FANUC: Useable Servo Motor/Drive Combos for Rotary 4th Integration

[13engines]

Looked around for info on this, but haven't found anything that directly answers my questions.

Trying to fit a rotary table to a mid/late 90's Mori VMC with Fanuc 18MC control. My Servo drives are all A06B-6079 type. Typical Alpha Series drives of the era.

Many of the used tables come with Alpha i or Alpha iF4 or iF8 motors. Can anyone tell me if these newer Alpha i motors can be run by my control and associated drives? Can you mix different and potentially newer A06B-XXXX-H1XX drives within the same machine, using the same power supply and controlled by one control? My 18 has 6 channels so no problem there and is already wired for 4th with a 6079. Does it boil down more so to encoder type? Firmware? Installed software? I'm all ears.

I already own a Tsudakoma that originally came with an old 10S Servo which I knew enough about to know I had to change it, which I did. Problem is the table turned out to be too big for my needs. (12") Hence I'm looking again. I'm trying to get more competitive on production parts with hole features on all six sides. Thinking to mount 4 - 4" twin station vises on one to start.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Dave

 

[GENERALDISARRAY]

So you had a rotary on the machine using the drive thats installed and whatever motor you put on the the 12" Tsudakoma?
What motor is it? What is the H number of the drive. the midrange sized drives will drive a couple of sizes of motors.

I dont think a i series encoder will work on your non i drive.
I think your drives were the end of the line before they wet to fiber optic.

If you are wanting to use a vise like a 1040 Chick tower I would think a 12" would be what you want.

 

[Garwood]

You can buy the Fanuc manuals for the drives. I forget which one, but one of them goes over painstaking detail which drives are compatible with which motors. The books are pretty good.

If you were using a 12" 4th I think you could get away with mounting multiple vises provided your parts are real short. If you're going any smaller than that it might be better to go with an offset trunnion to run one vise or fixtures.

Offsetting the vise keeps the part closer to the centerline of rotation. Good for accuracy and easier on the brake and gears in the 4th.

It took me buying my first HMC to really grasp how dramatically different workholding is for a 4th on a VMC VS a tombstone on an HMC. They are different worlds and multiple vises on a VMC 4th doesn't usually work well at all.

 

[13engines]

Thank you for the responses. I was pretty certain that anything Ai needed Ai all down the line. It's been my experience that Fanuc drive/motor combos are pretty particular. I was really hoping someone had once pulled a rabbit out of their hat and successfully figured this scenario out. I may end up using an outboard control box to operate one using M codes. I'd mostly need 45's, 90's and only the occasional off angle indexes.

I had the 12" Tsudakoma in my Mori pallet machine one time. The rotary cleared the pallet transfer doorway by maybe a 1/4" at best. The pallets have 1 3/8" subplates which doesn't help matters. Also I noticed I would be very limited in the the setups I could have on the B table, as part of the rotary table motor and connection housing would have to pass over anything mounted on the B pallet. My over-riding sense with the table inside the machine was that there was no space left to operate. I have a WTB out for SV50/SV500 pallets. If I could get another, I wouldn't need the top plate and would gain that extra 1 3/8 which might be enough to change my mind. Even still, I think a 9 or 10" is going to be easier to deal with and be less crash worthy.

I hear you about the Horizontal. It's not lost on me about how much better a horizontal would be compared to vises mounted on a rotary table column or trunion thingy. I've been looking at Sh and NH Moris and some Makino. Horizontals of this vintage typically seem pretty beat up online. I've seen a few horizontals in person. Not surprisingly they're even worse then the pictures. I rebuilt my SV50 from the ground up, but I no longer have the time or the energy to do the same to an HMC. I pretty much have a like new machine now, but I paid for it in more ways then one. I think it finally killed the rebuilding spirit in me that I've had my whole life.

If anyone cares to chime in about their experiences with rotary table mounted multi-vise tombstones or trunions and the do's and don'ts about them, feel free to take over this thread, I think the original question(s) has been answered.

 

[Garwood]

I hear you about the Horizontal. It's not lost on me about how much better a horizontal would be compared to vises mounted on a rotary table column or trunion thingy. I've been looking at Sh and NH Moris and some Makino. Horizontals of this vintage typically seem pretty beat up online. I've seen a few horizontals in person. Not surprisingly they're even worse then the pictures. I rebuilt my SV50 from the ground up, but I no longer have the time or the energy to do the same to an HMC. I pretty much have a like new machine now, but I paid for it in more ways then one. I think it finally killed the rebuilding spirit in me that I've had my whole life.

LMAO! I have had the exact same experiences! I have spruced up a few VMC's and it burned me out on that approach. Atleast I won't ever buy the level of wrecks I have previously. There was a one owner SH400 one town over for a few years. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either. I just figured it was going to be twice the project of a tattered VMC given the bigger scope of an HMC and the greater hours. I couldn't do it even when the price got really good. I made a lowball offer on a pristine creampuff older Makino HMC and was laughed out of the shop. A year later they called me back and took my offer because the machine had to go. I went a little older than I wanted to, but the condition more than makes up for it. Might be something to watch out for since not much of a market for old HMC's so when there is a genuine creampuff who's actually gonna pay a premium for it? Nobody.