[Picktool]

Hey all...

We've had this slug since 96~97. It was used alot
back in the day and served its purpose well.

It really hasnt been used much the past couple of years
and avoiding it most common practice nowadays.

This thing is extremely slow. You can watch mold grow
on your lunch sandwich. See your kids graduate HS... etc.

Is there a way to speed up this thing? Sometimes you need to go to
the other side of the table, or middle, whatever whereevr. It takes too long.
We're using the Vision Series II controller.

It engraves fine but it's too slow.
Food goes cold.... milk spoils

Anyone out there offer an idea what we can do?

Thanks

[AlexanderJohn]

I'm running into the same issue, I want to retro it but it seems that vision took the labels off the stepper motors. I'd like to use the same motors for the g540 build that I want to do. I have the same machine as you're describing.

[Picktool]

Hah... turns out we called Vision Engravers and we're looking to get the new Series IV controller.
They say it should go a little faster but not by much. Oh, $4995 for the new controller. The rest of the
machine is fine. For now, it's cheaper for us to do the controller than to buy a new machine setup.
At the same token we're told we can use Enroute with it. VisionPro is garbage and outdated.

Btw, I looked up those motors and a few places I called said they were proprietary. Had to buy
them from the Vision people.

[datac]

Dont worry about the motors.... crack open the cabinet and see what is in there for drivers. The motors should/could be fine. I retro'd a 1624 engraver, and they had common off the shelf drivers in the cabinet that were completely reusable, along with the existing motor power supply. I'd have to dig out some old notes, but I also know I retained the 90v power supply for the spindle motor and turned it on and off from the new software.

All you need to do is supply new step and direction signals to the drivers with a new control, and frankly, there are plenty these days to choose from.

I used the machine I retro'd to explore LinuxCNC for a while, but eventually ran it with Flashcut (still my favorite).


Edit: BTW, I never saw proprietary motors on any Vision machine. The 2424 had regular old Nema 34's for X and Y, and a nema 23 for the Z. These days, such components are practically a dime a dozen compared to 15-20 years ago.

And, Vision Pro ? (Signlab)... I agree. They kind of blew it for all the rotary guys when they focused all their programming energy on the RIP and print market. There are a few things they still do very well for text work, but now a lot of other options are far more affordable.