Hello AndyUK


Life has a habit of getting in the way of projects you find yourself involved with, thereby each project always takes much more time than you think, let alone not having enough "spare" money at the time when you most want it.

I'm now retired and at the stage of de-cluttering, so now is the time, to make it, or break it, or better still get it going as a useable cnc milling machine.

To answer your question, I would be interested in what controller can work with the amplifiers/drives that I already have.
I do not know anything about electrics or electronics however I have managed to talk other people to help me over the years, so re-wiring another completely new system would be another nightmare for me.


Here is the technical stuff:
X axis is a tractor type belt rack, i.e. like a bulldozer, see photos on another thread concerning 6m racks.
The X axis is made up of 2 servo 0.37kw 90vdc motors, one on each end of a Y axis beam, both have very accurate 1:100 ratio planetary gearboxes attached to the motors. When connected to the gearboxes the output to the rack is 37kw at each end of the Y axis beam.

The Y axis beam is 640mm wide and 375 high, made of 4@ 150x60 aluminium channel. The whole beam weighs 150kg plus the cutting forces.

Both of the motors have HP encoders attached to ends of the motor shafts.

The Y axis also has 1 servo 0.37kw 90vdc motor and drives a ball screw shaft about 2.0m long x 30mm to which the whole of the Z axis and the turret plus the wrist axis is attached. This moves along just fine.

The Z axis has a 300mm stroke above the deck, the clearance above any part to be machined, really depends on what cutter I put in.
The Z has another servo 0.37kw 90vdc motor. The 2 X axis motors are run by 2 Axor amplifier drives.

The rotating turret has quite a small motor but is geared down a lot
The wrist axis to which the 1hp 3 phase motor is bolted to a 200mm dia face plate. This motor is heavy hanging onto the bottom of the Z axis
The face plate is driven by another small motor and similarly geared down.

To hold the actual milling cutter(s), I managed to fit a International 40 chuck inside a converted 1hp, 3 phase Brooks motor. Thereby using a 60mm or bigger milling cutter "was" possible.
This worked very well until it blew up. What I had not allowed for was the amount "heat" that was generated by the cutter and the internal heat of the motor. The heat melted the copper windings inside the motor, causing a short. So right now I do not have a cutting spindle. The speed was controlled by an 3 phase inverter


I hope this information is helpful.

kind regards
Montegoman