Newbie- Need help Figuring retro of CNC Mill

[mgb1974]

I have a older CNC bed mill that looks like a company put a retrofit on it. It is call Racer Tech. Looks to be a Canadian company.

Anyway it is 2.5 axis machine not a full 3 axis machine and it limits our machining abilities. I am looking to retrofit it with Mach 3 control software and to change out the drivers and use the existing stepper motors.

Now do I just get 3 gecko drives and that will control x y and z or what do I need to get full 3 axis in x y and z????

Just trying to understand the whole system.
Thanks

[Al_The_Man]

Generally the axis is limited to the software as long as it has 3 axis installed, and it is mechanically sound, you should just require the new software.
If steppers and drives now functioning, all that may be necessary is to make the suitable connection to Mach via the parallel port via a break-out board.
Al.

[mgb1974]

Thanks for the response.

So you are saying that we can remove the old software and put on say Mach3 software and this should give us a full 3 axis machine??

The machine seems to be mechanically sound and it runs nice and quite just fighting the limitations of only having 2.5 axis.

Thanks

[Al_The_Man]

If there is full CNC (capable) control of the 3rd axis then it is commonly the issue that the installed s/w is only capable of interpolated moves for 2 axis.
So it sounds like you just need a suitable operating system that will perform 3 axis moves.
Al.

[mgb1974]

Wow that's great news!!!!

Will check the control panel and see how the computer in there is wired to the drivers and such. Might be just a unplug and plug in a newer computer with mach3 Software on it.

Thanks again!

[Al_The_Man]

Like I mentioned, you will most likely need an interface between the PC port and the drives and any I/O, known as a Break-Out board.
Al.

[mgb1974]

I will have to check to make sure what specfically we have but the mill as of now has to have something becuase it is running off of a dos based pc that is built into the box on the back of the machine.

Anything specfic to look for?

Not at the machine now but will be in a few hours.

Thanks again

[Al_The_Man]

If you have any original schematics it would help a great deal.
Al.

[mgb1974]

Ok took a look at the control panel. I saw the breakout board and the computer that is in the panel.

What are the 5 lines coming out of the PC? The big one in the picture is the line that comes from the break out board. All of those lines are one pci card in the computer. I am assuming these will need to be incorpatared in the new Mach3 setup? Are they just stuff like e-stop?

Thanks

[DareBee]

They better not be the E-stop.

Law requires the E-stop to be directly hard wired and it must cut the power to all IO boards as well as all drive circuits(this includes solenoids).

Racer is a company in Cambridge Ontario.
Their smaller machines are typically Korean type machines with controls installed (I usually see Fanucs but who knows what the used to do in the past). I don't like to call them retrofits because they are specifically designed to be CNC and have controls installed.

They also make large machines (from scratch) right in Cambridge, Boring mills, etc.

Not much help to you but interesting info and you could try phoneing them for help/info

[mgb1974]

That was just a guess. Is it a additional breakout board?

I tried giving them a call awhile ago and they werent much help. The guy I talked to knew about the machine but said there wasnt much he could help me with.

[Al_The_Man]

I think what you have there is a system that is closer to EMC which if you search here you will get all the info on it or the Linux site.
The relay output card looks like it is operated from a PC slot I/O card, I am not sure whether MACH handles I/O cards or just operates through a second parallel card.
This is one of the problems that have to be overcome when using a parallel port system, is to interface to a machine that has a large number of I/O and the necessary PLC logic to operate it.
Al.