New to me MAHO 500W CNC

[takeda]

Hello.

I got myself a MAHO 500W CNC. After all this time working with converted chinese mills and cnc routers,
owning a proper machine for the first time feels nice.

To the subject, I would like to ask if anybody has any material/documents to share regarding this machine.

Additionally, since I have never worked with 40 tapers and drawbars yet (I have the R8-TTS tooling on my small chinese mill),
what type of drawbar does this machine have? I can see the engravings on the pulling jaws

Horizontal: I 35 013 and II 35 013
Vertical: I 35 595 and II 35 595

Do these codes help identifying the drawbar and the pull stud to use?

The cone is 40 taper.

Thanks a ton.

 

[AlfaGTA]

Don't think the numbers on the grippers will tell you which type/style of :pull stud" you need for that machine.
Should be the same either horizontal of vertical.
Believe what you need is like this:
Should verify before ordering a bunch of these just to be sure. Later machines have different pull studs.

Pull Stud - Hex Head for Deckel, Maho PS-4E-0110 MariTool

Should have no trouble sourcing locally....Standard fro early Deckel as well as Maho. Singer or FPS in Germany, along with others....
You would likely want metric threads (16x2.0) on the stud for "BT" tool holders, The above link lists 5/8-11 threads which fits CAT 40 holders.
Believe the metric version holder is listed as ISO 2080

Cheers Ross

 

[takeda]

After some days of debugging, and with the electrical schematics provided by DMG Mori available, we managed to power it up.

The failure was a faulty electrolytic cap in the PSU of the Heidenhain Controller.

Everything seems to be working well, handwheels are engaging fine (they needed a bit of tuning),

Backlash ofc is Z_E_R_O due to the PID which involves reading from the LS403C glass scales which is awesome.

The LS403C have reference marks every 20mm so the machine gets aware of it's actual position after moving for ~ 20mm. Astonishing.

Spindle Motor works OK

Both cones in excellent condition.

Pumps OK

I don't get any funky noise from the ballscrews, at least this is what I think

All the automation is working well, we tested everything in the cabinet, (eg. limit switches).

I bought this machine with a convertion to LinuxCNC in mind, but it's working so nice that I ain't doing a thing just yet.

Next I would like to find a manual for the controller, understand if it's true 3 axis or 2+1/2, and also find a way to use the serial V.24 interface for streaming program.

This machine is amazing, I love it so far.

 

[sneebot]

I do not believe the pull stud that Ross linked to is correct. The Mahos of your vintage took a short stubby pull stud that was very close to the one pictured below.

 

[sneebot]

Is the control a Phillips 432 (the console looks a little small compared with the standard Maho set-up)?

 

[takeda]

Is the control a Phillips 432 (the console looks a little small compared with the standard Maho set-up)?

It's a Heidenhain TNC I don't know what. I'll take more pics later

 

[sneebot]

It looks like that would be a Phillips 232.

 

[takeda]

A repo with some documentation for this Maho: electrical schematics, machine parameters and some manuals.

GitHub - petmakris/maho-mh500w-cnc: Documentation and notes for a MahoMH500W CNC

 

[takeda]

It looks like that would be a Phillips 232.

Could you please point to some info about this controller?
I dont understand why I cannot find any information on the internet when searching with keywords: Philips 232 (or also adding cnc/controller/Heidenhain).

Additionally, the machine registration page on DMG Mori points to a SINUMERIC 8xx T/M, but I can't say if it's accurate.

Any opinions?



(I don't know why the forum is compressing my image so much)

mymori-1 — ImgBB

 

[R9000]

Backlash ofc is Z_E_R_O due to the PID which involves reading from the LS403C glass scales which is awesome.

The LS403C have reference marks every 20mm so the machine gets aware of it's actual position after moving for ~ 20mm. Astonishing.

I've been wondering about this, does your machine have rotational encoders on its motors as well as the glass scales? Or does it just use a PID controlled entirely by the linear scales?

 

[takeda]

I've been wondering about this, does your machine have rotational encoders on its motors as well as the glass scales? Or does it just use a PID controlled entirely by the linear scales?

I could be wrong but I think it's only DC motors (without encoders) + linear scales.
Now since you asked, I will check to see if the Indramat motors have any encoders but I doubt it, the indramat controller seems very analog to me.

Again I could be wrong a million ways on this.

 

[takeda]

Now the controller seems to be a Heidenhain TNC155 customized for MAHO and named MAHO 232.

The screens seem the same. I could not find any information for a philips 232 and additionally I don't think it's a philips something, the board itself says Heidenhain.

