Originally Posted by
seanano
I recently purchased a PC Mill 50 and am slowly working on cleaning it up and retrofitting it so it is good to see someone else doing it too. I'm not very far into it yet so I can't offer much in the way of advice. I think your selection of components is interesting. I saw someone else on this forum had used a CSMIO controller (IP/M) with the PC Mill 50 and was happy with it. I couldn't find the post but found a youtube link:
I don't understand German so the video wasn't as useful for me, but in the comments he also notes that he replaced the spindle motor with a 2KW 5000 RPM servo and increased the Y axis travel to125mm (factory specs are 90 and it looks like 100 is possible without removing the stop screws). The factory motor is rated in the low 400 watts so your choice of 750 is almost double the power.
I am curious as to why you mention the servo motor for the spindle in relation to tool changes. Are you planning on using tool specific rotational indexing or something along those lines? The 30 taper of the spindle doesn't require any indexing itself for tool changes.
As for my retrofit, my plans are more modest. I have a G540, 48V power supply, and 3 KL23H2100-35-4A (380 oz-in, 400 step/rev) motors. I plan on using a sensorless vector VFD to drive the stock 3 phase motor and perhaps eventually some sort of encoder for rigid tapping. I'm going to drive it with LinuxCNC using the parallel port at first and then once I get the basics working with that I'll probably switch to a Mesa PCI card. LinuxCNC driving the parallel port will have speed issues with the 2.5mm pitch lead screw, 2:1 belt reduction, 10th microstepping, and 400 steps/rev motor.
Sean