Spindle Speed Readout.

[Zadig]

I've just converted my mill from a CVT drive to a Polyvee belt pulley system and VFD. At the moment it is not looking likely that I will be able to fit an incremental encoder directly to the spindle. There is also a Hi/Lo gearing that also makes fitting a Hall effect transducer difficult. I would like to have a spindle speed DRO on UCCNC but I don't need rigid tapping so an approximation output would be fine. My VFD has Modbus capability.

Is there any way I can have a Spindle Speed DRO with what I have to hand.

Cheers Guys.

Mike

[cncdrive]

Mike,

You have to somehow let the UCCNC know the speed of the spindle to show it in a DRO.

If you can measure the speed then one way is to have an encoder on the spindle the other way is to have an index channel on the spindle.
The UCCNC automatically selects the measurement method based on if you setup a spindle encoder or if you only setup an index channel.
With index channel only you can't do rigid tapping, but the UCCNC can still measure the speed of the spindle.

You could also send data via Modbus, but then you will have to remove the Sact dro and place your own to show the spindle speed from your own data and you will then have to make a macroloop or a plugin which reads the data of the speed via Modbus or any other communication channels and shows it in a DRO.

[Zadig]

Hi, thanks for the reply. Could you elaborate slightly on what an "indexed channel" is? Or where I might investigate to look it up. I have a feeling I might have some idea of what you are talking about, but more than likely I am off the mark. Thanks again,

Mike

[cncdrive]

Index means one sensor which gives a pulse on every rotation or every fraction rotation.
It is usually an optical gate sensor with a half disk or with a disk with a cutout rotating inside the sensor, so it gives a pulse for every disk rotation.
The motion controller can measure the rotation per second and can send the value back to the UCCNC and the UCCNC calculates the RPM from that taking the pulley ratio into account. (in case it is not one rotation per spindle turn.)

[Zadig]

If I can get one in somewhere, would a Hall effect sensor work? Or does it have to be a gated encoder of sorts.

Great software BTW, really enjoying using it.

Mike

[cncdrive]

Mike,

For the motion controller it does not matter what sensor it is, because the software knows nothing about what sensor it is, what the software see is a signal.
The signal from the sensor has to switch an input of the motion controller with TTL voltage level (0Volts and 5Volts).
If the sensor is capable to output a simple TTL signal then it will work whether it is a hall effect sensor, an optical gate, a proximity sensor or any other sensor type.

[Zadig]

That's great stuff, thanks for all the help.

Mike