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IndustryArena Forum > MetalWorking Machines > Knee Vertical Mills > Help! Any info for excello 604/605 cnc mill
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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    300

    Help! Any info for excello 604/605 cnc mill

    There is a couple old 80's vintage cnc mills that are coming up in a auction soon and I am considering as a project to retrofit to mach3 controll and gecko drives. There is tons of info on old Bridgeport cnc upgrades but nothing I could find on these.

    Excello 604 cnc mill 1982 w/ dynapath 10 control, 3hp bad controller

    Excello 605 cnc mill 1985 w/ dynapath 20m control, 3hp working conditon

    Tree 325 cnc mill 1987, 2/ dynapath delta 30m control, 5hp, working condition


    The tree is probably larger than what I want for my hobby use in the garage. I can find no info at all on the excello units.

    What I am wondering is.... are they servo or stepper motors? Motor info that would assist in considering a retrofit to gecko's and mach3. Any other info such as spindle taper (ad says morse 30 which I assume is wrong and means cat30).

    Any info at all on these beasts would be most appreciated. As mentioned, the end use is for hobby use in the garage.

    Thanks!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Posts
    5
    Sparky, I can only comment on the 605 since I own one. The motors are servos. Voltage is 130 volts and the amperage is too high for the Gecko's. Read done a few threads as Pimpbike and I discussed motor drives for these machines.

    My spindle is nmtb 40 taper with power drawbar. I'm not sure if there were any spindle options offered with that machine so you would have to confirm this with the one your looking at.

    Mark

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Posts
    24223
    I have a couple of Ram type 604's they are about the same size knee mills as a BP but considered more rigid.
    The usually come with SEM DC motors.
    I converted the varispeed to VFD, they still have the 2 speed gearbox.
    I retro-fitted both, one with Galil and the other with Acroloop.
    Al
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails dscf0041.jpg  
    CNC, Mechatronics Integration and Custom Machine Design

    “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
    Albert E.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Posts
    6

    Wanting to upgrade as well.

    I have a 1978 Model Excello with the GE 1050 3axis control and would like to upgrade the machine to a new control. I would like suggestions on whose control to use for this upgrade. I have seen a Chinese control for $1500 that looks as good as anything I had ever run in industry, but 32 bit controls were new then. I was very interested in the PC driven units as well. They seem to be more inexpensive and just as or even more capable, since I could use one computer to do the CAD and CAM work as well as run the machine. I would like to retain my servos and drives, but since the tape reader doesn't work and the previous owner wasted several dollars trying to get the comm port to work, I feel that the best option to ever really be able to use the machine well, is a new control. I had given up such a thought many years ago as such a conversion cost 15-30K ten years ago, but now I see amatures converting leadscrew machines for a $1000, and I already have the ballscrews, servos and drives. I for years had manually input every line by hand and paid for the machine many times over, but it was more trouble than it was worth for most things. Hand written code is quite prohibitive to type into the machine on the shop floor. I would really like to get a CAM software to do this work and am willing and able to throw a few dollars at such good machine. It was running when I stored it 3 years ago, but guessing by the number of dead mice I see around, that is unlikely to be the case when I move it to my new shop this summer. Most of my work will be hobby type work, but I have made a good secondary income from this shop as well. I have had to move twice as shops I rented were sold and my equipment is stored without power. I am building my own building now and have just about finished paying off the 3 Phase line extension ($6K and it was only three poles).

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    300
    Quote Originally Posted by Sparky_NY View Post
    There is a couple old 80's vintage cnc mills that are coming up in a auction soon and I am considering as a project to retrofit to mach3 controll and gecko drives. There is tons of info on old Bridgeport cnc upgrades but nothing I could find on these.

    Excello 604 cnc mill 1982 w/ dynapath 10 control, 3hp bad controller

    Excello 605 cnc mill 1985 w/ dynapath 20m control, 3hp working conditon

    Tree 325 cnc mill 1987, 2/ dynapath delta 30m control, 5hp, working condition


    The tree is probably larger than what I want for my hobby use in the garage. I can find no info at all on the excello units.

    What I am wondering is.... are they servo or stepper motors? Motor info that would assist in considering a retrofit to gecko's and mach3. Any other info such as spindle taper (ad says morse 30 which I assume is wrong and means cat30).

    Any info at all on these beasts would be most appreciated. As mentioned, the end use is for hobby use in the garage.

    Thanks!
    A follow up..... I didn't go to the auction. It was a 5 hr round trip drive and I assumed they would go for more than I wanted to spend considering the distance of the move and all.. WRONG WRONG WRONG

    About 50 people at the auction.... Excello with intermittent control $15
    Working Excello 602 $35
    Working Tree 325 $50
    Only one bid on each... all the same guy. !!!

    Needless to say, I am somewhat sick now! Auction was in Utica, NY and I live in Rochester

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Posts
    51
    Ouch! I've done that before, :withstupi. But 15$ !?! And 35$ for the one that worked! I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    300
    Quote Originally Posted by klxrcr View Post
    Ouch! I've done that before, :withstupi. But 15$ !?! And 35$ for the one that worked! I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.
    AND 3 cabinets full of tooling for the 3 mills. $300
    I was just starting to sleep again through the night and you reminded me.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Posts
    196
    It has been quite a while since you posted on CNCZone for this thread, but here's hoping you're still listening:

    I recently purchased an Excello 605 CNC center minus both electrical cabinets and all the stuff (mist oiler, and console, for example) attached to them. It made determining the proper drives for this machine difficult, and even now I'm only 85% certain I chose correctly.

    In the time I've owned it, I have researched the individual motors by their part numbers and called upon none other than Electrocraft themselves to provide me with details that suggest these motors are rated for a maximum of 80V, not 130V. This brings into question the data I received from them and I wondered then if your 605 has different motors than the ones I have installed in mine.

    Do you happen to know the part numbers of the motors used on your machine? Mine have a part number of E727 38 006, at least on the Z-axis.

    Now that I think of it, I should have checked all three in case the X and Y are rated differently. Does your machine use 130V on all three axis?


    Torin...

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Posts
    24223
    The ElectroCraft catalogue I have shows 21v/Krpm for the E727 with a useuable rpm range of 2500. If so a 80vdc supply would be around max.
    28 lb-in continuous torque.
    It is easy to find out, either drive it with a known DC, 12v for e.g. and measure the voltage for that rpm.
    Or back feed it at a known rpm and measure the DC voltage generated, and pro rate it.
    Al.
    CNC, Mechatronics Integration and Custom Machine Design

    “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
    Albert E.

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