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  1. #101
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    Quote Originally Posted by lanb View Post
    Alping45,

    Once you are in contact with Zak, you should see if he will send you an electronic copy of the correct Electrical Documentation for you lathe.

    BR,
    Lan
    Will do. I sent him an email last night about the MSD disk, waiting to hear back.
    Thanks.



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    I have a couple spare parts from my Emco PC Mill 50

    This board (attached picture) and the keyboard controller.

    Now to continue the retrofit process :/

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails emco pc mill 50 & similar-imag0005-jpg  


  3. #103
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    Hi!
    I'll buy your spares for a moderate price!
    Please contact me via pm.
    Thanks and best regards,kaktus-martin



  4. #104
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    We just picked up a nice PC Mill 50 this week- great shape but no computer and no electrical manuals. After probing connections and jerking around with it for a few evenings, I concluded that that spindle drive would be more trouble to interface to than it is worth and that the stepper drives require a square wave pulse train to be useful. Since the steppers are 5-wire, there aren't simple, cheap drives I can use to repower them. So... the retrofit will be done next week with 3 new Nema 23 steppers, Keling drives, an Automation Direct VFD and CNC4PC relay board for the spindle, and our Mach-based Touchscreen control system. Combined with the cost of the machine this will put our investment a little higher than I'd like to, but the final result will be an amazing bench-sized machine with better capabilities than originally equipped.

    We will be selling the spare motors, stepper drives, spindle drive, and motion control board (cheaply!). PM me if interested.

    I'll post an update when done.

    Steven Balder
    www.sbprecision.com



  5. #105
    Member mactec54's Avatar
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    Hi NoLimit

    Most of the people that have these machines are missing the same parts as you are,
    the board that goes in the computer is the one that everbody needs, but cheap spares
    of the other parts that you have are good as well

    Mactec54


  6. #106
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    Talking Mill done!!!!

    We got our parts and completed the mill refit. We used Keling KL23H256-21-8B
    stepper motors, Keling KL-4030 Stepper Drivers on the axes and an Automation Direct GS1-20P5 variable frequency drive and CNC4pc C6 board to control the spindle. We limited the spindle to 3000RPM and the axes to 50IPM, but tested them both much faster. Since the original ratings are 2500RPM and 29IPM we are very pleased.

    The motors were very easy to retrofit. We enlarged the mounting holes in the motors to fit the 50mm spacing on the original plates, and we took the original pulleys and ran a 1/4" reamer through them. Since I don't like to drill through motor shafts I tapped the holes in the pulleys where the original 2mm roll pins were to accept 3mm set screws.

    Here are some pictures......











    We have the mill listed on Ebay- http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=190389549803

    Steven Balder
    www.sbprecision.com



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    A quick question please, for anyone in the know. I have just got an EMCO PC MILL 50, and can get a card and the software. I've read all the posts, which have been helpful in warning me of all the usual pitfalls. But can the card fit in a long 8/16bit ISA slot, or must it go in a really ancient short 8-bit only slot?

    Wilf



  8. #108
    Registered txcowdog's Avatar
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    Wow! You are going back quite a few years. I believe what you are referring to is an EISA slot which means Extended-ISA. The shorter slot is just an ISA slot, but, as best as I can remember the two are not interchangeable. You are going to need an old 386 or 1st generation 486 processor/motherboard combination because both of those would have the ISA slot. If you do not have one, I can give you one of mine as I have never thrown out a computer over the past twenty years. The tricky part will be finding a hard drive small enough to work with the old operating system you are going to need to run your software because I assume the software that runs your mill runs on DOS and DOS will not recognize a hard drive larger than 328 MB. Yes, these days it is almost impossible to find a 500 GB drive and you need just a tiny old 328 MB which you would never find on a store shelf anymore. I may have an old one sitting in a closet covered with dust that I could donate to your cause. If you will cover the freight I will donate an old 486 to your project. I'm guessing you will also need a serial port which has gone the way of $1.00 gasoline but fortunately the old 386's come with two serial ports. PM me and I will see what I can cook up for you.

    I have a PC Mill 30 and I have it running on a 486 with DOS. While everything works, I am thinking of stripping out the old controls and upgrading to a HobbyCNC controller and then I would have all the new functionally of MACH 3, CADCam, AutoCAD, etc. Your time may be better spent upgrading your machine instead of wasting a lot of time to have a machine that runs on 20 year old technology. You could still use the stepper motors that the mill has in it. You would need to spend probably $100 at most to have a modern and accurate, feature filled mill.



  9. #109
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    Thank you for you reply and generous offer. I wasn't thinking of going back quite as far as that! The mill is dated 1995 and the software is for Windows 98. I was planning to use a clean install, as has been described earlier in this thread (Ianb 01-01-2010), to avoid conflicts with any other software. The card I've been offered is described as 8-bit ISA, I'm expecting it to look like the image posted by Alvaro Layera 11-05-2007.

    I have an old PC that has a long black slot, that looks like an ISA one. This is where my own knowledge ends, and I'm looking this up on Wikepedia, where ISA slots are described as black, and EISA as brown. Also this source describes the long ISA slots as being compatible with most 8-bit cards. It's the word most that I don't like.

    So I'm hoping there's an owner of a PC Mill 50 out there who can stare into his (or her) computer and see if their card is in a long slot.

    I'm holding the option of a rebuild as a serious alternative. The modern software is attractive and the rebuild itself is not too daunting, given that all the existing stepper motors (alas they'd have to go) are on nicely removable plates.

