Prolight M1000 Mill and turning center retrofit

[agoodevans]

Making a start:

FYI my prolight M1000 mill has the following:
1HP, 180Volts DC, 5.3Amps, 6880Rpm, Baldor (Now ABB) Spindle motor,

XYZ axis control is via Superior Electric (60mm NEMA 23) Stepper motors:
Hold: 150 Oz/IN, Steps: 200, 3.36V, 2.9Amps DC

Lathe seems to be similar or same.

I have a SME 240-12-10 power supply which I will use with SLA battery. I figure this will give me an UPS facility that may be useful with power glitches. The battery will also ensure a good regulated 12 volts for Masso supply. USB keyboard and VGA screen ready to go.

As the mill still works on an old PC, I'm tempted to keep it together to check values to/from the driver box. I have a good multimeter but no CRO. Both machines use the same driver box so once I solve the connections for one, the next should be straight forward.

Any advice or feedback appreciated.

 

[masso-support]

Thanks for the information, please see the below:

1. So with a 12v battery you can only power the MASSO, how do you plan to power other electronics such as motor drives or this is just for the MASSO?
   
2. To get started with this conversion the first thing is to see what stepper motor and spindle motor drives you have.
   

 

[agoodevans]

OK, The motor details were supplied in the above post. I have attached some images that may be of help. I will use this power supply and the motors are as set out below:

12 Volt power supply: SME240-12-10 (240Volt, 12Volts DC at 10Amps)

Spindle Motor: Baldor (Now ABB) 1HP, 180Volts DC, 5.3Amps, 6880Rpm,

Superior Electric Stepper Motors: 60mm NEMA 23 Hold: 150 Oz/IN, Steps: 200, 3.36V, 2.9Amps DC



Light Machines Corporation Motor Driver Box for each machine:

The stepper motors are driven by the L298N chips,

I obtained this information and connections thanks to CNCZone:

"I ve been working on backwards engineering a Prolight 1000 s control box so I wouldn t have to hunt down a controller card for my mill or be forced to use the older software that comes with it. I ve gotten to the point of a fully functional mill and it turns out to be a surprisingly easy hack once the circuits were traced. Here is what I've found out.

Disclaimer. Use what is posted here at your own risk! Your control box maybe different than mine.

All that is needed for basic functionality is a parallel port cable, knife, and some time. The port has to give out strong 5 volt signals to work. Most of the PCI cards I ve tested struggle to get 3.5 volts. They simply can't drive the optoisolators on the inputs. Also the cheap parallel port cards do not give out good signals with strong peaks and floors. One I have runs 1.8 volts off and 3.1 on. The problem can be rectified by using transistors, hex buffers or any number of other circuits to amplify the weak signals and properly drive the control box. I simply used the parallel port on the motherboard

. All outputs from the control box (lid open, e-stop, home, limit) NEED to be filtered. There is over 18 volts of PK-PK noise in them from the chopper in the stepper drivers and no amount of debounce can help it. If left unfiltered the feedback is enough to heat up the stepper drivers and cause the motors to scream. 0.1-0.2 f caps are optimal. Anymore and it will just delay signals. The following table is the pinout for the computer connection on the control box. I/O marks if the pin is for input or output. Active notes if the pin is signaling when high, low or both in the case of directions.

Code:

Pin I/O Desc Active Remarks



1. I Acc 1 H Normally high, pull low to disable the Acc1 plug.

2. I Acc 2 H Normally high, pull low to disable the Acc2 plug.

3. ? ??? ?

4. ? ??? ?

5. I Z Direction B

6. I X Direction B

7. - Ground -

8. I ??? ?

9. I ??? ?

10. ? ??? ?

11. O Lid Open L Best to wire this in (or to estop). The mill will kill the spindle on low regardless of the control box or computer s output. Great way to snap bits.

12. ? ??? ?

13. O X/Y/Z Limit L

14. I ??? ?

15. I TTL Output 1 H Robotic output 1

16. I TTL Output 2 H Robotic output 2

17. I Full/Half Step H Default high is half steps. Pull low for full steps.

18. I Y Direction B

19. I Z Step L Normally high, steps on low pulse.

20. I Y Step L Normally high, steps on low pulse.

21. I X Step L Normally high, steps on low pulse.

22. I Enable H

23. O E Stop L

24. O X/Y/Z Home L

25. ? ??? ?


As you can see there are some holes. Notably I'm missing the TTL inputs for the robotic interface. Since I'd just run any robot off the computer directly these other pins were not important to me.

Code:

DE-9

Pin I/O Desc



1. I + Spindle speed signal

2. I - Spindle speed signal


The spindles works off varying voltage to pins 1 and 2 on the DE-9 connector. Mine came setup for a 0 - 9 volt scale but is adjustable via pot under the back cover of the machine marked sig_adj. It is perfect for a PWM drive signal. Regretfully the pot can t adjust down low enough for a 5 volt signal to max the spindle. I used an NPN transistor driven by the parallel port s output hooked to the computer s 12 volt rail to up the output voltage to 0-12 then adjusted the pot to match. Works like a charm. Only problem is I have no idea how fast the spindle is actually moving so I've just been guessing."



