Whats to stop me from....

GM1G · May 10, 2010

Robot Motion System Recycled for Metalwork Machines???

The thought of tearing apart an old Fanuc arcmate sr with RJ control -
-or whatever available bot i can get my hands on-
and using the components to re-cnc the wells index mill i have?

the mill left factory as a tape N/C deal,
but at some point in its life was stripped of motors and control...

leaving all motor mounts and ballscrews in place

what hurdles would i encounter?
would the components work for this sort of task?
id like to run mach3 or emc2 into a breakout board
then feed input to the robot control to run the motors

while searching for motors and drives
i came up with the idea of buying an industrial bot cheap
and ravaging it for parts as the system would already be complete
and just need reconfigured

i ve contacted a number of fanuc etc robot service places
but they freak out on the fone when i tell them what im interested in doing

can anyone help me?

+

JimStewart · May 10, 2010

I think it would be easier and cheaper just to pile up about $5000 in cash and set fire to it.

Jalbus · May 10, 2010

NOOOOOOO! Man, friends don't let friends...

I almost bought an old NC tape machine this year, and was all gung ho to convert it simply because ball screws were in place, and kits are available, but I looked around at all the other unfinished smaller (infinitely smaller!) projects I have to do--it's just not worth it.

There are numerous cautionary tales on this site and elsewhere that say no way jose, this is way too ambitious and most regret the expense when CNC stuff is popping up at auctions everywhere. Unless you are a millright/cnc repair/mechatronics guru this just looks outlandish.

GM1G · May 11, 2010

thanks for the replies so far....

its too late now however as the monster is in my garage there in the picture
and something must be done about it

i only paid 400 bucks for the mill and it is in really great shape

can any of you tell me specifically why the servos and drives off a robot wouldnt function as the axis motion manipulation devices on my mill?

if its not a torn apart robot it will be a collection of servos/drives from elsewhere

but it will happen so keep that in mind lol :willy_nilly:

also - the place near me with the robots has 15 or 20 of them for 5 or 600 bucks a pop
and 30 day return period -
so theoretically i could keep returning them til i found one that worked out of the lot

Milacron · May 11, 2010

GM1G said:
can any of you tell me specifically why the servos and drives off a robot wouldnt function as the axis motion manipulation devices on my mill?

Dunno about those antique Fanuc robots that HGR has but some robots have harmonic drives, which would be problematic in a mill.

In the future please create topic titles that tell something about what your thread is about... "what's to stop me from" is meaningless.

SchneiderMachine · May 11, 2010

I had that same mill 20 yrs ago, came with a GE550 control, tape reader, no punch on the machine. Programmable resolution was .001 and it was incremental only. Wells Index told me the screws were good for .0005 repeatability and that was about it. Plenty close for a knee mill. The mill itself is not as heavy as it looks, it's pretty light weight wise, my Kondia manual mill weights more than that thing does.
Dave

GM1G · May 11, 2010

Milacron said:
Dunno about those antique Fanuc robots that HGR has but some robots have harmonic drives, which would be problematic in a mill.

In the future please create topic titles that tell something about what your thread is about... "what's to stop me from" is meaningless.

sorry about that sir

if i can edit it i will
as id like to get more replies

im not totally hell bent on using a robot from hgr
im just toying with the idea and
trying to see if theres anything i should watch out for

what do you mean by harmonic drives?
and how would that negatively affect the system being used on a mill?

also HGR gets more modern bots in pretty frequently
as in im not dead set on using the arcmate jobbies
just going with whats readily available at this time

also - ive thought about trying to motorize the turret of my bridgeport
with robot parts - nod/swivel/turret in-out-rotate
the gentleman at wells index says hes seen similar deals done before
as far as turret movement goes
so thats where i got the idea to recycle a bot for parts

i must say that in a very short amount of time this topic has garnered a wealth of informative posts as opposed to the other forums i posted this same topic on
my point is that maybe my first impressions of this site/forum were correct -

it totally kicks ass! :smoking:

