My new job and Do-More BRX motion control

[Garyhlucas]

I have new job working for a small manufacturing company that is trying to become more automated and has been buying automation from China.  I am currently working on a new drilling machine that is controlled by a Chinese PC running a Chinese version of Windows XP with occasional subtitles.  This is the front end for a Weihong Lambda3L CNC controller which controls just 2 Yasakawa Servo Drives, and one VFD that switches between running a 4.5 KW, 1-2.2 KW and 3 2.2 KW spindles simultaneously using contactors. There is a huge delay switching spindles waiting for motors to reach zero speed before switching and then waiting for them to come up to speed.  The mechanical quality is very poor, bolts have been falling out, linear bearings very nearly going completely off the rails, lots things mounted crooked etc.

I can really see this machine going down during busy season and really hurting us because we can't fix it.  Also a lot of things are implemented in the CNC controllers internal PLC and we can't access that, so simple things that would improve the cycle time and make change over easier we can't do.

All the automation we have here is quite simple and so far only two projects were done in house using Clicks.  I don't like Clicks for one offs where the advanced programming functions of a Do-more would save us lots of money in engineering programming time.  So I am proposing replacing the brick CNC controller with a BRX and C-More using the motion control capability to drive Yasakawa Servo Drives, and a couple of air valves.  There is no coordinated motion, it's just position in X and drill in Z, then repeat.  So a simple recipe for each of the half dozen parts is all we need.  This of course leads to standardizing on Do-More going forward.  We have another drill machine coming and right now I can probably have it delivered with only power wiring,  VFDs and Servo Drives.

I could use some help getting up to speed on the motion control using BRX.  Does anyone have a PLC program I can look at for an application like this?  I would guess AD has something?  I am trying to become productive quickly at my new job and Chinese machinery is driving me Nucking Futz!

Thanks,

[DLTimmons]

Gary

Here a simple index application using a BRX, done a lot with H2 and CTRIO-2 this on a punch press I feed with a stepper then punch the parts and repeat. This one is using step direction output. On the Crtio application in the past I would take the velocity output register value and multiply by a scaling value the write it out to an analog card to get voltage commands to feed to drive worked very well.

I to changed job about a year ago former employer thought that they had to go all out A&B or the world was going to come to end.

[Garyhlucas]

Thank you for the example. In my last job I had finally abandoned AB and didn?t miss license issues, no tech support unless you paid huge sums, getting PLCs with rev 0 firmware that you had to update first, on and on. AB rep came in and says ?You know we have 80% of your industry?. I said ?Yes I know that, those poor suffering bastards!? So it was nice finding out my new job was good with AD across the board. Got 2 machines to convert right now and will be building another one right behind them. Standardizing the control platform will really help keep things running. 

We have a couple of Clicks right now but I?d never use them again. Ok for a product you make hundreds of but for one off machines I don?t want any limitations on what I can do to solve a problem I didn?t forsee.

[DLTimmons]

At my former I told the AB rep I did not like his product and gave him several good reasons why. Got chewed out big time by the boss over that.