Design and Technology teacher

[Brownhills school]

Hi All,

I'm Philip and I'm a Design And Technology teacher at browhills school in Walsall west midlands, we have a CNC router made by Isel, the machine was brought from unimatic.

Right now this is were it gets complicated, due to us having a laser cutter the machine has not been used in years, it's time for revival but I'm afraid we have no money to fix it :( damn budget.

I've used the same machine at my old school so in familiar on how it works. However the data cable has been cut of and the com connector is missing. This I can repair but need a wire diagram of how to fix this??? If any one knows how that will be great.

I'm also needing the galaad software and dongle as this has been stolen, like I say I'm in a pickle and would love to get this working.

Thanks all

Philip

[Jonathan]

Have you considered changing how it is controlled? Getting mach3 or EMC2 might be cheaper? It depends how the stepper motor drivers are configured in the machine ... it may or may not be simple to convert it. If you did convert it then there's lots of software available.

[John S]

Bought some of these a while ago, moving table models with the electronics in the legs.
Machines were OK but the software and electronics were total crap.
Did get one working, can't remember what we did for the serial cable but we got a copy of the software off the net, no dongle needed.
Finished up selling the moving table ones and just kept the larger moving gantry model and put this on to Mach3.
been a good machine since then.

[Brownhills school]

Thanks for the information, as I'm a complete novice at this I think that is totally out my expertise, I only know that galaad is what we need and the dongle to work with it

Any idea how I can get a cheap one :)

[Nic]

Hi Philip

The connecting lead is a serial cable and you need to speak to someone at www.g-codetechnology.co.uk (http://www.g-codetechnology.co.uk) for the connection diagram - from memory, there are very few connections to make. They also supply upgrades for the dated controler. I may be wrong here, but I think you only need the Galaad 'Kay' licence to drive the machine [no dongle,200 euro]. You can use free stuff to design and create toolpaths.