thanks again for all input i appreciate it

GM1G · May 11, 2010

SchneiderMachine said:
I had that same mill 20 yrs ago, came with a GE550 control, tape reader, no punch on the machine. Programmable resolution was .001 and it was incremental only. Wells Index told me the screws were good for .0005 repeatability and that was about it. Plenty close for a knee mill. The mill itself is not as heavy as it looks, it's pretty light weight wise, my Kondia manual mill weights more than that thing does.
Dave

it seems to have been a little more heavy than the j head bport i have

i totally disassembled it and loaded it into a 1/2 ton old beat up chevy
with a harbor freight cherry picker
drove it with snubbers hitting axle about 16 miles or so home
it was pretty harrowing lol but i went really slow all back country roads

would you happen to have pictures of the mill you had?
this one is 823 with 30mmt spindle taper 2hp

there is some kind of magnetic brake over the motor - can you explain its operation - and would you possibly still have a wiring diagram for it?

do you have manuals for this machine still? if so id gladly purchase them

i was told that motors producing 30 in/lbs
would be sufficient to run the table
and that 40 + would be overkill
are these figures in the ballpark?
i still havent found any specific information about the motors in the arcmate bots so i have no idea if they would even be close ---

here is a crappy cell fone pic my neighbor took of the day the mill came home...

GM1G · May 12, 2010

made the mistake of calling fanuc today lol

the guy i talked to sounded like he was talking thru a voice changer
and i got an earful about how they wont provide any service at all
if you didnt buy the robot from them
and how if you call and ask for service with a serial number
once they figure out you didnt buy the bot from them they
try to charge you 7000 dollars for software usage

the conversation was disturbing to say the least
and i was pretty freaked out

milacron - the harmonic drives - are you talking about the weird
drive thingy the servos output power thru ?

the guy said that instead of straight shafts exiting motors
they have a taper shaft that fits the reducers or whatever

anyone else who would like to yell at me feel free to do so

SchneiderMachine · May 12, 2010

I don't have any pics of my mill, it was ugly but it worked. Mine was a model NC-823C-GE, I still have the programming manual, it's a whopping 14 pages and most are programming examples. Your digital watch has more technology in it. LOL
Yup, it's a magnetic brake on top of the motor, first thing I did was remove it, it's noisy. Did I mention it's noisy? I still have it on the shelf. It's in brake mode when there is no power to it, if you want to sweep a part in you have to reach up and flip the cams to release it, it's those lever looking things on each side. I still have the servo motors but I have since threw the resolvers away, the limit switches on the thing were kinda funky in the way they worked also, everything was gear driven by little plastic gears as were the resolvers. Biggest, weakest link in the whole mess is the roll pins in the shaft couplers, they tend to brake if you hit the hard stops.
Dave

GM1G said:
it seems to have been a little more heavy than the j head bport i have

i totally disassembled it and loaded it into a 1/2 ton old beat up chevy
with a harbor freight cherry picker
drove it with snubbers hitting axle about 16 miles or so home
it was pretty harrowing lol but i went really slow all back country roads

would you happen to have pictures of the mill you had?
this one is 823 with 30mmt spindle taper 2hp

there is some kind of magnetic brake over the motor - can you explain its operation - and would you possibly still have a wiring diagram for it?

do you have manuals for this machine still? if so id gladly purchase them

i was told that motors producing 30 in/lbs
would be sufficient to run the table
and that 40 + would be overkill
are these figures in the ballpark?
i still havent found any specific information about the motors in the arcmate bots so i have no idea if they would even be close ---

here is a crappy cell fone pic my neighbor took of the day the mill came home...

macona · May 13, 2010

A harmonic drive is a type of reduction system like a gearbox, but no gears. Totally backlash free. But the reduction is way more than you would want on your machine. At most on a mill you would want 2:1.

Harmonic Drive Gearing, Harmonic Planetary Gearing, Rotary Actuators :: Harmonic Drive LLC

Talk to Milltronics. They sell standalone controls you can install yourself. Prices are not bad. Had I known about them I would have done that and not Mach3.

Milacron · May 14, 2010

GM1G said:
i totally disassembled it and loaded it into a 1/2 ton old beat up chevy
with a harbor freight cherry picker

HF doesn't sell cherry pickers

Cherry picker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Grigg · May 14, 2010

They might, scan down to the "automotive" heading in the link provided above.

