Boxford TCL 125

[inee]

hi
Ah vintage bikes ,positive earth, 6v and electrics from lucas the prince of darkness.

Have you tried pressing the manual mode switch, then trying the axis moves ,i seem to remember mine having to have the manual button switched on before i got responce.

Had a quick think, the fwd reverse buttons are dual purpose, in if you press forward then it starts in forward, the fwd button speeds up and the rev button slows down. have you tried,
reset lathe, press rev button then press fwd it should revers and speed up. (sorry had to ask as it's difficult to troubleshoot remotely) :) .

can you also switch the lathe off, switch the red lever on the relay to the other position(rev). then power up the lathe
when you press the reset switch the relay should switch bact to the other side. (if you look at the diagram i posted you will see that the way the 2 relays on board connecting to pins ,12, 13, 14 will make the relay default to one position on power up


You can check the operation of rl3 quite easily, disconnect the machine from the mains, disconnect the board cable( connector 8) board cable.
if you have a power supply simply connect pin 12 to positive voltage then put negative lead to pin13,the relay should clunk, next put the positive lead to pin 14, again negative lead to pin13 and it should switchover.

If you don't have a supply you can briefly short pins 12 to pin 13, then short pins 14 to 13 (the relay should switch over). Be aware that pins 1,2,3,6 and 7 are at mains potential so stay away.


Can you post a close up of the ribbon connector and its terminal block, one of the board under the control panel, and one of the optoisolater board connected to the lenze controller.

Let us know how you get on

[John11668]

Our vintage bike got converted to 12v in order that it could handle a modern starter motor ,which for a 350cc single is quite an advantage . But we did have to replace the old plate rectifier with a modern solid state bit of kit ,
But we digress!

Linking those terminals Inee had no effect but the 24 v supply was not there . There was however 20v at the input of the missing fuse and it looked like the output from the rectifier headed in the correct general direction, so took a risk, replaced the fuse , and switched on
A 24 v led lit up on the board and lo the spindle functions all seem to work as we would expect.

I will post the requested pics you ask for Inee but too late tonight .

Traverses do not work yet, regardless of the position of the Manual switch but someone did say it would be surprising if traverses worked without a computer connected so maybe that should be next step,
I did manage to get hold of the "Boxford engineer " who owns up to not having proven the functions before the machine was sold . It seems he was a factory mechanical fitter and whilst they were trained to carry out limited electronic testing, he relies on an electronic specialist as he needs one.
He does however have a number of spares so might be worth knowing .

One thing he mentioned was that he thought there were traverse limits , to prevent crashes , and it could be that these might be operated .
I will check that tomorrow .
With a serial connector on the machine, I presume there must be some breakout function within the boards. Might it be time to connect a computer and see what gives.
Will it matter whether we are running Mach 3 or UCCNC? I guess we will need to know pin identities, etc but I will not go there until I have the benefit of your invaluable opinions

Looking forward to those .

[JAZZCNC]

Will it matter whether we are running Mach 3 or UCCNC? I guess we will need to know pin identities, etc but I will not go there until I have the benefit of your invaluable opinions

UCCNC will only work if you have a Motion controller from CNC Drive. Their motion controllers will work both with Mach3 and UCCNC software using plugin for Mach3.

Mach3 and a Simple BOB will get you going providing you can find the Pins out's. However, if your running limits and speed control/direction along with ATC you may find you run out of I/O as the BOB as limited I/O. Personally I would fit an external motion controller anyway just for the reliabilty and to get away from the parallel port.

[John11668]

I do have a UC100 Jazz, so uccnc is not a problem. I was led to believe that to run Mach3 on a 64 bit computer I would need UC100 so am used to using that on a mill . Havent looked to see pin arrangement for lathe . I suspect we have a way to go before we connect the computer

[Doddy]

I do have a UC100 Jazz, so uccnc is not a problem. I was led to believe that to run Mach3 on a 64 bit computer I would need UC100 so am used to using that on a mill . Havent looked to see pin arrangement for lathe . I suspect we have a way to go before we connect the computer

Just to butt-in, use UCCNC for integration and all that, but it doesn't really support lathe operation at all well. That's the only reason I use LinuxCNC on my lathe.