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Don W, calling Don W!!
https://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10106&t=18571		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  Shane Neifer [ Thu Aug 28, 2008 8:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Don W, calling Don W!!
Hey Don (and others...) I just bought this little mill with all of these little do dads on it. It looks like some drives and the big unit on the right is a 3 axis digital display. So......any thoughts on some good uses for this unit and then, what do I need to get it up and running :oops: ! Maximum spindale speed is 2500 rpm so I don't think that it will do a great job on inlay work or anything like that.

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Thanks!!

Shane
Author:  John Watkins [ Fri Aug 29, 2008 7:21 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Don W, calling Don W!!
Hey Shane. Long time no chat.

What you have there is a Seig X3 mini-mill, sold in the States under the Grizzly, Harbor Freight, Enco, etc. brand names. It has been fully retrofitted for 3 axis CNC and possibly a power drawbar for automatic or semi-automatic tool changing.

If you could get a picture of the electronics under those black guards to either side of the cooling fans, I may be able to tell you how to hook it up. If it's a stepper system, you'll just need a PC with a printer port. If it's servo, you'll probably need the proprietary card that came with the control system.
Author:  Don Williams [ Fri Aug 29, 2008 7:27 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Don W, calling Don W!!
What John said. Not that I have a clue.
;)

Looks like that would be great for making small jigs and fixtures from aluminum. Every guitar maker should have one of these! :)
Author:  Shane Neifer [ Fri Aug 29, 2008 6:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Don W, calling Don W!!
Thanks John for stepping in. And Don for adding to it, I just thought that you had become the new master of CNC.... idunno !

John, here are some pics of the circuits behind the heat sinks. There is also another cord and connector that is not connected to anything. And there is also the serial computer cord as in the first photos. Anyway, here are more photo's I would love to figure this out!

I have not been that active lately just because I have been working on out buildings and some consulting work that has kept me WAY too busy and has prevented me from doing anywhere the amount of processing I really need to do!

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Thanks again!

Shane
Author:  Don Williams [ Fri Aug 29, 2008 8:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Don W, calling Don W!!
Shane Neifer wrote:
Thanks John for stepping in. And Don for adding to it, I just thought that you had become the new master of CNC.... idunno !



John has forgotten more than I know...or probably will ever know....
:oops: :)
Author:  John Watkins [ Sat Aug 30, 2008 6:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Don W, calling Don W!!
I just typed a very long response to this and somehow deleted it. gaah

Thanks for the nice comments, Don.

Starting over, and summarizing....

It's an Applied Motions stepper system that they don't make anymore. It needs an outboard controller that those cables plug into, and that in turn has a serial cable to the control computer. These systems are not usually used for CNC, but rather manufacturing and assembly robots, so there is no plug and play milling interface available from Applied Motions. It may have just been used as a power feed since it has the DRO (digital readout) which would be redundant if a PC were in play.

Here's my advice to get it working,

1) Find the guy that used to run it and acquire the missing pieces and/or missing info from them (I'm sure you'd have done this already if it were possible).
2) Failing that, call Applied Motion and see if a sympathetic applications engineer will walk you through getting it at least interfaced with a PC parallel port. From there you can buy off the shelf CNC control software for cheap.
3) Failing that, replace the drives (circuit boards under the table) with some plug and play ones that you can have up and running in an hour with your existing motors.

For option 3 you'll want to call Gecko Drives for the drives, Transformer Technologies for a power supply, and visit artofcnc.com for the software. Mariss at Gecko will be happy to talk your ear off for 2 hours getting it all hooked up and the guys at cnczone.com will also help, as will I if I can.

This is how Don's machine is setup and it's how my first one was. It's a proven system. Plan on shelling out about $700 and about 6 hours of your time.

If you decide not to take it on, sell me the machine. I've been shopping for a little guy for a proprietary job we have here and one with the motor mounts already in place would save some time.

Good luck!
Author:  KenH [ Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Don W, calling Don W!!
Shane, the CNC mill I bought a while back had a similar problem. The controll box that came with it would only work in DOS and would not respond to any of the modern CAD programs such as Mach3.

I found a guy in on one of the CNC forums that made a controller box for me that got it all working. It ended up costing me $1400 for the controller box, but in return I had a whole complete commercial CNC router for way under 5 grand.

If you are interested, shoot me a PM and I'll give you the guys name and number.
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