto inputs and 8 opto outputs on the Kanalog. That should be more than enough to handle all the I/Os for my machine.
I also bought some computer parts and put together a PC to act as the front end of the cnc controller. It's a mini-itx motherboard with an i3 4150, 2GB ram and a 60GB SSD. I mounted it to an open air chassis as it would be pointless to put it in a standard computer case since this is going to be inside the electrical cabinet anyways. The PC is going to be used just for KmotionCNC so 2GB is plenty. The SSD allows for extremely quick bootup times; Less than 15 seconds from hitting the power button to having KmotionCNC ready to go. The i3 is overkill for this task and probably could have gone away with a Celeron but hey... what the hell.
As mentioned before the machine is currently equipped with resolvers for position feedback. Although it is possible to use resolvers with the Kflop and Kanalog its not an easy implementation so I went ahead and purchased some encoders. The encoders I got are 20,000 PPR 3 channel encoders; 2 quadrature channels and an index channel. I'll be using the index channel for homing the axes with maximum accuracy. The ballscrews on the machine have a pitch of 10mm so that'll equate to 50,800 pulses per inch which will give me a resolution of 0.0000197 inches. At these high encoder counts maximum frequency may be an issue. The maximum frequency for the encoders I have is 250kHz. This frequency applies to cycles rather than pulses. The encoders will be attached directly to the ballscrews and the fastest they spin at is 2000rpm. That'll equate to 167kHz which is well within allowable numbers. Also the Kflop's maximum input frequency for encoders is 1Mhz. However I am not sure if that is pulses per second or cycles per second but regardless I am still well within the margins.
(20,000 pulses / rev) / (10mm / rev) * (25.4mm / inch) = 50,800 pulses per inch
(2000 rev / min) / (60 sec / rev) * (5000 cycles / rev) = 166,667 cycles per second
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Hi Thomas,
I have just the same category mazak milling and follow with attention your tread considering I also want to retrofit the milling machine
I would like to work with CS Lab materials and software Mach3, considering this is my first project, I have many questions about I / O settings because that is my hat too far.
Also have a mazak slant turn 40n / 1500 are seen to retrofit the backup battery is empty and all the machines parameters away
All info is welcome
Kinds regard
Freddy from Belgium/ Europe
PS the Mazak lathe, I have all mechanical, electrical diagrams and parameters : Banana:
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Hey Freddy. Glad you're following along. Sorry I haven't been posting for the past couple of months. I have been getting kind of distracted from a bunch directions so things have been moving slowly but I have been making some progress. Unfortunately I won't be able to help you out with your Slant Turn. I am not familiar with that machine. However I will be able to help out with your Vertical Mill, especially if it's a VQC 15/40.
If you plan to use the existing servo amplifiers in the machine then you'll need some device to create the +/-10V to control them. If you're using Mach 3 with just the standard PC parallel port then that will only output step and direction signals which are incompatible with these older industrial amplifiers. You will need some sort of converter card, such as a YAPSC:10V, or a standalone controller such as a Kflop/Kanalog control board which can be interfaced to Mach3.
You will also need to swap out the resolvers out with quadrature encoders and wire them back to whatever is closing your position loop; whether it's the converter cards or a motion control board. From what I understand Mach 3 doesn't close the position loop but rather relies on servo drives to close the position loop however the servo amplifiers in these industrial machines do not close the position loop.
Check out this site to get a better idea of what you need/want to do.
I personally chose the kflop + kanalog option because it gives you the ability to run the servos at high speeds even with hi-resolution encoders and easily interfaces to older amplifiers that use +/-10V analog inputs. The kflop also offers the reliability and speed of a standalone controller which offloads most of the processing from the PC allowing you to use a cheaper/slower computer. I also have 2 konnects that handle most of the inputs and outputs for the machine.
If there's specific questions you have then feel free to ask. I'll be happy to help in any way I can.
I'll try to post some updates on my progress in the next couple of days.
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Sorry for the delay in updates but a lot has been going on over here. I finally have some time to write about the project again.
For the controller I decided to buy an aluminum plate, machine it to size and mount the kflop/kanalog along with the konnect boards onto it. This allowed me to work on the local wiring without having to be huddled inside the cabinet. It made life much easier as there were well over 100 wires I needed to connect to the konnects and solder to the 50 pin connectors. I also installed some wiring duct around the boards to manage all the wires. On the left side of the plate I installed a couple of terminals to distribute low voltage power to the various systems.
