Re: Denford Milling Machine

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@y..., PhilipMac@i... wrote:

> Hi guys,
> I've been asked by my local school to see if something can be done

to upgrade a Denford CNC milling machine which they received as a

> donation some time ago. snip... Has anyone any experience of these

machines? Any > advice will be gratefully received.

> > Philip Mac Cabe

Howdy Philip,

I saw an Artisan conversion of a little Denford
a few years back, and all they had to do was run
Artisan's DB37 cable into a breakout-board, then
wire the individual terminals to the existing drivers
on the Denford. I think they got it all done in one
afternoon.

As I recall, that mill had the old 'Digiplan'
drivers...a division of Parker-Hannifin I think.
They're only 24v, and not very fast, but pretty
much trouble-free. I think they were getting
40 ipm from that mill.

hmmm....memory tells me there were two versions of
that drive...one which took regular 0-5v signals,
and one that needed 0-12v signals. That's a real
simple conversion circuit though; if you end up
needing to wire one up. You can do it with a
single $2 chip; or with a few optocouplers.

I really liked that little Denford! A serious
looking piece of iron, despite it's small size.

You didn't mention what type of input the spindle
drive was expecting; but it's likely to be a 0-10v
analog signal; in which case you'll need a control
that includes DAC's to provide that variable voltage.
Artisan's OP package can do that no problem.

If this is for educational use, I'd be pleased to
arrange a discount on an Artisan-CNC 4.0 package,
to help things along. To set that up, contact me
directly at rhager@...

Richard