Control.com - Nerds in Control

Hi to all,
recently i purchased a used milling machine.
It is in perfect mechanical conditions but the cn unit need to be replaced.In order to keep as low as possible the retrofit total cost and to avoid one of many "black box" unit , i would like to assemble myself a pc based cnc control.The machine have servoamps Servomac(+/-10v),dc brush motors Inland and encoders,so i belive i need only the pc,cnc software and some axis motion board.Can someone suggest to me some setup?Somebody told me that Servotogo axis board and EMC software could be a good join!
I'm a mould manufacturer so precision is important for me.Any low cost suggestions will be really welcome...also some schematic diagram for home made axis control could be ok for me...
Thanks

Your best bet is to go to a CSI (Control System Integrator), a Retrofitter, or a control builder. If you consider your own time to do the features you will need, it will cost you much more to do this yourself.
Some of the vendors, like Delta Tau have a CNC package that would be at least a good starting point. There is no way that building your own CNC for a one-shot job can be economical.
Tom Bullock

Hi Tom, thakns for reply.
Probably you are right!,but i will make the job during my free time overall for didactic reasons,besides for use the machine.
Thanks again.....and don't forget to signal me any low cost motion card vendors or proven project (schematic) in the case you find it...
See you soon.
Tek
teknotek@freemail.it

There is a page somewhere in DIY cnc. EMC seems to be well recieved. I looked for the link but, I no longer have it. If I get a chance I'll do a google search.

Regards

cww

You may find http://www.cncKITS.com/ interesting.

Look at http://www.linuxcnc.org

There is also a discussion group about this at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO/messages

Tony Smith

Before "inventing something yourself take a look at the soft-cnc product from MDSI. Website www.mdsi2.com

Actually I think reinventing this yourself is perhaps the only way to penetrate the smoke and mirrors of this super proprietary field. It's a lead pipe cinch that OMC and the boys aren't opening anything and it would be good to study EMC and it's G code implementation before some
context is found to make it unavailable. Each person who does this increases the number of people who _really_ know how CNC works by a significant percentage. This is one of many technologies bound up in an almost guildlike secrecy. IMHO OMC was formed to protect this secrecy rather than to dispel it. EMC is the _only_ work which can be called open in even the most twisted definition of the word open. I urge all interested to get a copy and study it while you can. You may never build your own CNC, but there is no downside to knowing how. Kudos to the EMC authors. Too bad an Open OS is totally
unacceptable to the industry cartel or products would have hit the market long ago.

Regards

cww

Anilam also makes a nice retrofit product. http://www.anilam.com/home.html

Hello,
my english is poor . I have retrofit my self two milling machine one for me and one for money. The small one , for me , was made on three axis with DC motors INLAND and encoders with quadrature capabilities. Bassicly I have use a simple 3 axis servoboard with no software and 48 digitally I/O board for all other tasks . For the software I was build everything on LabView , with no interrupts. Any way , now I can import a NC program from ProEngineer or AutoCad .plt file ! . I was done this within 3 months. The other mashine was fit for 5 axis milling tasks for aeronautic industry , but at the beginning it was FOREST MILLE french milling machine. Basically this solution it was expensive , the aacuracy , measured by Laser Interferometer was +/- 2.3 um at the end. The main board was developped around AEROTECH servo board . If you ask for more , repply to viorelm2001@yahoo.com.
Tk.you
Morar

Hi,

Please look for following products

1 Fagor 8055MC www.fagorautomation.com
2 Deltatau PMAC & NC software www.deltatau.com

It is good I have retrofitted milling m/cs with these product