    Wilfrid



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    Wilfred,

    Welcome to the PC Mill 50 worls. Per your r equest, I just went out into the garage and had a look at at the slot my card is in. It is in a long black connector. I believe this is the EISA slot if I recall corerctly. If I am not mistaken the eight bit slot is ajust the one end of this connector. The motherboard I have is an Asus P2-66 with a PIII-650MHz processor. Most critical though if you are shoppin garound for an old PC is to get one with the ability to set teh ISA slot parameters in the BIOS. I think I posted details earlier in this thread. (if the details are not there let me know and I will post them.) If you cannot control the ISA slot you might have troubles getting the card online. I would definitely try running this mill with the Emco WinCAM software if you have it. If nto it is $250 from Emco. This gives you a CAD/CAM interface that is easy to operate and the manuals are still available from Emco. I might have an extra copy for sale as well since I got a copy with my mill and then bought a copy from Emco.

    If you have problems let me know and I will see what I can do to help. It can take me a day or two to get time to reply once I see a message but I am
    here.

    BR,
    Lan



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    Default To TCOWDOG

    Tcowdog,

    Would you by any chance have any schematics for the drive board on a PC Mill 30? have a 30 as well but my spindle drive is not working. The spindle checks out OK and works and I found the correct key to press in teh Emco software but something in the drive is not working.

    Thanks,
    Lan



  12. #112
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    Thanks for your advice Lan. I've been wrestling with the PC I have, without much luck. I think it may be dead. So I'm beginning to lean more towards the idea of rebuilding. I'm confident I can find a PC and get it going, but this seems to be a higher risk route, as every piece of the jigsaw depends on every other, and they're all so hard to source. In a few years things may be impossible. I'll keep the group posted.

    Wilfrid



  13. #113
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    Wilfred,

    I got my PC off of a craigslist listing for an older PC for $45. If you live in a larger city than I do you might have a used PC store where you could check things out easier. Once that issue is resolved and if you have the interface card you are ready to go with a bit of setup.
    By the way, did you get any software such as WinCAM with your system. IF so I think it is worth the effort to try and get things running. If not you are looking at the cost of a PC plus the $250 for WinCAM and at that point it might be easier/cheaper to do a conversion.

    If you are converting, the stepper drive boards that come with the mill take step and direction inputs so you could control the three axis directly from a pc with some sort of isolator board to separate the power supplies. The part I have not figured out yet is how to drive the spindle although I have not looked into it either. But the stepper drives seem pretty obvious from the interconnection diagrams. Just install EMC on a PC and try setting it up. There is no real hardware cost to trying.

    BR,
    Lan



  14. #114
    Registered txcowdog's Avatar
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    Lan,
    the PC Mill 30 has all of the electronics mounted in the base of the machine and it connects to the computer via a DB9 serial cable. The computer tells the mill to move 1" +x and the electronics in the machine does the arithmetic and executes the move. I like the large 10" x 12" cutting area but the CAD program the system uses is rather old and difficult to use. All in all, it gets the job done. Unfortunately I have had no luck getting the spindle to change speeds.



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    Thanks again, Lan for this useful info. I could get the software if I go the old PC/card route, but have not got it at the moment, it's a package deal.

    I haven't got any manuals or diagrams, so don't know which pins in the controller to stepper driver ribbon are which. If you have a listing of either the pins, or ribbon configuration this would be useful information. I have a spare inverter that drives the spindle, so I don't need to use the EMCO board.

    Wilfrid



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    Wilfrid,

    I got copies for the manual direct from Emco. Try dropping them an email and see what they say. They will need the model number and serial number from the name tag so that they can provide the correct manual. I can send them to you as well if I have that info since I have manuals for two different model numbers provided yours is one of the two I have.

    BR,
    Lan



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    Lan,

    The only schematics I have is for the stepper motors. It seems that the ones used on the PC Mill 30 were made in France and I found the manufacturer who was kind enough to send schematics for the motors so if you are thinking of changing out the controls to something current, I believe the motors are bipolar and 120 oz/in. I would be happy to send the pdfs if you feel they would be of any help.



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    Default emco pc mill 50 and pc turn 50 software

    hello
    i'm from France, so could you excuse me for my english ?
    i have an emco pc mill and pc turn 50, with the software installed on pc, but i haven't on disk.
    could someone can have a cd or floppy copy ?
    i want to reinstall pc, in fact i have to old pc, but i just want to have one for the two cnc.
    And i'm afraid i case of pc failure.
    thanks a lot



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    Default TOOL HOLDERS

    I've seen a few posts about tool holders and was wondering if anyone has confirmed that the BT30 tool holders from Maritool work with the PC Mill 50. If so, which of the available BT30 pull studs should I get? None of them seem to have the exact same ball diameter as the Emco tool holder. I may just get new tool holders through Emco but would like to have more options. Thanks.



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    Default Pull studs

    Quote Originally Posted by rstoll View Post
    I've seen a few posts about tool holders and was wondering if anyone has confirmed that the BT30 tool holders from Maritool work with the PC Mill 50. If so, which of the available BT30 pull studs should I get? None of them seem to have the exact same ball diameter as the Emco tool holder. I may just get new tool holders through Emco but would like to have more options. Thanks.
    I have been buying emco compatable BT30 pull studs from the following link:
    http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWAX:IT
    The price is reasonable and the studs are a duplicate of the pull stud on the Emco tool holders. For a BTR30 holder you would want the 1/2 inch thread although you should double check with the Maritool specs. I order mine annealed rather than hardenned since I would prefer any wear be in the stud and not the spindle.

    Good luck,
    Lan



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