Re: HARDINGE HNC RETROFIT

Douglas

Personally, I'd toss all the GE except the transformers and a few
components. Uptime electronics, somewhere on the west coast near LA was
buying GE controls for a while but my guess would be that what they pay
now for a 550 wouldn't get it very far down the street.

The drive motors are 90 volt and the power supply to them is probably
closer to 100 volts. You'd have to reduce the number of secondary
windings to get that within the Gecko's specs.

They don't use encoders they use resolvers. These and the dc tachs are
behind a pair of large cast covers (six allen screws, probably four
missing) on the motor ends of the axes. They are driven by a gear and a
flex coupling on the end of the ballscrew.

Spindle speed is controlled by a pair of drive belts around an idler with
two variable pulleys. This idler is dragged up and down by a little dc
motor that turns a threaded rod.

If you use Gecko 340's you could throw (ebay?) out the whole feedback
package and install an encoder where the drive end of the ball nut sticks
out. The spindle resolver is a different matter entirely as it runs from
a belt and is housed in a small recess below the collet closer. It will
take some work and some cash to find the right encoder for that.

There is no room on the x to add any feedback to the motor and there is a
belt reduction to the ballscrew so I'd get rather high count encoders for
it. The ballscrews are 0.20 pitch.

HTH

Ray

On Tuesday 17 September 2002 06:14 pm, you wrote:
> Message: 20
>    Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 22:01:21 -0000
>    From: "Douglas King" <evelle97530@...>
> Subject: HARDINGE HNC RETROFIT
>
> HI.I WAS WONDERING IF ANYONE WHO'S RETROFITTED AN HNC, KNOWS WHAT TO
> KEEP OUT OF THE GIANT CONTROLLER BOX.MINE'S A GE 550 MARK CENTURY.I
> PLAN TO USE THE HARDINGE AXIS MOTORS,AND HOPEFULLY THE SPINDLE
> MOTOR.I'M TRYING TO BE LOW BUDGY,BUT I WANT A FUNCTIONAL CNC LATHE.I
> WAS THINKING OF GECKO DRIVES,AN AHHA CONTROLLER,AND MAYBE I'LL HAVE
> TO RUN NEW ENCODERS..I WANT TO GET RID OF THE BIG GE,AND I WAS HOPING
> TO SELL IT INTACT TO SOMEONE WHO NEEDS ONE.THANKS,DOUG KING,OWNER
> METALHEART MACHINE