I purchase two power supplies, one 24v and one +/-12v. These are regulated power supplies that output clean voltage. I used these to power the tachs and the servo amplifiers. I wasn't sure how sensitive the tachs or amps are to noise so I just played it safe and set those up. I also have 12v, 5v and GND from the computer's PSU on the terminals along with the machine 24v/GND power supply.
On the right side of the plate I installed a 4 12v relay array as well as a single 24v relay. I'll go into more detail on what some of the relays do but they are involved with switching the power-on relay as well as handling the servo amps and spindle driver.
Below you'll see the controller mounted on the aluminum plate and then with the wire duct installed and finally the controller installed in the cabinet and all wired up. There's also a shot of the cabinet right after I took the old controller out.
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I decided to replace the resolvers with high count encoders to make it easier to send position data back to the kflop. Unfortunately the hole where the resolvers mount into were to small so I either had to modify the encoders or the resolver mounts. Not knowing how much meat I had on the encoder case before hitting the bearing I opted to machine the resolver mounts to a larger diameter.
My initial approach was to mount the mount into a 4 jaw chuck on the lathe and indicate the inside diameter of the existing hole as well as the face to make sure it was parallel and concentric. This was a tedious process and took up most of the time. I also machined a small counter bore in case I ever needed to install an encoder with a smaller diameter. I could then just machine a simple flanged bushing and be done with it. The X and Y mounts were the same and was able to grab it in the chuck but the Z mount had a different base to it so it was not possible to grab in the chuck.
For the Z mount I decided to use the boring head on the bridgeport mill to enlarge the hole which actually worked out much better and was a lot easier to do. I first machined a plug on the lathe from aluminum. The small diameter of the plug was a common diameter I could put into one of the collets on the bridgeport. I think I used 3/4". The larger diameter of the plug was the diameter of the hole on the mount. I made sure to make this diameter as close as possible. I then fitted the plug into the 3/4" collet on the bridgeport. I then placed the Z mount on the table and lowered the quill until the plug was in the hole of the mount. I now know that the mount is perfectly concentric with the mill's spindle. I tightened up the hold down bolts and then lifted the quill up. I then put in the boring head and machined the hole to the right diameter. Although the machining process was a bit longer the whole process was much faster as the setup time was next to nothing. So looking back at it I would have opted to do all 3 mount on the bridgeport.
Another issue was the the bolt circle on the encoder case was slightly different than that on the mount so I ended up modifying the encoders so that the holes would line up. I also milled off one of the corners of the square flange on the encoders so that it would match up with the resolver configuration. For the Y axis it was not important but the X axis the corner would have interfered with the table's movement.
The electrical connectors on the encoders were different than that on the resolvers so I needed to purchase ones that would fit and then create adapters that would connect the Amphenol connectors to the flexible conduit. I found some used 90 degree elbow Amphenol connectors off of ebay that I needed for the X and Y encoders and found a straight connector that I needed for the Z. I made the adapters on the lathe from aluminum.
The original wiring that was going to the resolvers was not sufficient for the encoders. I needed 10 wires total but only had 6 (3 pairs) going to the resolvers. I ended up buying a long CAT5e ethernet cable and fishing it through the conduit to each encoder. I left 1 of the original pairs as is and because it was a heavier gauge I figured I would use that for supplying the power to the encoders. This gave me 4 twisted pairs for the encoder signals (1 pair for channel A, 1 pair for channel B, 1 pair for index channel and 1 pair was combined for the case shield) and 1 heavier pair for 5V and GND.
Pictured below is the original wiring for the resolver and the new wiring for the encoder. The aluminum plug that was used to center the Z mount on the bridgeport. The machining of the mounts as well as the conduit adapters. The last set of pictures show the encoders and mounts installed on the machine fully wired up and ready to go.
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Hello Thomas
I just gunk same machine, chimps and dirt everywhere ...
The previous owner knew everything except his machine cleaning and maintenance.
Now I have a big problem with the machine to move, I have damaged the tacho plug of the servo motor X axis. (with the pins of the truck)
All wires are pulled loose from the connector and now I do not know what color the wires which should be welded.
I think it's a 6 or 7 wires, black, gray, etc. (it is not the encoder!) On a connector male placed correctly with 4 screws.
Can you see what is the correct connection is.
Thanks in advance,
I will post a picture for clarification.
Greetings
FredMazak
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
A picture will help. Problem is that on my tacho wiring setup it was 3 pairs of shielded wires. Each pair has a red and white wire so there are 3 red and 3 white wires total (essentially the same way the resolver was wired pictured above) so knowing which wire goes where is not possible simply by looking at the colors. There is a 7th wire (blue) which connects the wire shielding to the case of the tachogenerator. Is each of your wires labelled or are they all just different colors? Also take a picture of the sticker on the tachogenerator to make sure we have the same units that way the information that I'll give you is right for your situation.
