Hello,

I picked up an old Sharp LMV mill this weekend and lo and behold, it was a 2-axis CNC machine. The motors were still mounted on the machine with the wires just spooled around the base. It was powered by a ProtoTrak MX2 that was sitting in a box on a shelf BUT was missing the pendant. The previous owner only used this as a manual mill. My guess is the pendant went out in the shop that had it before and they trashed it before auctioning it off.

I'm not too heartbroken as I bought it priced as a manual mill, but I've been exploring options to get this thing working as a CNC again. The MX2 control box does power on, so I contacted Southwest Industries about sourcing a pendant without any luck. They told me the only thing they could do is to upgrade to a KMX for about $6k.

Before I take that plunge though, I'm curious what other options I have. SWI made it sound like their motors are very proprietary and that I couldn't get them to work with any other controller. Which is a bummer, as I was hoping I could run these motors through a basic controller and a PC with Mach3.


Is it true I wouldn't have any options to reuse these motors?
Would replacing the motors and building a PC controller be any cheaper?
Is there no other option to finding a working MX2 pendant other ebay or similar?

The machine seems to run great and likely is worth some investment to make it CNC again, but cost will determine how soon that will happen.

Thanks in advance,
Tyler

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