4th axis using Yaskawa servo drive on Fadal

[R D]

I have a Hurco 4th axis I want to use on a Fadal. It is driven by a Yaskawa servo motor, the encoder is not able to communicate with a Fadal. Does anybody know if I use the Yaskawa servo drive for the motor if it will communicate with the control, or am I better off finding a motor which will work with a Fadal amp?

 

[Zeus1050]

There are a couple things going on here.
What kind of motor does the rotab have on it? Ac or dc? Is the drive analog or digital?
What year is your Fadal? Ac or dc motors? Fadals use a +- 10v analog signal to drive the amps. Fadals with dc motors have resolvers not encoders. Fadals with ac motors use 8192 ppr encoders. I don’t know if there is a parameter to change the resolution.
Your Fadal will also need to have an auxiliary axis drive board for the additional axis.
All that being said, if your rotab has an ac motor, it has an encoder. Unless your Fadal has ac motors and the encoder resolution can be set , this won’t work.
If your Fadal has dc motors and your rotab has dc motors, you can put a resolver on the motor and it should work. You will need an analog drive and will have to have an additional 1010 axis board.
If your rotab has an ac motor , you could swap the motor for a dc motor with a resolver.
In any cases , this is not a plug and play undertaking. You would probably be better off looking for a Fadal rotab.
I put an old Hurco/Gleason rotab on an old Matsuura with an X-1 control. It was an adventure, it works well, certainly not plug and play.

 

[R D]

The machine is an 2000 AC machine. The servo motor (Yaskawa sigma 2 series) is a 2007 AC. I asked on the CNC forum about swapping the 17 bit encoder on the rotary motor for a 13 bit encoder to give the 8192 ppr but that wasn't an option. The servo drive ( which I don't have yet, that's why I'm asking) for the rotary motor can take the 17 bit encoder and output it as 13 bit to the control. I looked for Fadal rotarys but they were expensive and most of the listings said "we were told it worked, seems good, came off a running machine" etc, not exactly confidence inspiring. This Hurco one was in really good shape and had the cables and center for $1500 Canadian. If I have to replace the motor it would still be cheaper than an iffy Fadal one. I found a Glentek motor on their site that would only need new holes in the motor mounting plate and a stepped keyway. I would prefer to go the servo drive route but the motor swap would just cost about $1000 more.

 

[Zeus1050]

The Yaskawa drive cost is gonn a floor you... and support Yaskawa is not helpful, at all. Not all Yaskawa encoders are created equally. Some are incremental and have a serial line and battery back up. Look at the actual cable signals. What you will run into is getting a drive to work with it. Ac need communtation signals to time the windings. The exact method Yaskawa uses is unknown, I have been down this road before. I was talking with a tech at AMCI , and they have drives will will drive a lot Yaz motor, they are about $1300 each.
The Yaz drive probably has a parameter to set the out put count , as the encoder goes in the drive for communtation and out to the control for position. I don’t know if an AMCI drive has that option.
Regardless of what motor you use, you will still need a drive and the Fadal 1010 axis board. If you haven’t spoken to Glentek, you will find they are pretty proud of their product and the quote will reflect it. Their support is also kinda snooty..
One other thing, Fadals don’t use limit switches, they home to a resolver grid or a zero pulse on an encoder, my guess is the there is a home offset in the Fadal control for encoders. Yiou will also have to figure out the brake.

 

[R D]

The Yaskawa drive that works with the motor is SGDH-10AE Servo Drive and has been superseded by newer drives so they are actually not too bad around $300 up to $1300 US on ebay. I have found out the tech support was no help when I asked them about the encoder.This encoder is incremental and has 4 wires and ground. The Yaskawa drive does have a parameter to output a different ppr than its input from the motor. Another problem is the brake air servo on the rotary is 24v and I understand Fadal is 12v so I managed to find an air servo in 12v on Ali express for $30. The one thing I am not sure of is the home position inductive proximity sensors voltage and if it will work on 12v. I can't see any make or model on it. Good to know about Glentek I will remain seated when I open the email!

 

[Zeus1050]

Be very careful picking out a Yaskawa drive. Some use pots and jumpers, some have a keypad , some use a digital operator and some use a serial connection and their software. Some parameters are not editable... as in they are protected and Yaskawa isn’t going to share how to change them. My experience is they are encoder count, kw rating , they call them motor parameters. Cn-05 I believe.. Many Yaskawa drives are the same, take them apart, they have some different hardware for braking, they are set by parameter for application. I f you get a drive and it doesn’t match the motor rating or encoder count, you are boned... enuff of that. I’ve had to remove the eprom from a non functioning board, read it, make a new one and solder it on the same danm board that came from a different capacity drive in order to use the board.
The encoder should have 8 pins, a a/, b b/, z z/ last two could be c , they are the marker channel, along with 5v and 0v. You will also need to see what the Fadal requires for signal.
Fadal won’t use the prox switch for home, Fadals should home to a specific encoder number of counts from the alignment line.
The 24v brake is the least of your issues, get a 12v relay to switch the 24 v for the brake,
If you don’t have the cables you will need to make them. The Yaskawa drive uses high density sub d type connectors at the drive, these are made by 3m. You will also have to enable the drive , which is done by the control by signal when the control has the servo loop under control. You will also need cannon plugs for the power and encoder signals, air line for the brake. Fadal runs all this stuff thru one 1” flex conduit with a big ass cannon plug on the end. You will also have to figure out how and if you need a dummy plug when the 4th is not attached.

Then you will have to tune it... Set it up on a bench, get a couple power supplies, wire it up and use a battery as a analog signal to drive the amp, see how it works.
It’s doable, it’s also gonna take some time to integrate.

 

[R D]

Thanks very much for all this information. Looks like I have plenty of research to do! In the mean time I will contact Glentek and see what they have to say. It sounds the easiest path to get this rotary working, even if it costs more up front. As the saying goes " time is money"

 

[Zeus1050]

Time is time and money is money... if you have the time, you can save the $$, if you are in a rush and have the $$ then you save the time.... todays philosophy, best of luck. If you were in Fl, I could help you out in person.