Emco PC 5 Conversion

Hi
Don't know if any body comes here any more, seems fairly quiet. Not sure if this post qualifies as chat, but I am after Australian information so if it gets moved it will be a bit pointless. Hey, this is only my second post so how would I know.
Suggestions for converting my Emco PC 5 (the old steppers won't run accurately and being 5° and 71oz and 10 Ohm cannot be replaced)
Existing suggestion is:
Use
Existing machine power supply
Powermax II motors 252oz
Gecko 202 drives
Campbell breakout board
Mach 3 to run it all on a PC
If any one has any other ideas or has done a similar conversion could you let me know what you did.

The guy who has given me this info has converted 3 Emco lathes. He knows what he is about and has been really helpful, I am just wondering what has been done in Australia.
Thanks
Nigel

Nigel,
Not to muck you around - BUT - I cant help you with your questions but I am interested in seein a photo of your EMCO. Can you attach one to your next post?

Don't have one to hand, they are a lathe that was used in various education depts as cnc training lathes, desktop job with an 80mm chuck. Not very big, but mine does the job for me, just not accurate enough as the steppers lose steps.
Will try and get one tomorrow.
How do you attach a pic here just as an attachment or does it need hosting somewhere?

If you click the "Post Reply" button instead of writing in the quick reply area then you get more options...... Smileys, attachments, e-mail notifications all sorts of cool options. Give it a go.

There is so much after market gear out there to build or retrofit just about any cnc device you can think of. I just made my own servo motors using 24Volt wheel chair motors and some opctical encoders from http://www.usdigital.com should be pretty gutsy.

The reason I was interested in the EMCO was because I went down the path of purchasing one last year but did not go ahead with it. The machine was a cnc lathe which from memory had 12 tool positions 6 of which were powered so you could have rotating tooling shuch as end mills atacking the job. The demo on the website showed the lathe "C" axis in use with a slotdrill milling out the underside of a piston. Awesome machine.

Yes that would be awesome, 6 stations with live tooling.
Sounds like it is only related to mine by the name.
My Emco has a quick change toolpost.
My Hercus 200 PC has a turret with 8 tool positions and is a much stronger machine.
I could get a lot more use out of the Emco if I can make it run accurately.

pictures!

WE NEED PICTURES! :D

Nigel, are you the bloke that lives near Greensborough and makes bagpipe bits?

Greolt

No, same name but I live in Croydon and make auto-gas mixers.
Nigel has Hercus, (which is how I got to know him) I have a Hercus and an Emco.
His user name is Nigel I had to go with something else, he beat me to it.
Any reason for asking?
Nigel (the other one)

LOL:D

I thought I might be able to put you in contact with Nigel.

I've seen his shed and he would probably be the resident expert on those machines.

But I was wrong, wrong, wrong:D:D on all counts. And you know him anyhow.

Thanks for the thought anyway.
Yes, what I need is Emco owners in Australia, they are bit slow putting their hands up, perhaps they are not on here.
I must admit I am a machine user, not a machine builder and my electrical knowledge is limited to "if the smoke gets out of the wires, I need a new part"
Having said that I think being on this forum might be bad for my health as I seem to be contemplating a drilling machine with a rotary table and an X axis.
In fact I have previously told Nigel it was not worthwhile, but we are now getting up to around up to 5000/10,000 holes a month and our arms keep falling off.
The holes are only 4.5mm but there seem to be an awful lot of them

Hi
Just went to advanced reply to attach a photo of the Emco and did not have much luck
It says upload from your computer, does that mean just the once as in an attachment or does that mean my compter needs to be on for the photo to show?
Do attachments need to be hosted on the web?
Anynhow I browsed and found the photo but the uploading took for ever, so I thought I had better ask what to do to post a photo

Nigel

Not in Aus but I just found this post on the Mach support forum.

http://machsupport.com/forum/index.php?topic=970.0

Thanks for that. Interesting and lengthy thread, will take some time to absorb.
Thank you for taking the time to search for that for me, looks like I may have to join that forum too.
Not that I want to, I would really like to have new motors for my machine and run the original software. This is said to be impossible as new motors are not compatible with the drivers.
However if I want to create a cnc drilling machine I will need somthing to run it, so it looks like I will have to come to terms with mach3 mill anyway.
Both my machines have their own cam software and I could not do my work without it

Nigel,
Babinda01 here at the zone, retrofits cnc machines with hardware for a living. If you send him a private message I'm sure he'd be able to help you with parts. AND at a fraction of the price of OEM gear! If you do PM him post a reply here and i'll tell him to watch out for the message.

Chich

Hi
Thanks for the post, I will keep it in mind.
However I am hoping to take delivery of another lathe this week which will take the pressure off converting the Emco.
Once I have the new lathe in place and working I can have another look at the Emco conversion.