The above is an extract from CNCZone forum- it's all I've got to go with!

Thanks in advance.

 

[masso-support]

Thanks for the great information agoodevans.

1. Driving optocouplers with MASSO should be good because that is how we have designed the output circuitry. All the drives that re being used with MASSO have opto inputs and they are working great.
   
2. In your list I couldn't find the direction inputs for X, Y and Z axis.
   

 

[agoodevans]

Pins 5, 6, 18 on the DB25

 

[masso-support]

yes for sure , I just looked at Active "B" and thought its B axis, all good. thank you.

 

[agoodevans]

I will fire up my mill with the old PC and confirm that these pin configurations match my motor driver. After that I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and cut into some cables and wire up the Masso. I still think I will do the Lathe first and keep the mill on the PC for now. That way I can do checks on a working mill.

Thanks to all.

 

[agoodevans]

Hi,

I've done the checks of pins on DB25 and they appear to be the same as per the diagram. Could not check stepping pins without a CRO unless anyone has some smart way with a meter? Tried high and low step speeds but no clear reading. Spindle motor would not go but fixed that. One brush was sticky and not making contact with commutator.

Will my power supply be OK to connect to Masso without a battery? 20mVP-P ripple, specifications attached.

I'm going to start wiring up the Masso. Any other checks required before I go ahead?

Cheers.

 

[masso-support]

1. For checking the step signals, please use a resistor of about 1k and then manually pulse a 5v signal to the step signals, you can then expect to see the motor rotate as you send the pulses.
   
2. what version of the power supply you plan to use, what will be the voltage output?
   

 

[agoodevans]

Thanks for the 5v pulse tip,

I m using the SME240-12-10, the 10Amp unit,

Thanks again

 

[masso-support]

12v will be fine, for amps you dont need 10A as for MASSO even 2 AMPS is enough, maybe you need more amps for something else on your machine but thought to let you know.

 

[agoodevans]

Used 1K resistor to pull down to zero as my driver is high and steps on low pulse. Wiring is confirmed as per diagram provided.

Power supply is simply one I had and will supply both the lathe and mill. I was more concerned about the ripple without a battery and how fussy the Masso was for supply. From specs 2x masso s= 3amps, overkill- yes, as you suggested additional power might be useful.

Would you now wire up all features or add one axis at a time and power up the masso after each is installed.

 

[masso-support]

Don't worry about the ripple, we have filtration on MASSO and you wont need any battery.

 

[agoodevans]

For each axis:

As my driver steps on a Low pulse do I connect my step control wire to the( S-) terminal?

Am I write in assuming it doesn't matter which Direction terminal I connect to, as a change in polarity results in a direction change. I was going to connect to the (D-) for consistency?

 

[masso-support]

I would say that you connect the S+ and D+ and leave the S- and D- disconnected. Please make sure the -ve of MASSO power supply is connected to -ve of the drive connector.

 

[agoodevans]

Ok a few more questions:

The EStop on the machine directly shuts down the machine's operation and I think pulls pin 23 low, so this would be an INPUT to the Masso. This is similar to the lid open switch on pin 11 and XYZ limit switches on pin 13. The prolight software had a EStop feature using the spacebar on the keyboard and I think it stopped the machine via the ENABLE on pin 22. Thus the enable needs to be an OUTPUT from the Masso?

So I plan to do the following:

1. Lid open will go to Pin 1 of the opto-isolated inputs and follow masso software instructions as per documentation,
   
2. Can I do the same with XYZ limits say to pin 2 of isolated inputs,
   
3. EStop - no options in documentation that makes sense for my situation?? (I will trace out the EStop wiring)
   
4. What do I do with the ENABLE pin as it needs to be held HIGH for the machine to operate. Can the masso software enable machine via one of the TTL outputs?
   

Thanks in advance.

 

[masso-support]

1. Door input is fine.
   
2. Not able to understand your XYZ on pin 2 question, please provide more details.
   
3. So with estop do you want wire the enable pins of the drives to be able disable your drives?
   
4. You should connect the enables via the estop button to the drives so that when pressed all drives are disabled. You can use the estop switch's NC or NO contact as per your signal requirments.
   

 

[agoodevans]

Point 2. the x,y,z hard limits currently pull pin 13 on the DB25 low. Can I connect this hard limit to 2 on the Masso isolated inputs?

Point 4. I don't see any Enable outputs on the Masso. With the prolight software the driver controls are not turned on until the software ENABLE pin 22 on the DB25 goes high. How do I get the Masso to turn it on?

 

[masso-support]

Can you please share a user manual for prolight drives so that we can see what kind of setup they require.

 

[agoodevans]

Don't have a specific manual or wiring diagram for the driver box but will see what I can dig up. From the L298ND data sheet, this driver IC needs a logic 1 on the enable pin , so I'm assuming the +5v on the DB25 enable pin 22 turns all the H-bridge drivers ON. Can the Masso supply a +5v to this pin when it is powered up or do I need to generate one via 3Terminal regulator or some other means? Does the Masso provide an enable logic 1 on one of it's output pins when it starts up?

Thanks.