Re:Retro-tek?

Jon Anderson <janders@...> wrote:

Are you sure it's a servo system? There were a fair number of stepper
conversions at one time, I bought one. I don't recall the wire colors
exactly, but they sound the same. My motors didn't have any info inside
the cover plate either, but the amps were Omega, I think.\

[Are stepper amps different from servo amps? If I decide to put encoders
on the ballscrews (since there is noplace on the motor to do this) can I
still use these amps, or does it put me in another ballpark entirely? ]


"Doug Harrison" <prototype@...> wrote:

I'm certain these are steppers. BLDC (brushless DC) motors were not around
much back then - definitely not on lower end machine tools.

[So there are brushes in there someplace, buried deeply? The consensus
seems to be that these are stepper motors of some sort. Should I just
power- 'em up and put an amp clamp on there to see how much power they draw
(with no load?) , and then try to figure out empirically how fast they want
to go? If these are DC, then this would vary with the voltage, correct?]

These should work fine with Gecko step drives.

[If I put encoders on the screws, can I use the Gecko closed-loop drives,
or does the encoder have to be on the motor for these to work?]

ballendo@... wrote:

It would be my guess you have steppers. The colors are right for
some mfr's motors. 4 leads is a bipolar 2-phase stepper. 1988 retro's
prob'ly used steppers (servo's WERE VERY expensive, then, especially
compared to the $$ diff. between step vs, servo now) Of course, there
would be no encoders.

BUT, I am unfamiliar with the MFR in question, so these are just
guesses.

Ballendo

[This would explain why I didn't find any extra wires, thanks everybody.]


Andrew Werby - United Artworks
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