Adding a Renishaw Probe System to my Fadal VMC

1/28/2016

Since I got my '95 Fadal VMC20 a few years ago, I've always wanted a probing system. Not only does it help you stay accurate and reduce work, but you can insert probing routines in the programming. I wanted it all, a tool setter and an optical probe to use while machining. I hunted on eBay for a couple of years (it takes a while to find good/inexpensive examples) to finally assemble the following Renishaw Parts:

MP10 Optical Machine Probe $156 (with stylus, CAT40 holder and adaptor)
OMM Optical Machine Module $99 (really clean)
TS27R Tool Setter $90 (no stylus, from Russia!)
MI8-4 Interface $105 (new)
MI12 Probe Interface $250
Misc (PSU, SSRs, Wire) $50

--------------------
Total $750

Next I had to figure out the wiring and how I was going physically mount everything. The first step was to create a diagram of how everything needs to be connected.

Bench Testing the Components

The above layout should work like this:
1) If you want to use the Tool Setter, you send an M65. This will cause the MI8-4 to select the Tool Setter as an input and output it's status to the 1060 board. If you send an M64, it will select the Inspection probe (OMM) for the input.
2) If you select the OMM, then you need to also send an M66 to actually start the probe. In all of the Fadal wiring docs I could find, they never connect the Error and Battery status to the control. If you use them, you can verify the probe started OK is working before you initiate probing. I've written the gcode to test those after a start is issued to verify the probe stated (i.e. go from error to OK) and to make sure the battery isn't failing. If there's a problem the program will loop to try starting again or allow you to abort.

In order to enable the M64 and M66 gcodes you'll need to populate the 1100 board with 2 SSR's (Solid State Relays) and 2 fuses. I used a Grayhill 70S2-01-A-03-A and a 1A fuse. Populate K31/F40 and K16/F10 on the 1100 board. These SSR's will be switching power supplied by the 24VDC power supply.

SSR

Here's a shot of the SSR's mounted and wired. The red wires are from the 24V PSU. The Green wire is for the M64 signal and the White wire is for the M66 signal.

1100 Detail

In order to detect the Error and Battery status you'll need to create and adaptor for the 1040 board. This has a 26 pin edge connector that you need to interface with. By referencing the Fadal User Manual -> Macros -> Layout of I Macro, you can see that I(3) is pin 19 on J2 and I(4) is pin 20 on J2. You can test is the pin is logic high or low and create logic from there. I assume this card requires TTL voltage levels, so use 5V only!

I decided to mount the MI8-4, the 24VDC PSU, and the connector block to the inside of the electrical cabinet. Luckily there were two 1/4x20 studs sticking out that I could conveniently mount a DIN rail to. I also made up a small connector block out of some perf board to handle wiring up the various components. I 3D printed a couple of DIN rail adaptors for the backside. The 1040 board uses approx. 10K pullup resistors on the input pins. I set things up so an Error or Low Battery are high (active - i.e. the default state) and you need to pull them to GND to indicate a no Error condition. I added some caps to help with AC ripple, as it seemed the power from the Fadal was kinda noisy.

And here's the PSU, Connector Block and MI8-4 mounted and connected. All in all I'm happy with the layout.

Mounted and wired up!

I mounted the TS27R on the back left side of my table and ran the wiring up and over to the cabinet. Initially I was going to mount the OMM on the top left of the cabinet as indicated in the Fadal Maintenance manual, but looking at a bunch of pictures on the internet of HAAS and Fadal OMM installs - it looked like the back of the cabinet would be better. I mounted the MI12 on top of the pendent and ran the wiring under the cover that runs along the top of the cabinet. I had to create a hole to run the wires through on the pendent end. (The black box to the right of the MI12 is my interface for a programmable coolant nozzle I'm working on - more on that in a future post.)

I calibrated the TS27R (basically getting the stylus flat) and then determining the fixture offset. After that I tried a tool setting cycle and low and behold - it worked! Can't wait to machine something with my new capabilities.

