Hi there from a cnc router enthusiast in Notts, UK!

I've done a bit of woodworking all my adult life, but just got into cnc routing. we got a cheap 3040 Chinese cnc for a wrk project, and it did the job se well we invested in a bigger one.. so I got to take the smaller one home.

despite its 300w spindle, I've done some great stuff, mainly signs etc carved in pine .. it does great work but its slow due to its low spindle power.. overload it and it trips our easily.

SO.. I bought a 2nd hand 6040 Chinese with 1.5kw water cooled spindle. unfortunately, I didn't see it working first. I bought it home and plugged the pc into it that was driving the 3020.. the x y z directions worked straight away but the spindle didn't fire up. I was about to go into the MACH3 software to enable the spindle when the PC died! Grr!

last night I installed vcarve and mach3 on my office PC and set up the mach3 pin details etc on it..(it uses a parallel out label to the controller).. took it into the garage and it didn't want to talk to the 6040 router! I know it worked..i'm going to try again tonight and use the version of mach3 that came with the machine instead of the later version I downloaded of the internet.

If I can get it going, I've reached the limit of my knowledge (I'm new to cnc stuff..mechanical engineer by trade, but do some near 3d stuff in Solidworks).. is there anyone on here in the UK that's within a decent drive of me that I could possible bring the entire set up to, OR you come to mine for petrol and payment?

I've finally found a hobby I love, and missing not being able to use it. all help and advise welcome!

regards.

Phil

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