Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] D&M / Lab-Volt CNC machines

On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 19:57:53 -0000, you wrote:

>My girlfriend was at a local school district office and noticed they
>had a stack of Lab equipment including some small CNC machines.
>Since she knows how I collect machine tools she managed to pickup the
>whole lot for $100.00.

You have a rare girlfriend. Keep her.

>Now I am the proud owner of a D&M 5 CNC lathe
>(Looks like a Unimat conversion), a Lab-Volt/D&M 3s CNC lathe and a
>Lab-Volt/D&M 4s CNC Mill (both Sherline conversions).

Possibly small, but sounds capable.

>The school
>district told her due to their license agreement they could not sell
>or give away any of the software that went with the machines. So now
>I have three cool little CNC machines but no software or
>documentation. My first thought is to run EMC since my import mill
>drill conversion is already running EMC. The machines have a TTL
>connection in the back so I'm not sure if there is a way to interface
>the PC running EMC directly to the machine or if I should tear into
>the existing stepper drivers and either make a parallel interface or
>replace them with newer drivers.

Not familiar with EMC, but turboCNC uses step/direction outputs to the
driver, all pins assignable.

One pin for step pulse, one level pin output for direction. If you
have a ttl connection you *could* run the wires directly to the
parallel port if you can configure it to the pins, and figure out what
the requirements are.

However, I'd use an optoisolator, because I like the idea of
protecting the PC from the equipment.

Main thing is to figure out what the ttl connection is, for that, a
chip count/type would be useful, although I'm not the expert on the
particular chips....

Can help with design, though.

>I've been searching the web but have
>been unable to find any documentation on these. Is anyone familiar
>with these machines?

I'm not, but I do have a bit of experience (as in designed and got it
working) the 297/298 chipset and TTL in general.

Harvey

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>John Ross
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