- Joined
- Sep 24, 2014
- Messages
- 929
Good work John. I am not much of an electronics guy. I am not sure I would take on a project like yours. I just picked up a small xp touchscreen computer with a serial port for $125 bucks. If I decide to CNC my machine it will be perfect to run Mach3 on. Looks like Mach4 will support USB so it may be a waste, but we will see.
This weeks' update:
I was having problems with the cnc control box, and i want to say Arturo Duncan at Cnc4pc was a great help, and his taking the time to answer my emails was greatly appreciated, and helped me figure out the problem.
The problem in a nutshell is that i wired the drivers wrong which was shorting out everything else. So, over the last 2 days, i have been completely rewiring the box, and I installed some terminal strips to make troubleshooting and working on the box much easier. One major modification I did to the box while i had it all apart is to replace the 24vdc fan with a higher cfm 120vac fan. the fan is wired into the 120v circuit and comes on when the on/off switch is turned on. Some of these components put out quite a bit of heat.
View attachment 87465
This is the only picture i have to upload this week, as all i have been able to do is work on this box. The ebay mill head came in on Thursday, but I haven't taken it out of the box yet. The next thing I will do is get the mach3 configured, get the motors and connectors wired up. Then I will go back to installing the ball screws and mounts, lastly, will be a motor upgrade for the new mill head, since i need to replace the missing motor controls anyway. By the time i get all that done, the back ordered saddle and mill slide should be here, then the mods begin in earnest.