Help! Sharp CNC Knee Mill With Dead Mitutoyo Millstar Control

https://photos.app.goo.gl/uy1vg5d0iz33WUFn1

I just picked up a knee mill (Sharp HCV) with a Mitutoyo Millstar CNC control with Mitutoyo linear scales on X, Y and on the quill. I don’t know what generation of Millstar this is. 1, 2 or 3? Anybody? Anybody have manuals and documentation for the control?

The Millstar controller is an old Pentium S PC with a Galil DMC-1020 motion card, a whopping 4 megabytes of RAM in a case with monitor, does power on, but there’s a problem with the IDE drive failing to boot. Bad IDE hard drive would be my guess.
The PC has PCI (but I think no PCIe) slots.

It has Glentek brushed DC servo drives for X and Y axes.


Also, they replaced the head with a 3HP Gromax variable speed head. I don’t know anything about Gromax. Anybody have manuals they can share?

My kids have been helping me clean off some of the grit and dirt and rust with Scotchbrite and WD-40. The Y axis definitely shows some wear and a bit of scoring on the ways, but the overall machine is pretty solid.


Anyone have manuals for the Sharp mill?
Docs for Mitutoyo Millstar?
Docs for Gromax 3HP variable speed head?
Recommendations for way oil? Spindle oil? ...
Anybody have a Millstar hard drive that I could clone?

Is it worth it to try to resurrect the Millstar controller?

Or, would it be better/faster/easier/cheaper to try to convert it to Mach 3 CNC?
How to use the existing Glentek brushed DC servo drives with Mach 3? I'm guessing they take 0-10V input, but not sure.
How to use the existing Mitutoyo linear scales with Mach 3 CNC?

I have a Sharp HCV knee mill with a 2 axis Mitutoyo Millstar II controller and the monitor is dead.
My controller is a PC inside (Pentium S or something) running Windows 95 with a Galil 2 axis ISA motion controller.
The previous owner put in a graphics card and hooked up an external monitor and this works, but it is not ideal and I've hung the external LCD monitor on top/front of the existing monitor on the control, which is pretty cheeseball...
I'd like to replace the monitor in the box, if I could, preferably with a small LCD.
I called Mitutoyo and they don't have parts and don't support the Millstar controller any longer.

You can buy monitors in sizes from about 5 inch to mega huge. I just bought a 10 inch touch screen for a project. Here is a good place to start Monitors types, lowest prices found on web

I think I got mine from Amazon.

Probably too late, but I bought one of these with the same fault. I plugged in an external keyboard and the fault went away. As long as I keep the external keyboard plugged in it boots fine, but I never use the keyboard.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by schuter

Probably too late, but I bought one of these with the same fault. I plugged in an external keyboard and the fault went away. As long as I keep the external keyboard plugged in it boots fine, but I never use the keyboard.

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Everything works fine on this control except the monitor is dead. I am currently using an external LCD which works fine.
I’m thinking I’ll get a small LCD to replace the CRT.