A bit of an unpleasant situation I think, the code it accepts is very custom, a special Heidenhain format like

1 BEGIN PGM 1 MM
2 TOOL DEF 10 L0.0 R0.0
3 TOOL CALL 10 Z S+10000
4 L X+10.0000 Y+76.0000 R0  F+1500 M03
5 L Z+10.0000 M08
6 L Z+6.0000
7 CYCL DEF 200 DRILLING
8 Q200 = +2.5000
9 Q201 = -1.0000
10 Q206 = +100
11 Q202 = +1.0000
12 Q210 = 0
13 Q203 = 0.0000 
14 L X+10.0000 Y+76.0000 FMAX M3
15 L Z+2.5000 FMAX M99
16 L Y+10.0000 Z+6.0000 F+1500
17 CYCL DEF 200 DRILLING
18 Q200 = +2.5000
19 Q201 = -1.0000
20 Q206 = +100
21 Q202 = +1.0000
22 Q210 = 0
23 Q203 = 0.0000 
24 L X+10.0000 Y+10.0000 FMAX M3
25 L Z+2.5000 FMAX M99

I think I am gettings mesa cards next

 

[AlfaGTA]

HH is a good industrial hardened control....If it works it might be worth learning a bit of code....

Think you will find that the servo motors have a DC "tachometer" that provides velocity info to the axis servo card...That is how the machine accounts for different tool loading so that
it can accurately profile.
The tach is a small DC generator (analog) which provides an output DC voltage that is in direct relationship to the motor speed...
Be aware that the vertical axis ("Y" on a Maho) needs big power to move the entire table up and down.....Think the "Z" axis on my FP4NC Deckel draws 25-30 amps...So hobby grade electronics are going to struggle with this sort of draw....

Cheers Ross

 

[takeda]

HH is a good industrial hardened control....If it works it might be worth learning a bit of code....

Think you will find that the servo motors have a DC "tachometer" that provides velocity info to the axis servo card...That is how the machine accounts for different tool loading so that
it can accurately profile.
The tach is a small DC generator (analog) which provides an output DC voltage that is in direct relationship to the motor speed...
Be aware that the vertical axis ("Y" on a Maho) needs big power to move the entire table up and down.....Think the "Z" axis on my FP4NC Deckel draws 25-30 amps...So hobby grade electronics are going to struggle with this sort of draw....

Cheers Ross

I wouldn't consider replacing the motors. I would start the conversion only if I can replace just the controller using a mesa analog card (capable of interfacing the -10,+10V Indramat motors) and HH digitizers for the scales and so on. Only connecting to the machine's connectors, no wire cutting.

But there are a couple of things that I don't know how I would setup with LinuxCNC:

• The handwheels for manual, I don't know how to setup this, configuration wise, never done this before. And to be honest I don't understand how the motor for the vertical axis is working (Y on my Maho). When the handcrank is engaged, it seems to me that I can the move the table up/down quite easily, so the motor may not be just disabled, something magical is happening there.
  
  E.g. When I press the e-stop, I can see the Y axis drifting down for some tenths before the brake kicks in. So, definetely it's not me lifting the table alone.
  

• The glass scales have absolute ref marks every ~20mm, when the machine crosses such a mark it reads absolute position. I guess I will be losing this feature which is quite interesting.

• I have never interfaced -10/+10V motors before, never created a PID in LinuxCNC. Only experience with steppers, and I don't feel ready for the adventure. I have recently completed a chinese mill conversion from scratch and I can still feel the pain.
  

So, I will try to see if I can get along with the existing brains of the machine first, depends on how well we'll get to know each other (tool offsets, blah blah).

For the moment I don't have a tool/post processor that can produce code such code, so a lot of digging is involved.

 

[AlfaGTA]

Have you looked at the spindle gear shifting.....Might be a bigger challenge than making the slides move...
Cheers Ross

 

[bryan_machine]

takeda - that code is the Heidenhain ".H language" - I think they call it "conversational" - it's semantically very close to G-code, but a nicer surface syntax.
On later HH controllers, such as an iTnc 530 the UI will help you auto-fill in cycles and such.
If you download a modern HH manual you can likely figure a lot of it out.
(The TNC 155 manual doesn't seem to be on HH's site (oddly) but does appear other places on the web.)

 

[takeda]

Have you looked at the spindle gear shifting.....Might be a bigger challenge than making the slides move...
Cheers Ross

This one has a var pulley system. Only two gears, HI-LOW.


When needed I could replace the motor with something beefier and controllable, I don't think it's a an issue.

but I am not interested in controlling spindle RPM electronically, I am used to running semi-manual my toolpaths.

 

[takeda]

takeda - that code is the Heidenhain ".H language" - I think they call it "conversational" - it's semantically very close to G-code, but a nicer surface syntax.
On later HH controllers, such as an iTnc 530 the UI will help you auto-fill in cycles and such.
If you download a modern HH manual you can likely figure a lot of it out.
(The TNC 155 manual doesn't seem to be on HH's site (oddly) but does appear other places on the web.)

DMG Mori sent me today the english manual for TNC 355 (they believe this is my controller).

Some of the screens look alike. Document dated July 1989.

Other manuals for TNC 355 I have seen online (I assume more recent) are quite different.

The keyboard interface is quite different though but I will find my way (I hope)

Having a manual in english is good news, weil das Übersetzen aus dem Deutschen lästig wäre