29 Comments

Peter Zieba link

9/29/2016 10:38:17 pm

Hi,

We found your post about adding the renishaw probe system pretty interesting, as we're in the process of doing basically the same thing.

One thing we were curious about is the 1040 board. How did you determine what to connect to in there? Is there a pinout of this thing in one of the manuals somewhere?

I'm very curious what the possibilities are with this board.

Anyway, thanks for the breakdown, on how you connected your probes. This is pretty helpful!

Cheers,
Peter

Doov

9/29/2016 11:28:29 pm

Peter,

I used the wiring diagrams I had in my manual. There are also copies online as in http://www.fadalcnc.com/media/pdf/tech_docs_1/Wiring_Diagram/Electrical_CE_Interlocks.pdf.

That plus an oscilloscope, a DVM and a bit of luck...

John Mesolella

10/15/2016 05:22:31 pm

Thank you for posting this great work. I have all the parts now to give this a try.

John

Matrix

10/28/2016 12:45:53 pm

I'm building this board and since I'm not electrical,
what are the values for caps C1, C2 and C3 ?

Thanks

10/31/2016 05:26:38 pm

Matrix,

I don't really remember exactly, but they aren't too critical. They're probably 0.1mF @ 35 or 50V DC.

11/4/2016 02:44:31 pm

Can you check your interface board J6? If I have "J6 pin1(+5v)" going to "MI8-4 pin A1" cable screen (tied to ground) Wont this cause a short?
Thanks,
John

11/4/2016 03:49:44 pm

Matrix - I see the confusion. The designation 1,2,3 (under the square) are just pins numbers that happen to be in the part model I used for in Eagle CAD. They don't actually have any relation to the numbers on the MI8-4 (i.e. A1, A2...). I all I was trying to document was those three wires need to go to the 3 terminals MI8-4 A1-A3, However, I see now, it falls short of specifying which one goes to which. If I get time I'll try update it to make it actually useful. Thanks for the catch! Hopefully the correct connections are obvious.

1/21/2017 05:12:07 pm

Hi, Thank you very much for the blog. I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out the connection between the 1060-0 and the MI8-4. Perhaps you can shed some light. It seems that we should provide (+) and (-) on A10 and A12 respectively and then route the signal in A11 to J12-11. The (-) would come via the shield in the cable from J12-10 and the (+) would be sourced from the lower left corner of the 1060-0 (+12V). This would be very similar to page 42 of the Fadal wiring diagrams where a TS-27 is being connected to the 1060-0 via a "Fadal Signal Conditioner". Is this right? If not, can you give a brother a hand? Thanks!!

Isaac link

5/9/2019 02:12:29 pm

Is there a pinout of the 1040 somewhere?

Mike

6/6/2019 09:27:33 am

I understand the red wire on the 1100 board but where did you put the ground from the psu

6/7/2019 07:33:59 pm

MIke,

I had to go look. Basically the PSU is just for powering the probe. it's wired to the MI8-4 on pins B1 and B2 - the input power supply terminals. So, to be specific, the PSU ground is connected to B2.

Note: Pin B3 is supposed to be a connection to the machine star ground. I used one of the hold down nuts on the 1100 board that had a ground wire already hooked up. I think that ties the PSU ground to the machine ground.

I guess I should also point out, I apparently also used B2 to connect to A9 - a 0v reference.

Does that help?

6/7/2019 07:53:16 pm

I only have the probe hooked up to a mi12 box. I have one side of the psu Going to 1100-1 pin 20. I have the negiative of the psu going to the star. I can not get the machine to pass the probe test. The probe always says touching regardless of position.

mike

6/7/2019 08:16:15 pm

Just to make sure you have 24volts going to 1100 pin 20 Correct?

6/7/2019 10:25:38 pm

Yes to 24v to pin 20.