GM1G · May 14, 2010

thanks for the link very interesting
is there still a normal shaft coming off the servo?
the motor mounts originally were direct drive
so i was thinking of doing it the same way

macona said:
A harmonic drive is a type of reduction system like a gearbox, but no gears. Totally backlash free. But the reduction is way more than you would want on your machine. At most on a mill you would want 2:1.

Harmonic Drive Gearing, Harmonic Planetary Gearing, Rotary Actuators :: Harmonic Drive LLC

Talk to Milltronics. They sell standalone controls you can install yourself. Prices are not bad. Had I known about them I would have done that and not Mach3.

GM1G · May 14, 2010

yes engine hoist lol sorry
ive been thinking about adding more steel to it
as ive really been stressing it lifting all this heavy stuff

Milacron said:
HF doesn't sell cherry pickers

Cherry picker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tom3197 · May 14, 2010

JimStewart said:
I think it would be easier and cheaper just to pile up about $5000 in cash and set fire to it.

Seriously, I think Jim hit the nail on the head.

My question.... WHY? go this route stealing parts of robots meant for a totally different function. I wish you the best of luck though, even if I think your idea is :nutter:

GM1G · May 15, 2010

Tom3197 said:
Seriously, I think Jim hit the nail on the head.

My question.... WHY? go this route stealing parts of robots meant for a totally different function. I wish you the best of luck though, even if I think your idea is

my reasoning is they are motors that spin
and have electronics to control them
and entire system is in place ready to be
adapted to whatever use i can dream up

instead of collecting all the parts it all happens at once
the problem is it seems to be extremely difficult
to find the technical information that would
allow that to happen

another reason is the bots are like 500 bucks
compared to control stuff on same level that seems pretty cheap
and 30 day return period would allow me to test for functionality
and exchange til i found one that worked

im not dead set on the idea and ill be the first to admit
that i dont know what the hell im doing
but thats why im here posing the question out in the open
so people that are more knowledgeable than myself
can explain to me why i dont know what the hell im talking about
and maybe ill become less of an idiot after the fact

Milacron · May 15, 2010

Grigg said:
They might, scan down to the "automotive" heading in the link provided above.

If I had a Wiki account I would edit that to read -

A "cherry picker" also refers to an engine hoist within some automotive circles, where the folks in that circle are ill informed of the actual source of the slang term but nonethess can't resist the temptation to conjure up a "cute" name for their shop crane, even if the name makes no sense whatsever (unlike with a man lift or bucket crane, where one could actually "pick cherries") This device is used to assist the removal and install of internal combustion, electric or other engines.

GM1G · May 15, 2010

im not really worried about monetary value of the thing once its done
i just want to have fun screwing around with it and trying to make it work

my original idea was to take the crap off a robot arm -
and apply them as motion power to the swivel/ nod /rotation of spindle head unit
and also to the rotation and in/ out travel of turret ram

then i had idea of mounting a number of arms to the base of the bridgeport
and using them to load tools and feed workpieces

then i got to thinking about how ive dismantled and moved it and the other machines
and how much fun it was
and the idea of setting the whole thing on some sort of spider leg or tracked setup
seemed ideal, as it could move itself around a shop and feed itself
or load itself onto a trailer

so anyways then i got the wells index and started looking for motors and drives
and the robot savagery idea came into play
again im not totally dead set on using the servos and drives out of a robot
but it seemed like a good way to get a complete drive system cheap
and im hoping someone can slide me some technical information
about these specific ones so can at least see if the motors
are powerful enuf to move the table around

Stuart Caruk · May 17, 2010

Motion Control is relatively simple. You have a controller that tells the drive amplifiers what to do, motors that do the work, and encoders that close the position loop. Your robot has all the components in it as far as the amplifiers, motors, and encoders, but you still need to find a CNC controller to make your project work. Your robot controller is really designed to go from point to point. Path accuracy isn't a huge concern.

For what a decent control will cost, you can already buy a used CNC machine today that runs. It's a lot less work, and you might actually get to use it in the near future.

It's not that it can't be done, but I doubt you can do it cost effectively.

Good Luck!

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