My New 1997 Industrial CNC Project

[Myk Bates]

Hi,

I'm new here. I've been on the site before but never had anything CNC until now. I bought an old CNC really cheap and am looking to gut most of the old electronics and start new. I am looking for any helpful knowledge on this big project. I have yet to put power to the machine to see what works and what does not but here is what I have.

1997 Conquest 272 by AMC
The bed size is 12' x 6' (yes thats feet)
Main spindal Specs as follows:
Giordano Colombo
Volt 230
HZ 300
RPM 18,000
HP 12
KW 8.8

I talked to a guy at Precision Drive Systems who told me it is a Brushless 3 Phase AC motor and costs about 10K new. I also have 6 ISO 30 cones for tools and at least two brand new Advanced Motion Model B25A20 servo amplifiers. This machine used to run in a cabinet shop. The company quit using the machine because of what sounds like mostly software issues. The stuck it outside for a year (with a tarp over it till the wind tor it apart) and let it sit there. The guides for the bridge are rusted although I think they will clean up okay as they are not pitted. I live in Arizona and we havent had much rain in the last year.

No that you have some background on the machine here are my questions:
Will Mach 3 run this machine? How do I figure that out?
Is it really possible to clean up the guide rails for the bridge and use them?
Do people on this forum have experience with big machines like this?

Any other info would be helpful as this is my first CNC project. What can i say, the price was right so I just couldnt pass it up. I paid less than the value of the spindal core.

I'll post a picture if I can figure out how to do that.

Thanks
Myk