David, While I can't help much on the conversion I have an Anilam 1100M on a BP while it is old it does work well. Mine is a three axis machine and if the PC ever dies I'll convert it. The Anilam Z drive is done quite well and if you need pictures of it I can help with that. Does your Anilam work now?
John On 16 Sep 2009 at 0:47, David Braley wrote: > Hello all, > > I have some questions and thoughts regarding EMC2 and the Anilam > 1100 > controller on a Sharp, series one universal type milling machine I > have > here in the shop. I want to make some upgrades to the machine, but > I'm > quickly finding out that Anilam makes it pretty hard to do this. One > of > the things I would really like to do is add a third axis of motion > control to the quill. The Anilam 1100 controller I have now is only > two > axis. > > The Anilam controller is also really dated. It is powered by a 386 > SX > 25mhz computer running Dos 3.x something. It does not have a real > hard > drive, but a simple flash ram drive that has one meg of memory. The > whole machine is very old, and I would love to update the computer > system to something more modern. But... > > Anilam did such a good job of protecting their proprietary system, > you > can't even add ram or a hard drive to it, not without it > complaining. > Forget about using a faster more modern computer, the system somehow > knows when changes are made, and it will not function. It's > technically > just a pc for the main computer, but it's not upgradeable, not > without > using Anilam parts. Anilam wants about $1,800 dollars just to update > the > computer to something like a Pentium II that will run from a hard > drive. > For that kind of money, I think something else can be done. That is > where EMC2 comes in, I hope. > > The motors are Baldor brush servos with dc tachs for velocity > feedback, > and quadrature encoders for position. The servo amps are ancient > Glentek > units that receive a +/- 10v command for motor control. I'm hoping > that > I can somehow save the servo drivers and motors, and just use a much > more modern computer running EMC2 for the brains of this thing. I'll > need to use some kind of black box to convert the pulses coming from > the > EMC output to a +/- 10v signal for the servo amplifiers. I'm still > not > sure if the dc tachs are even usable, but maybe someone can chime in > about that. > > Worse case scenario, if I'm not able to even use the old Glentek > servo > motor amps, I would maybe buy some Gecko amplifiers for the motors, > and > use a good pc I have hear for running EMC2 for control. What appeals > to > me so much about using EMC2 is then I could easily add control for a > second axis, or more. > > I just figured for the $1,800 smackers that Anilam wants to update > the > system to basically another ancient machine, and the fact I still > wouldn't get my third axis from Anilams upgrade either, I could > spend > that money really bringing her up to date using something like EMC > for > control. It would make a really cool first project for me using > EMC2. > > Anyone have some thoughts? Ideas? Has anyone done an EMC conversion > on a > machine that used to be powered by an Anilam CNC controller? > > Sorry if this post seems like a ramble. I'm still in the information > gathering mode. > > Take care all! > > David > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > ---------- > Come build with us! The BlackBerry® Developer Conference in SF, > CA > is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart > your > developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and > stay > ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9-12, 2009. Register > now! > http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconf > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Come build with us! The BlackBerry® Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9-12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconf _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
