Hi everyone.
Just joined this brilliant site. Think I could get lost in here for days and not realise the time!
I have an old Emco CNC 5 and a Denford Starmill that I am trying to get sense out of, so will be coming back here Quite a lot.

See you soon. Phil.

Hi Phil
Do your shelf a favour and convert your Starmill to use Mach, you will then start to enjoy useing the tool. I converted an Orac lathe last year, now a very useable tool. I can let you know the basics of conversion if you are interested.
Cheers

Mike

Thanks for offer. I may well take you up on it. My friend has just converted an Orac using Eaziform parts so might look at that option first for Emco but I am going to do Denford Starmill first , as I have far more pressing jobs for mill than lathe. Most my turning is done on plugboard auto. Far easier to understand ! Regards Phil.

Hi Phil
Do your shelf a favour and convert your Starmill to use Mach, you will then start to enjoy useing the tool. I converted an Orac lathe last year, now a very useable tool. I can let you know the basics of conversion if you are interested.
Cheers

Mike
Hi Mike;
I have recently purchse an Orac Lathe it partially work but I would like to convert it so i could run it with my pc and mach software. Should I stip everything out or keep a few board?
Maurice

Maurice

You want to keep the power supply to steppers, (thats the toriadal transformer and two big capacitors) the rest is junk. I assume you know what you need for the conversion!

Cheers
Mike

Hi Mike;
thanks for the respond. I'm not sure . My experience that I have in this is I have built a CNC Router with three gecko drive. I assume I should be going in the same direction.
Regards
Maurice

Maurice

Your on the right lines, you will need a VFD to drive the motor, a breakout board, spindle index board, I used CNC4PC as backup is very good, two drivers for steppers, Geeko's are good, 2x 12vDC power supplies, E stop switch.

Basic layout is, make a 240v bus bar, as there are lots of connections, put in a 5amp fuse from 240v to motor power suppy 60vDC output goes to drivers, then to steppers. 12vDC for breakout board, other 12vDC goes to motor relay on breakout board, output goes to VFD to control motor.
I found the worst bit was configueing Mach,

Good Luck
Mike