Deckel FP2a with Bosch TR20 Drive and -Siemens 1HU 3071 motors

I'm in the process of upgrading the Heidenhain TNC 355 on my Deckel FP2A to a Heidenhain ITNC 530

I'm contemplating a completely new enclosure and rewire from scratch.
The axis motors will need to remain. I believe them to be DC -180V with Tachos.

Siemens 1HU 3071 for the X and Y axis and 3074 on the Z axis.

At the moment , the X/Y/Z motors are driven by a Bosch TR20 drive. There is also a 4th axis drive which uses a separate Emerson Digitax ST.

The question is, is it worth upgrading the TR20 while doing all this work and if so what with?

The drive is circa 1986 so isn't going to last forever and is also a considerable bulk in itself and requires a separate transformer to power it.



Any thoughts / help / opinions much appreciated.

Did some research on this some years back....
I own several FP-NC's (Dialog controls) and i wanted to have an option to replace /upgrade the original Bosch servo drive.

I settled on drives made by "AMC" (advanced motion control) I choose them because they are built here in California and they haqd direct phone support to technicians that were native English speakers...
For me that is a plus as i am relatively hard of hearing (years of service in The Marine Corps in a mortar section) and often i have trouble decoding speech that is laced with an accent...
Anyhow i choose one of their digital units...

Servo drives and motor controllers | ADVANCED Motion Controls

Reason was for me i believed it would offer easier tuning and setup....The digital units have an RS232 port that you connect to your PC and along with teh supplied software you can set
lots of the operating peramiters for the drive without any need to change resistors and the like....
Also the digital units have an "O" scope feature in the software that aids tuning...further you can connect the servo and run it on your machine (slide) and see exactly how the accel and decell curves are
douing in your dynamic setup....

Also there were inpuits to disable the drive which allowed retention of the handwheel feature of the machine without any additional electronics.
The drive i selected had its own internal power supply so all it needed was a three phase feed....
I retained the large transformer, to supply the motor required voltage....

Only real change i needed to make was that the analog input needed for velocity (Tach) has a rather low max voltage...Think in the range of plus/minus 10 VDC....
The tach on the Siemens puts out about 50 VDC at full rapid...so i had to use a proportioning circuit to limit the input to the drive....


Set up this drive as a test on one axis of an FP2NC at home where it successfully ran the "X" axis. Kept the "Y" and "Z" on the Bosch drive so i could make test parts for evaluation....
My setup worked fine.

Eventually i sold the machine and as a result i returned the machine to the full Bosch setup.....
Never completed a full machine build...but i do own the parts to make that happen should trouble arise from the current Bosch unit.

Some additional thoughts:
Think it is well to retain the original motors...they are regarded as being very well made and dependable....plus they are already fitted to your machine.

I would seriously consider changing the tach on the motor for an encoder. The tach setup is a source of maintenance...operation is not consistent changing with weather conditions and contamination....

The drive i sourced will accept either analog velocity inputs of encoder ...








Note: These drives are now several years old, likely better choices now...
Cheers Ross

Ross
Many thanks for all the info. It looks like AMC have a dealer in the UK, if only they would answer the bloody phone!
Hopefully they may be able to advise.
I was considering these (PDF user guide on the webpage)
Parker SSD 514C 16A 4Q 11V/23V/4V 1ph/2ph AC to DC Isolated Signal - DC Drives (1ph/2ph Input)
But having second thoughts. I've done quite a bit with controls. Heidenhain, LinuxCNC etc but mostly with modern drives and servos, so this old DC stuff doesn't mean a lot to me.
I've got the ITNC more or less ready to go, the HAN connector pulled and the old monitor etc off.
I've been standing there looking at the thing now for the last three weeks wondering whether to go the whole hog with a new vertical cabinet to one side, rather than the current one that sits behind. I'm really pressed for WS space.
New DC drives were going to be the deciding factor.
I'll see what AMC have to say.
Many thanks for the reply, much appreciated.
Roger

Roger:
Very nice setup on the control.....Love it..clean and sleek!
Wondering a bit as to why the 530......Seems a bit over the top for that machine....Three maybe 4 axis, and no tool changer.

If you have the motivation i would re pop the cabinet....Original is just so large...

Wondering if you have spent any time considering using something like a VFD (or other????) to control the spindle...shifting and variable frequency for the motor?
Seems a clever guy could eliminate tons of relay logic there....And by token reduce the cabinet footprint.
Cheers Ross

Hi Ross
This machine has a lot of history.
Perhaps a new thread required "Pimp yer deckel"
It was converted to run on single phase about 5 years ago, so the spindle motor runs of an Schneider Altivar VFD. I don't have 3 phase where I live and the cost of having it installed is prohibitive to say the least. The machine is for hobby use only, it never makes me a penny.
I've made a 4th axis for it using a Nabtesco zero backlash gear head. It's got a HSK 63 clamping unit attached so i can attach a variety of work holding. I have the same thing on my HXL, so I can transfer work backyards and forwards from the mill and the lathe with good repeatability.




Example here
It also has an IBAG 3KW 40K RPM HSK 32 water cooled spindle mounted to the nose of the Y ram + MQL system. I'm running Renishaw OMP40 wireless probes in both the HSK 32 and the SK40.



The biggest headache I've had is post processor compatibility. There are a lot more M codes in use now than there were back in 1987 and its not possible to prevent them being issued with some CAM software. Also the 355 will only interpolate 3 axis simultaneously. I've found that when creating a lot of 4th axis toolpaths, the CAM is insisting on putting out 4 axis interpolated moves which my 355 chokes at.

Other issue is block processing times for things like complex curves.
So I can't use the tool paths as I want to.

Example of a Ferrari F1 cam cover done with a 200 quid eBay Chinese spindle before i had the IBAG.

Roger:
Thanks for posting all that....Nice work.
Cheers Ross

DPRANIE-030A400 and variants look perfect from what I can see, other than £3-4K for 3 Axis - phew!

Indeed.............when i bought my set some years back think i paid in the neighborhood of about 1K (US) per axis....Looked for a time on e-bay but these never seem to be for sale other
than new through AMC.

Analog units better on cost, but more troublesome to setup....

Cheers Ross