Have you looked at the wiring diagram in the MI-12 manual? You can get one here - https://resources.renishaw.com/gen/details/installation-users-guide-mi-12-interface-unit--19301

It looks like you hook the PSU + to 16, PSU - to 17, Machine Star Point to 18. So the negative of the PSU should go to 17, not the star.

As for the 1100 board, this stuff is so you can issue M66 and M64 codes from your CNC. I think you'll only need the M66 code for starting the probe. So when you add the solid state relay and fuse - then ,as you stated, you run the 24V to one side of the relay. The other side of the relay get hooked up the MI-12 pin s21 (+) and 22(-).

Of course you need the OMM hooked up to pins 1-5.

Are you sure your probe is good? Does the led on the actual probe ever blink green? (mine blink green when not touching and red when touching).

6/7/2019 10:44:14 pm

My light blinks green when depressed and if I use AutoStart it will talk back and forth between the mi12 and the probe Just not the Fadal.

Everything seems to be hooked up correctly except S22 (-) Should that go to Psu -17?

Did you have to enable anything for the probe in any parameters?

3/12/2020 07:27:36 pm

Hi there,

You wouldn’t have a copy of the Fadal digitising discs would you?

5/5/2020 09:22:47 am

Nope. Plus they are copyrighted so you'd have to purchase them.

Richard

5/1/2020 10:05:10 am

Do you have the M64 and M65 backwards? M65 is for the tool setter I thought.

5/5/2020 09:04:06 am

Thanks for the detailed write up. Very helpful. Although my stuff is slightly different the information was super!.

Are you using Renishaw probing routines or did you write your own?

5/5/2020 09:22:13 am

I wrote my own as the Renishaw routines have A LOT of variables and subroutines to make all the features work. At one point, someone gave me some of them (although I never got all), and I just gave up and did my own. I really only cared about finding a corner or the center of round feature.

5/6/2020 07:58:59 am

How did you do the user input check for errors? I'm trying the inputs like the macros show and I get Illegal Expression.

#V31=I(3)

or

#V31=I3

Both say illegal expression.

WES

11/12/2020 07:57:57 pm

Thanks for sharing. Your info was helpful in pointing me in the right direction. I was able to get a TS27R and OMI /OM400 working this past weekend. Ive written a couple macros to do my probing. Do you still have any of the renishaw routines given to you? I would be curious to take a look and compare how they did some things.

joe

11/13/2020 05:00:11 am

would you be willing to share the probing macros? I have been lookling and researching and still trying to grasp writing my own. I have the probe from factory just trying to install the ts-27 now.

5/6/2020 08:17:03 am

Richard,

Here's a clip from my code (which seems to work). The characters after the ' until the return are considered comments.

#V11=I(3) 'ERR - J12 PIN 19
#V12=I(6) 'BATT - J12 PIN 22

Drew link

1/20/2021 07:08:57 pm

Hi.

Just wondering about Probe Macros..Just installed a Renishaw Spindle Probe on my Fadal.. I downloaded Renishaw Easy Probe..are they useable with a Fadal? I am using Format 2..
Fanuc Language?

Thanks for any Input.

Joe

1/21/2021 04:20:45 am

I don't think you can use the easy probe app. It's different then what the fadal uses. Mostly gotta write your own from what I've found. I'm still learning also

1/20/2021 07:45:38 pm

Clicked on unsubscribe by mistake so subbing back...

11/28/2021 12:07:45 pm

Hi Doov,
Could I ask you how did you ran the conduit from the table probe to the control? Thanks!

11/28/2021 12:42:43 pm

I ran the armored conduit to the left of the column, up to near the top of the computer enclosure where I mounted an electrical junction box. The conduit terminates there and from there I made the connection to the rest of my wiring inside the enclosure. The trick was finding the correct armored conduit. I'm pretty sure it's Anaconda Sealtite M-1/4" Liquid Tight Conduit. I zip tied it in a few places to secure it so the the table moving around wouldn't pinch it or pull it.

Adding a Renishaw Probe System to my Fadal VMC

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