After nearly a year of debating I have finally bit the bullet and purchased my first CNC milling machine. My original plan was to build one from scratch but I decided that was too complicated, then I considered converting a drill/mill but then figured I’d need the CNC mill to begin with to make the gearboxes & motor mounts so I decided to try and get hold of a second hand CNC mill instead.
This proved to be a lot harder than I thought as they don’t seem to come up for sale very often. As luck would have it a few months ago a Bridgeport interact 1 appeared on eBay which I bid for but then lost at the last minute. Between then and now I had more time to think about what I really wanted to end up with. As nice as a Bridgeport would be it would be stupidly big and would take up all the room in my shed (and that’s if I could get it through the door!) the CNC routers all have nice big tables but cant cut metal which put them out of the equation which only seemed to leave the sherline type things but they were too small for the things I wanted to make.
Despite beginning to think I’d set myself an impossible task, I attended a local machinery and tools auction today and by chance came across just what I needed - a mill/drill size CNC milling machine with enough travel to make the majority of things I had in mind. The machine is 3 axes, ex college and is in immaculate condition & to cut a long story short, I won the auction and am getting it delivered to my house on Friday.
The only problem now is wondering where I should go from here. The company that made the CNC mill has gone out of business and there are no references to this mill anywhere on the net. I haven’t got any of the original software to go with it, and quite frankly even if I did have the software I wouldn’t want to use it as its all nasty dos based stuff that’s over 10 years old.
For those of you out there who are more knowledgeable here is the machine spec as printed in the instruction manual:
Conect Numerical Control Contour Major Twin Column CNC Mill
Table dimensions: 615x150mm with 3 x 10mm Tee slots at 50mm pitch
Axis Travel: X - 380mm Y - 140mm, Z - 310mm
Spindle Speed - 300 - 3000 RPM
Spindle Motor 0.8kw
Maximum Feed Rate 1000mm/min
Rapid Feed Rate 600mm/min
Spindle Motor
Ferrite brushed servo motor
Motor Type: DPM30H4-33
Stall Torque - 2.1Nm 6.8A
Max: 4000RPM 130v 37A
Tacho V/KRPM IP44 IC 400
Stepper Motors - L281-1
Volts - 3
Ohms 1.8
Amps 1.7
Deg 1.3
The CNC mill is enclosed in a metal box with a polycarbonate front. Inside there is a coolant pump and in a separate compartment at the back, all the control electronics which appeared to consist of 3 or 4 driver boards, an interface board and some power supply circuitry. - Until I get the mill delivered on Friday I won’t be able to take a closer look to find out who made the control electronics. On the front panel of the machine there is no screen, just a few jog buttons, key switch and emergency stop button. At the back there is a standard computer type 3pin power connector and a serial connector.
As it is, without any software this thing is nothing more than a very large and expensive paperweight. Does anyone know if I’d be able to find some general purpose software that would be compatible with it, or will I have to replace the controllers for something more modern like geckos if I want to use the more modern software?
Also, I’d be interested to know how good the supplied stepper motors are. As I bought 3 gecko servo drive units a while back, if I found I had to replace the old controllers, if the motors aren’t anything special I'd be tempted to replace them with servo's so I don’t have to buy another set of geckos.
Sorry for the long post ... I seem to be making a habit of it .
As usual, any help, advice, comments or constructive criticisms very welcome!
Regards,
Dom
http://www.ukrobotics.com