Conect (sic) mill

[JQ_Quint]

Ian,

Is your taper an R8 or Morse taper? Phil is right the coventry system is purely a quick release adaptor, looks a good one at that though!..

J.

[IanH]

J.

Sorry, I don't know whether the machine has an R8 or Morse taper. I don't know how to remove the 'Easy Change' adapter to find out. There is no access to the top of the head for a drawbar though.

Ian

[JQ_Quint]

Ian,

Finally received my mill and it does seem to be the same machine as yours (all be it encased in a box with manual controls on the outer) and yes it seems to have the same quick release system. I've looked at it and there are flats on the spindle nose so I think I can remove it that way. I'll let you know how i get on.

On a separate note this machine does not have a parrallel port but like a vga monitor type socket on the back and as a result will power up but not budge on the manual controls. I assume it needs to be converted now to enable running off mach 3.

Who is the best contact to aid me in doing this? Routout?

And am i correct in assuming i will need a breakout board and new drivers?
Whoever I go with will need to provide me with step by step instructions/guidance as i am by no means an electronics expert so please advice on who will provde best support also appreciated..


p.s "boy its heavy"

Thanks
Jamie

[IanH]

J

I hope that your machine is as well built as mine! The electronics were all driven by a serial interface - so I threw the lot away. A friend helped wire up the new servo motor driver to provide manual control of the speed. The original is a PWM system (?). You can drive the motor (SEM DC servomotor on mine) from Mach3 but I haven't gone so far as to research the hardware needed to provide the +10 to -10v required. I bought ROUTOUT stepper drivers and Michael Gaylor has been fairly helpful. I'm told that the drivers are electrically noisy so I might have looked elsewhere if I'd known. The connection was fairly straight forward and I'm happy to share the XML file that Mach3 uses on mine for the setup of all the parameters.
I kept the E-Stop and ammeter just for completeness but dumped the case - a space issue.

Ian