Quote Originally Posted by Faszero View Post
The S/H CNC turret machine I was looking at I was told 'has ballscrews on all axis that are driven by DC servo motors.'
Also, 'the control is very easy to program you can also run it with a cad cam program or the offline software.'
Sounds OK does it not for working with Fusion 360 but the Anilam 3300 control panel DRO has an old cathode screen would it be easy to replace?
Unfortunately, It's a little more complex than just selecting a Cam program.
First, the Cam software you use must have a post-processor that suits the controller your using and doubt Vectric or F360 will have a Post for these old Anilim controllers as often they are programmed at the controller or by hand and imported which leads to next issue..

Second, these Old Controllers are often limited on memory and modern Cam programs writers are lazy so they spit out large file sizes for even the simplist tool-paths. This means you have to drip feed them code and this leads to all sorts of issues with drop outs etc.

Third, retrofitting isn't a simple affair either. DC Servo drives on these older machines nearly always require Analog signals so require an expensive analog controller.
The DC Motors can be re-used with modern DC drives but even this isn't a simple switch as they tend to use Single-ended encoders and/or tacho's which need to be replaced or bypassed with modern differential encoders which modern drives will require.

All these things become expensive really quickly and are why often they get ripped out and replaced with modern controllers and motors/drives etc
That said if the machine really does have ballscrews fitted already then it's a good head start as often fitting ball-screws isn't a cheap or simple swap and requires a lot of work in many cases.