Re: My CNC Mill retrofit project

Andrew

It's alive! It's alive! Don't snip ANY wires!

Forgive my impertinence. I've nursed a lot of old machines and I'm fond of
studying their innerds and the long-term effects of the design decisions of
their makers. It never occurred to me to ask if it was alive. If it is,
why do you want to/need to convert it?

1. If it is short on program memory there are easier ways to overcome that
than a brain transplant. That punch tape input shown on rammill2.gif
should provide a dandy drip feed input. An almost trivial task, if the
machine could be run from tape.

2. If is has axis control - palsey, overshoot, following error, or looses
it place - problems they won't be cured by a brain transplant. The new
control may help tune down some of these kinds of problems but most likely
they won't go away.

3. If the mechanics are sloppy - backlash, way play, worn keyways, loose
belts - a brain transplant may make these symptoms worse because the new
control will likely give the computer a tighter grip on the mechanics.

4. If it goes belly up once in a while - blank screen, milisecond overlaps,
non operator or program related crashes - these needle in the haystack
kinds of failures can often be traced to aging contacts and aging
capacitors. Some of these may be in the power supplies others in the brain
others in the drives others in the interface circuits and wiring. The
specific nature of these kinds of failures should determine how far you
need to go with the retrofit.

BTW Matt mentioned the need for and a source for doccuments on the drives.
Do you have any other diagrams or books on this machine?

Ray

> From: Andrew Werby <drewid@...>
>Subject: Re: Digest Number 197

>Andrew Werby wrote:
>
>I was intending to keep as much intact as made sense- is it possible to
>keep both control systems alive at once?
>