What I want: Primarily, I CNC machine that will cut brass sheet metal. If it can mill heavier plate then that is a bonus.
What I have: A complete and likely functional 'MPM Speedline Ultraflex 3000' solder-paste screenprinter, used to put the solder past onto circuit boards that holds on the surface-mount componants.
The machine is 3600 pounds of pneumatics, servo-motors, stepper-motors, sensors, fluid pumps, electronics, CCD Vision System, and linear motion.
All told there are 40 axis of motion being controlled inside this machine with a computer system that can have 8 of them going at the same time.
But it's not a CNC router/mill/plasma-cutter, which is what I need.
I had the idea to strip it down to the frame and use the major linear motion systems to build a CNC table. I could get a bed that is about 36"X40". I suspect that I could keep the motors but would have to buy a new motor controller.
So The Question Is: Is this the kind of project that spirals into a never-ending pit of anxiety and expense? The bed, rails, gantry, tool holder, z-controll, etc are already there. I would just be stripping everything else away and running the motors through a new controller and putting something down on the bed I can clamp material to.
Or am I better off parting this thing out and taking the couple grand and buying a turn-key unit?