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
ORIGINAL MAZAK MAZATROL M2.
ARE THERE DIFFERENT TYPES?
Will look at the servo motor> with brushes Mitsibischi / under technical telephone helpline Mazak is the tachometer that measures and controls the speed ..
grtz
pdf
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Unfortunately the Mazak wiring diagrams did not include the internal connections between the controller and the servo amps. Luckily I found this thread...77549 Mitsubishi TRA41 Servo Drives Interface Help Please
This worked perfectly for my TRA31 servo amps. I do have to mention that there is a typo in the spreadsheet. PX GD is correctly labeled as Tac GND feedback signal. This is the ground to the tachogenerator. PX* is incorrectly labeled as Tac GND feedback Signal. This is actually the Tac feedback signal and this is where the feedback from the tac is connected to.
The SV On input from each amplifier is wired to a 24v relay. When the relay is energized it pulls the inputs to GND and turns on the servo amps. The relay is energized by the EStop signal. When no E-Stop buttons are pushed then the E-Stop signal is high at 24v thus energizing the relay. When an E-Stop button is pushed the circuit opens and the servo amps shut down.
I originally planned on connecting the NC Ready inputs from all three amplifiers to one of the 12v relays and switching it on using the watchdog relay driver on the Kanalog board. I instead wired each axis to its own relay driver. This works because the relay drivers pull down to GND when activated and that is what the NC Ready inputs need. This allows me to switch on each amplifier individually. This makes things a lot easier especially during the initial setup. When the analog input on the amplifier is left floating the servo tends to drift as 0v doesn't perfectly correspond to 0 speed on the servo. When disabling a servo for a particular axis in Kmotion the axis will begin to drift because the loop is no longer closed and the analog output is set at 0v. By connecting each amplifier's NC Ready input to its own relay driver this allows me to fully disable the axis so that it no longer moves. This also allows me to turn on each servo amp individually for tuning purposes rather than having all three on at the same time.
Even though there are several ground connections to the amplifier they are all ultimately connected to each other either on the amplifier side or on the controller side so you need not worry about having isolated grounds or power supplies. Also, by having a common ground allows you to use the relay drivers on the Kanalog to switch the NC Ready inputs.
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
can you give me how you wiring kflop- k analog , now I am retrofit Mazak m4. I need to use old spindle and drive TRA41 and motor. I need some advice how to wiring them
Thank
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Thomas, I have a VQC 15/40 spindle that I want to use in a CNC mill I'm building. I have the drawbar for it but not the pull stud gripper assembly. Would it be possible for you to take a few photos of it? I would really appreciate it.
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
How is the retrofit ? No i have the same story , one day over a action i sow a mazak 20/40 and i got it . It will arive next week . If its working state i will just clean it and paint some of the parts . If not i will retrofit it with EMC2.
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Sorry for being MIA. I'm on the home stretch with finishing the project. I have painted all the panels and the machine and will be reassembling the machine soon. A lot has happened since the last post and will update you guys in the next day or so (Hopefully!).
Petruscad: I had to rebuild the spindle due to bad bearings so I had the whole thing apart but it is all assembled now. Luckily I acquired a spindle from a different VQC 15/40 for spare parts and have a draw bar on hand to photograph. I'll put it together tomorrow and take some photos.
Aventtini888: Retrofit is good. The kflop is a very nice controller and am pretty happy with it so far. I really like how you have very few limitations with the controller, so long as you know a little C programming. I went the same route as you as taking it apart and painting all the panels but in retrospect it probably was too much trouble than it's worth in my opinion unless you have all the equipment and the setup to do this sort of painting. Retrofitting is nice if you plan on doing complex 3D work as programs can get very large as the older controllers have tiny memory capacity.
Let me know if you guys need any other info. I'll try to get back to you a little quicker this time. Promise!
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Thomas Zamirski
Petruscad: I had to rebuild the spindle due to bad bearings so I had the whole thing apart but it is all assembled now. Luckily I acquired a spindle from a different VQC 15/40 for spare parts and have a draw bar on hand to photograph. I'll put it together tomorrow and take some photos.
Thank you very much man, this will really help me!
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6 Attachment(s)
Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Pictured below is the spindle drawbar without the belleville spring washers installed. The belleville washers it requires are 20.4mm x 40mm x 2.5mm, 24 sets (48 total). The washers are doubled up so they are stacked 2 in one direction and 2 in the other, alternating all the way up.
