Emco pc mill 55 upgrade

[gavztheouch]

I have a emco mill 50 that I plan to convert to mach at some point.

I would start with mounting your new stepper motors. I think the oringinal pulleys are actually held in place using a roll pin straight through the pulley and shaft, but I have seen people just using grub screws or even glue. Get the old steppers out and have a look, spend some time just looking over the machine to formulate a plan and post plenty of pictures here to get advice and fill us all in.

Have you been using the mill 55 with the old software? Alot of folks say there is no need to convert to mach as the software is actually not to bad.

[EddyCurrent]

I know nothing about this machine but I'm curious to know this. If it already has steppers why change them ? also if the supplied software is not too bad why convert to Mach3 ?

[gavztheouch]

The Steppers have something unique about them which means they cannot be driven with standard stepper drives so most people switch them out. you can also uprate them to improve feedrates as the oringials were a bit underwhelming

I purchase my emco with the intension of mounting a high speed spindle instead of the heavy duty emco slow standard one. The idea was to use it to 3d profile small aluminium molds where high rpms are needed for the cutters to get a decent finish. Then I started reading about edm sinkers and I though it would also be great for milling electrodes for the edm.

[Craiggillzzr1400zx10r]

Thanks for reply, i can install steppers fairly easily and the other electronics, my main problem is making sure i have everything wired corectly plus my big problem is how to run the spindle with speed controll, i have no idea what i need or how i need to do this, the kit i have bought is a digital stepper setup with all the bells and whistles , BOB etc from CNC4U, ideally i am looking for someone to help hands on with the conversion as i am a bit out of my league and dont want to blow anything up ��