Newbie- SuperMax YCM-40

[Michael Turner]

Hi all I am new here also new to CNC, hope I am putting this in the right place.

I just bought a SuperMax YCM-40 1995 model with a model M-50 Centroid controller at a pretty good price I feel. I picked it up yesterday and had to place it in my barn on the trailer as we had some rain move in. Friday we are having a forklift delivered to place this in my shop. I have a 7' door so I will have to remove the motor to get it in.

The people I bought this from bought 2 of them and when they got them discovered they are to small for there needs. So they never used them other then plugging them in and cycled a program. I was told it had a tool changer on it but it does not.

Just in playing with it before we loaded it seems the manual controller does not work so I will need to see what is up there other than that it seems to work fine runs smooth and quite.

Friday we will get some pictures and post them, I would do it today but it is very dark in the barn not good for pictures.

Can someone suggest a good tool changer?

Any help, tips or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[Michael Turner]

Well spent the whole day tearing apart my shop to fit this CNC Mill in and this morning I just finished moving it into place. later today I will run the power needed for it and get the motor re-installed and tomorrow I will start playing with it. Here are a few pics.

Here it is just set in the shop, I need to turn it 90º and put it to the wall to the left.





Here is the little fork lift need to place it in the shop,

[cwaugs]

Be careful moving it Michael. They are a lot more top heavy than they appear. Rolled mine on 3" pipe and when lowering it off of it it leaned to one side and I thought it was going to go over. Havent a clue as to your controller though.

[Michael Turner]

Hi Wayne,

Yep I have actually moved some large pieces of equipment before. I used a 1" pipe to roll it on, it all went well .

Anyway the controller this one has is a Centroid M-50. Tomorrow I should be able to fire it up and get to play with it, I did get the manual for the controller with the machine and thanks to you I have the manual for the Mill.

[CNCinTN]

Michael,

Just wanted to give my greetings and say that I, too, have just purchased a YCM-40 and plan on upgrading it to run on Mach3. I look forward to hearing more from you as you progress in you efforts. Also, I plan on starting my own build thread here to help any future Supermax users. Gotta find me a user manual for the thing, though, before I get started. One question, though. Did your's come with a power drawbar? If so, would you please give me the specific make and model number of the drawbar setup? Mine didn't come with one, and so far I haven't found any online that's listed specifically for use with the YCM-40.

Thanks,

CnCinTN

[Michael Turner]

Hi CnCinTN,

Cwaugs was kind enough to email me a scanned copy of the mechanical manual for this machine if you need one I would drop him a message.

Mine had power drawbar but it was removed by a previous owner so I don't have a model number for you. I did see in the Enco master catalogue they have that I am looking at that should work fine. I will look it up and send you a link tomorrow.

Mike

[cwaugs]

Hey Michael, did u get the manual ok? I hope it is of some use to you and don't mind at all if you send CnCinTN a copy. To CnCinTN there is TONS of info here about changing a YCM40 to Mach3 I am in the process about to the stage of putting the 140V to the motors. Let me know if I can be of any help and I'll do what I can. I'm probably not as experienced as a lot of the dudes on this forum though. Doing this is like a walk in the park to a lot of them. It's a tad bit harder than that, but it is fun! Wayne

[CNCinTN]

Hey, Michael and cwaugs,

If either of you guys would be willing to send/upload a copy of that manual for me, that would be great! And, Michael, thanks in advance for the info on the power drawbar. On a less enthusiast note, the more I look, the more I find little odds and ends missing on this mill, mostly screws and bolts. I assume everything's metric. So, I'm gonna have to figure out the thread sizes and order some replacements before this thing gets up and running. Michael, I don't intend to hijack your thread, so I won't ask cwaugs too many questions via this route, but I'd do have a question for both of you. What kind of BOB/Driver system do you plan on using? (I see that cwaugs intends go the campbell/viper route.) I am seriously considering the AjaxCNC setup just because it appears to install in a straight-forward way and has all the I/O's that I'm looking for (spindle speed control, coolant on/off, etc., plus has additional positional inputs for using linear scales, which I hope would allow the use of the existing linear scales on the machine for the feedback loop of the servo system which would help minimize backlash concerns as opposed to rotary encoders on the motors). What do you guys think; any reason(s) you know of to avoid the AjaxCNC system?

Thanks,

CNCinTN

[Michael Turner]

CNCinTN,

Hey I don't mind the hi jacking I might learn something and everyone knows I can use all the help I can get .

My machine and controller work so at this time I won't be changing the controller. As for the AjaxCNC system sorry I can't help you there hopefully one of these other guys can.

I happen to come accross this Power Drawbar kit in the Enco master catalogue, I may go with the Kurt at the top of the page.
Power Drawbar Kits


Wayne yes that was a big help and since you don't mind I would be happy to forward that email to CNCinTN.