Here's a place you can get the spring washers from: CDM-402010 - DISC SPRING (CDM Series) - Part Characteristics | Century Spring Corp.
Inside the sleeve (large cylindrical part at the end of the drawbar) there are two collet fingers which grab onto the pull stud of the tool. On the opposite end is the fork bracket which is what the hydraulic piston pushes against to release the tool.
Mazak part numbers:
Sleeve: 24240148590 (qty 1)
Collet: 24240148601 (not sure if this is sold as a set or individually. Need 2 of them)
Collet Nut: 34240148611 (qty 1)
Rod: 24240148571 (qty 1)
Bracket: 34240148621 (qty 1)
Socket head cap screw m6x50: A06CB060500 (qty 2)
Belleville Spring Washer set: 34240148580
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Oh, wow, this is a complicated design. I have everything except the two collet pieces and the cylindrical sleeve in which they go. I was thinking to machine these pieces but given how compex (i.e. fancy!) they are I'm not sure I'll be able to. Unless I can buy them used from somewhere or order them from Mazak (probably expensive) I think I'm gonna come up with my own, simpler, more conventional design and machine that. It's gonna be a lot of fun...
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
It certainly doesn't look too complicated to lengthen that chain, and add some more tool clamps and have a 25 or 30 tool changer You'ld have to figure out how to count them, tho. I'd use an encoder.
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1 Attachment(s)
Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
petruscad
Oh, wow, this is a complicated design. I have everything except the two collet pieces and the cylindrical sleeve in which they go. I was thinking to machine these pieces but given how compex (i.e. fancy!) they are I'm not sure I'll be able to. Unless I can buy them used from somewhere or order them from Mazak (probably expensive) I think I'm gonna come up with my own, simpler, more conventional design and machine that. It's gonna be a lot of fun...
The sleeve is precision ground on multiple surfaces so it would be tricky to make. This part is the reason I needed to buy another spindle. If you look carefully on the 5th picture you can see a portion of the outer wall has broken off where the finger rests up against. In fact I'll just post a picture where you can clearly see it. I suspect that the previous owner crashed the tool into something solid and broke the sleeve open. I called up Mazak to quote the part and it was close to a grand to replace so I found an entire spindle assembly on ebay for half of that price. Not sure how much the fingers cost but I can only imagine a lot!
If you're going to go ahead and make up your own design I would suggest going with a ball type pull stud gripper rather than the finger type. They are a lot simpler to make. Also make sure to harden the components as a lot of stresses occur in this area. Last thing you want is to have a tool flying out while the machine is running. Can easily kill someone.
If you'd like I can get you accurate measurements of the external dimensions of the sleeve to get you started in the right direction.Attachment 268802
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Hi Thomas,
Awesome build thread. Would love to see the mill with fresh paint, please keep the pics coming :)
Been looking at KFLOP, if it ends up working well for a machine this size, that would be a big plus for the controller
Cheers
Frank
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14 Attachment(s)
Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Mill has been up and running for a few months now but I've been way too busy to post all of the things I've wanted to but I'll post some quick photos of the machine mostly assembled as well as a couple of videos of it in action.
Machine getting ready to be painted:
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Machine Painted and assembled:
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The white paint on the inside is Imron. Really good chemical resistance and easy to clean. The matte black and grey exterior paint is car paint from Eastwood (rat rod black and rat rod grey). It's a single stage, two part urethane paint which is also chemical resistant and really durable. Because it's not glossy like the Imron paint it is slightly harder to clean but if sprayed correctly it's actually pretty easy to clean. I also used some Rustoleum appliance enamel for a few small parts for the interior as I ran out of Imron. The color matched pretty well. The paint seems to be holding up ok but has greatly discolored to a cream color, probably caused by the coolant. Not a big deal to me as long as it protects the metal from the coolant. I still have to implement some sort of control interface. I'm currently just using the software GUI, the MPG and axis selector switch.
Here's a video of the machine cutting some soft jaws:
https://youtu.be/P6WW6UIwKJU
Here's a video of the machine performing a pallet change:
https://youtu.be/LSKeqhQpkdQ
Here's a video of a tool change test while all the covers were still off. Gives you a better look at how the tool changer works:
https://youtu.be/RxYmajHgIuc
Here's a video of a rigid tap test:
https://youtu.be/yktBL1mhZFY
If you're interested I did a write up on how I implemented the rigid tap in kmotioncnc/kflop here: http://www.cnczone.com/forums/dynomo...ml#post1688960
I left out a lot of details, the biggest being the spindle rebuild. I had to replace the bearings and then I turned the taper to bring it back into concentricity. Maybe I'll put together a video sometime and post it here.
