Re: CNC, Fix it or replace it: More comments

Thanks to all that have replied thus far.

Let me give you a little background and explain a little more of what I'm thinking.

I bought this mill from the company I work for, two years ago we had this machine rebuild and shortly after that the controller started going, we were using it as a manual mill until the spindle motor died. It sat for about a year and a half and the boss just got sick of it taking up space. They asked if I wanted it and I offered them $800.00 for it thinking it would cost about $500.00 to get the motor rewound. I did find after getting this home that there is nothing wrong with the motor it was a controller problem.

We had this machine serviced several times over the years and it was always a problem with the control box or in the card cage. I sent the card cage off to Anilam Hoping for a cheap fix or hopeful they would tell me the problem and I'd fix it myself. They just simply put my cards one by one in their unit to see which one has a problem and charge $850.00 to fix it no matter what is wrong with it.

I have been looking at EMC for sometime now and thought about building or converting a mill with it until I purchased the mill from work. Now I'm thinking this is a good candidate. There are some things with the Anilam control I don't like. It does not have a keyboard so programming at the mill is time consuming; there is no accel, decel, or continuous contouring. I don't know that EMC has this either but doubt I would be going backwards if I used it.

I'm leaning towards using EMC, I have talked with Jon Elson and he thinks I can do this conversion with his parallel port axis control and has said he would give me a wire by wire hook up if I need it, and I will. That will be one of the big reasons for me going with the parallel port axis control, he is very helpful. He says I'll need a few other things also but none of the items seemed to pricey. I think with the EMC I'll have a better control and repairs down the road wont be so high.

I know very little about electronics so I'll need some hand holding on that. I also know nothing about Linux but would hope the list could get me through my trials and tribulations on that. This is a CNC for my home shop but my ultimate goal would be to make some money with it.

Clear as mud?



From: "Bruce Klawiter" <bruce@...>

Hello all,

>I am in need of some guidance.
>I have an 1989 Anilam M controller on a Lagun mill. I have been quoted
>$2000.00 to repair this, a CPU board and counter board are both bad. I
>have been thinking of running EMC and if I did that I would be using the
>Parallel Port Axis Control, from Jon Elson. Should I fix it or switch to
>EMC? Any thoughts would be appreciated

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