Lets See Whats inside

Just a few shots to document the innards of the machine. Whats really fantastic is that I found a 3rd party stepper motor driver. This should make motor drive interface at least possible to sort out. Really, I was expecting to find some proprietary hardware controlling the stepper motors, this find is a huge bonus. There is some custom hardware for the spindle motor controller, however at least one of the chips gives a great clue as to how the board might be set up. Some images to clarify the insides.

Front view with covers off testing stages:

Front Panel:

Front Panel

Close up of one of the stages drive mechanism

Stepper Motor

Controller Aneheim Automation

Spindle Motor Controller Chip

Main Board

Note Sheet

Tags:

2 Responses to “Lets See Whats inside”

  1. Kirk Rysdam says:

    Hi, I was so happy to find your blog on this machine as I have come into possession of one myself. The machine I have came without a control PC so my initial thought was to gut the stepper driver and replace the motors with newer hardware, however, I really liked the idea of having a spindle that could allow automated tool changes. I’m curious if you ever found a way to control the spindle with the existing proprietary VFD to allow on/off and speed control from any of the readily available CNC controllers like Mach3/4, PlanetCNC or MASSO?
    Thanks in advance for any help or advice you can offer, hopefully you still monitor this blog. Thanks again, Kirk

  2. ednspace says:

    I ended up switching over a to a Bosch router and just never looked back. I really liked the idea of automatic tool changes also but the spindles I played with just didn’t seem powerful enough. But, honestly at the time, I lacked a decent air compressor also and years ago everyone was using the Bosch routers with low runout collets from think and tinker. That’s what I went with and it seemed capable enough at the time. I still play around with that machine and am thinking of upgrading the computer soon. I may switch over to a completely different drive system and am thinking about the Acorn CNC control. However, I may just end up getting a new motherboard and try to get Path Pilot going its a toss up. I do think conversational programming may really be useful in the shop for certain task as there are many times I just need to use it like an I would a drill press or other more common tool. Like, simply telling it to cut a circle or a square or drill a pattern of holes etc without having to go through the whole drawing process and convert it to gcode etc…

    I am curious, which spindles did you get with yours? Also would love to see any pictures of accessories etc…
    I will try and send you an email with my address, it would be easier to communicate.

Leave a Reply