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Dude that is ****in incredible, excuse my language but I am just blown away at what you have accomplished. Very inspiring.
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Very nice work! Thats a rather unusual mill. It must be very ridged but the work area looks rather small. How do you find the Kmotion interface? Im considering using it with my build
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Wow, we used to have one of those without the pallet changer. Not sure where it went, but it still looked brand new. Probably didn't have 1000 cutting hours.
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Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
chevydyl
Dude that is ****in incredible, excuse my language but I am just blown away at what you have accomplished. Very inspiring.
Thanks Chevy! Glad you like the machine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Feist92
Very nice work! Thats a rather unusual mill. It must be very ridged but the work area looks rather small. How do you find the Kmotion interface? Im considering using it with my build
Thanks Feist. It is an unusual layout for a mill. It has a rigid design but the big downside is you can't have anything overhanging the table because it'll slam into one of the columns that support the bridge. This sort of limits to what you can put on the table. Typically you can put on a bunch of vises on a ram type mill and not worry about part of them hanging off the edge of the table. Here you have to stay conscious of that.
The Kmotioncnc interface isn't the prettiest thing out there but it definitely gets the job done. It's stable, fast and the trajectory planner is pretty good, better than mach's. If you know a little C programming then you won't have any trouble getting your machine to do what you want it to do. Definitely recommend it if you're looking to retrofit on a budget and you have some time to tinker around.
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9 Attachment(s)
Re: Mazak VQC 15/40 Retrofit
A member asked for instructions on how to tear down the spindle and get to the drawbar so I figured I'd make a post here that way if anyone else needs to know how it's done they can benefit from it as well.
Step 1: Remove the lower spindle cover.
This cover is on two hinges on the side closest to the operator. On the far side of the spindle there are two screws which hold the cover shut. Unscrewing these screws allows the cover to swing open. On the bottom of that cover there are two screws which hold the coolant manifold in place. Unscrew those two screws to free the manifold. Unplug the wires that connect to the lamp. Now an extra set of hands will make this part easier. Have someone hold the cover, taking pressure off of the hinges. Use and thin, long object to push out the pins in the hinges. Once the pins are out the cover can be moved out of the way.
Attachment 282528
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Step 2: Separate the two spindle shafts.
First you need to remove the black bracket under the hydraulic unclamping cylinder to give you enough room the get an allen wrench onto the screws that are holding the two shafts together.
Attachment 282532
Step 3: Remove the spindle cartridge
First unscrew the screws holding the spindle cartridge in place. Once unscrewed the cartridge should remain in the spindle assembly by friction alone. I recommend putting some wood blocks underneath in case it just falls out but chances are it will sit in there. You will need to use 2 M10 screws to jack the spindle out little by little.
Attachment 282534
Keep in mind that the perimeter of the spindle cartridge is cooled with cooling oil so have an oil pan on your machine table to catch the oil that will come pouring out. Once you let all the oil drain you can continue onward with pulling the cartridge out.
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You can now do what you need to do to the spindle cartridge. The drawbar is easy to get to. It is held in place by the friction of an oring so all you have to do is pull on the fork to get it out.
Attachment 282540
If your spindle is not clamping the tool properly then it could be one of the following. The hydraulic clamping cylinder is not returning to the clamp position (towards the top). The hydraulic cylinder does not do the actual clamping. It only unclamps the tool. The belleville washer springs are what actually provide the force for clamping the tool. The washer springs could be fatigued and no longer provide the proper force so they would need to be replaced. One or both of the pull stud fingers may be broken.
Drawbar assembly pictured below without the belleville washers installed.
Attachment 282542
Attachment 282544
After unscrewing the collet finger nut the nut should slide out and then the fingers can be pulled out individually and now you have access to the belleville washer springs.
Do all the repairs you need and then reassemble the spindle in reverse order. One thing I recommend you do when putting the spindle cartridge back in the spindle is to use a car jack to push it back into position. Also make sure that the keys on the lower spindle shaft line up with the keyways on the upper spindle shaft when you are jacking the cartridge back into place. If they are not lined up and you jack up the cartridge into the upper shaft it will shift the upper bearing or bearings (depending on if you have a 6000rpm spindle or 10000 rpm spindle) and could cause some damage.
Hope this helps and if you have any questions feel free to ask.