Maho MH400E in the home shop

I just uploaded the video sumarising what I did to convert my MAHO MH400E to LinuxCNC.

I know Milicron always recommends against this, but I got lucky as a friend of mine is a professional programmer, and wrote the gearbox.comp to control the gear changing. This is all described in the github wiki...
Home * jin-eld/mh400e-linuxcnc Wiki * GitHub
Mark

the right version of the MH400 This Old Tony should have started with, but then again, less content for the YT audience...

I guess Maho are not as common in the States as they are over here. If Tony had started with an E, we would never have got to enjoy that awesome video covering all the gearboxes, drive shafts and clutches in his 400P.
Mark

excellent video--minimal upset of oem components

That was my goal. There is no way anything I change will be better engineered than Maho designed it.

rotarySMP said:

That was my goal. There is no way anything I change will be better engineered than Maho designed it.

Click to expand...

Awesome job. And now it's easy to add a 4th or 5th axis without needing to spend thousands. In a way I miss my Bridgeport Boss5 with linuxcnc on it but at least Fadal has all the coding unlocked for adding the axis. I would convert this one but why when the controller works.

I think this is the rare example of a retrofit that makes sense - and it only makes sense because you got a healthy CNC machine frame of good function and quality to start with. It makes way more sense than converting a rong fu or the like (and you did a great job of explaining why.) It's good to see a conversion like this that produces a useful result, rather than a half dead pile of parts standing in formation on the floor.

Thanks guys. I don't really understand starting a project like this by ripping everything out of the control cabinet. Just wire alone which is in there would cost a package to replace. All the relays, terminals etc a really good quality.

LinuxCNC is awesome, especially since the MESA guys keep updating there HostMot2 driver to integrate all their cards, which are rock solid. I once used the older LinuxCNC Gui "Axis" but Gmoccapy I find much more intuitive

I just watched the video and I am impressed.What really stands out for me is the fact that it is still a closed-loop system. I do love the Philips controls ( I do have machines with newer ones ) but there is no real technical support anymore. Did I understand that your control is of the shelf? More or less plug and play, like MACH3 ? I always thought you have to learn and make everything yourself.

Anyway, thanks for showing your work!

Thanks.

A bit of history, as far as I can work it out.

The US National institute of Science and Tech (NIST) wrote a program for controlling machine tools as a research project. As public funded software had to be made public property, so it was released open source. It was written for Unix or Linux, as there was a realtime patch available to make the kernal predictable. At some point it got named EMC (Enhanced machine controller).

The guy behind MACH3 wrote a semi realtime driver for Windows NT, and used it with EMC's algorithms to create MACH. Ihave little experience with MACH, but appears to be more user friendly to set-up, but much more limited in scope (LinuxCNC can be configured for closed loop 9 axis non-cartesian machines).

EMC got renamed to LinuxCNC due to a trademark conflict.

Not sure what you mean by plug and play?

I took a standard PC. Installed LinuxCNC using a live image which installs Linux, along with a real time patched kernal, LinuxCNC, plus an installation wizard, and a pretty standard set of office and pc apps. Very easy. You can even do it as a live install, meaning you can try it out, without first affecting your current OS setup.

The Mesa cards (5i25/7i77) were bought as the PnP kit for linuxcnc, and were already flashed with the appropriate firmware. I added the 7i84 to interface the relay board. It also plugged and played without needing firmware configuration or flashing.

Most of the work was:
- Wiring in a couple of discrete wires to the 7i77 to LinuxCNC into the Estop chain, machine start and Hyd tool release.
- replacing all the old capacitors in the Indramat as a precaution.
- reterminating the ribbon cables (IO from the Phillips to that relay board) into the 7i84,
- reterminating the Heidenhain EXE (Encoder A/D converters) and the Indramat +/-10V signals into the 7i77,
- troubleshooting one dead and one flakey EXE + a flakey connector on the relay board.
- The biggest part was making a software program to control the gearbox. This gets compiled as a component of LinuxCNC. Luckily a mate who is a professional programmer worked with me to tease out a spec of what it should do, and then wrote it, and a software simulator to test it. That is available to anyone now through the github, so anyone else with a Maho x00E can grab it here...
GitHub - jin-eld/mh400e-linuxcnc: MAHO MH400E component for LinuxCNC
Instructions how to compile it are also there. Any programmer should be able to fork this, and modify it for a similar machine like a Deckel FPxNC.

- Used the LinuxCNC configuration wizard (PNCConf) to create a basic set up of configuration files, with the MESA driver, servo thread rate, mill axes etc.
- Manually edited the (Config files) HAL and INI to implement things like the E-stop, Hyd tool release, gearbox control, matric KB etc.
- Used linuxcncs built-in HALscope like an Osci to tune the PID loops for each axis.

That results in a functional machine. If you wanted you could stop at that point, and just use a normal keyboard, mouse and monitor.



I wanted a machine tool user module, so that was a bit more work:
- design a housing, get laser cut steel, weld, grind, paint.
- Mount a touch screen, and active USB hub, configure it (It was a shitty old screen and PITA to set up).
- Make up button modules to duplicate the onscreen soft keys. Plus 8 other switches. Wired all these up as a matrix, and used an existing LinuxCNC matrix_kb.comp to be able to read out all 19 switch states with only 10 i/o pins on the 7i77.
- I reused most of the wiring out to the user control module. Just needed to pull through a USB and CAT 6 cable.

From where I sit now, this all seems easy. When I started, I had little clue about any of this. Couldn't read a schematic (you need those) etc. The LinuxCNC forum guys were extremely knowledgable, helpful and patient. Helped me to a solution for any issue which popped up.
Hope that helped.
Mark

The whole retrofit, warts and all is in this long thread on the LinuxCNC forum...
Retrofitting a 1986 Maho MH400E - LinuxCNC

Mark

rotarySMP said:

Not sure what you mean by plug and play?

Click to expand...

I mean just like when you buy a new printer you connect it to your PC and the software makes all the settings right. On my first printer I had to install everything manual, I assume Linux still works that way.

hoisting gantry over ramped tomb entrance looks dodgy--what were A-frame components ?

4x4" pine. Cross braced. All nodes reinforced with glued and screwed ply wood. Two stays out diagonally.

No Cnc software is PnP in the way installing a printer is. You have configure everything. Partially with wizards, partially with editing config files.

Mark

a story regarding machine hoisting----

in 1990 I bought at government auction 42 inch Bullard vertical turret lathe
---with a problem-- a complete rebuild at Rough and Ready Island tool facility
was just completed--it was transported by rail to naval shipyard--Bremerton
the Bullard was supported by 3--10 inch white oak timbers--the back timber snapped
dropping mill 50 feet into freighter hold--intended destination Pearl Harbor shipyard
three new 62 passenger school buses were destroyed--the 48,000 lb mill was prevented from penetrating hull by
cushion of a couple semi loads of dimensional lumber--

all-in-all--a one million dollar event what I do not understand is the use of oak support timbers when
the military had refined shipping platforms usually of modular aluminium construction qualified to handle
weight of Bullard

your gantry construction reflects design and execution expected of european standard--
in similar league of your countryman-Alex---(An Engineers Findings)

in America--lift of 400E would be characterized by binding immature trees at crown--
use of hay farmer's snatch block ---hoist power supplied by 30 year old derelict pickup---followed by beer bing to erase memory of outcome

Great Job, how many hours do you think it took you? This shows that with a little dedication and hard work it isn't out of reach.

Hard to say. It took about 8 months, but much of that time I was doing other things,or learning. If someone knows their way around wiring and schematics. It could be done in a week.
Mark