Gerber system 48

[GEOFFREY]

Martin, I was joking, just meant about your skills with your plywood cnc. I would guess that any enclosure for a system 48 would be called a SHED!!! G.

[martin54]

Greg, I would see if you can get the machine running as it is rather than start ripping it to bits to be honest, if it is a simple fix as is then it will save you a lot of time & the guy money. You would need to buy quite a bit to convert it to run with modern electronics. It's not just a case of fitting a BOB & 3 new drivers. There are other things you need to take into account like some sort of control system for limit stops, e stop etc etc.
Not quite sure why you would want to take the original stuff either, it is 30 year old technology & you need it all not just one or two bits & pieces
For the gerber software to run you would also need the dongle as well as the software installed & registered. Won't run without the dongle plugged into the machine it's operating from.
I can certainly have a look for any sort of reference or part numbers for you, will do that when I'm up the unit next.
Trust me you have the same colour wires fitted in that machine as I had in mine. The cable wire colours are different from the motor wire colours. You will be able to see that if you look at both sides of the plastic push together connector on the Z axis.
I wouldn't be thinking about changing the electronics until I knew what the problem was & how easy a fix that would be. First thing to do would be to check you have power where your suppose to have it which means doing nothing until you have a metre to hand.

Geoffrey lol, sorry I've got about a million things on my mind at the moment trying to get some of these projects up to date & I'm not getting any younger !! Can't think of the guys name but the member who rebuilt his strike cnc machine had a rather natty looking enclosure & I don't think that was to small a machine.

[GEOFFREY]

Your'e right Martin, that "strike rejuvenated" certainly looks very good in its new clothing. G.

[martin54]

Got some more done today, think this might just be up & running quicker than I thought. All the aluminium slats for the table are now back in place. The old acrylic menu that I used to cover the slats wasn't quite long enough so half the slats have a little blue bit at one end lol. Won't make any difference to the machine as it doesn't cut that far but even if it did after surfacing it wouldn't have mattered.
The bellows are all pretty clean having had a long steep in a hot bath & a scrub, one of the perks of not having a " She who must be obeyed" anymore. Will update the photos latter on as I left the camera up at the unit.

[great-dragon]

Well I finally got back to the guys shop and removed the rectifier. Ended up going to the next big town and stop at a supply house and picked up two of them for 16$, $8ea. so not to bad. Now all I got to do is get back there tomorrow and resolder them in and replace a couple of the wires and connectors that are corroded.

Then cross my fingers and hope that's all it needed.

Thanks again Martin! I'll let y'all know sometime around noon what if anything happens. Hoping for those other LEDs to light up.

Here's a better shot of the blown rectifier.

[stuboy]

The diode pic posted earlier in this thread is a general purpose 400v 35A diode so anything with 35A or more current rating will be fine, (I don't think you need 400v as its a 35v power supply so 100v rating should be fine, 400v are just more common) I think I still have them in my PSU which is still running my machine :-)
Regards
Stuart

[martin54]

Best of luck with it Greg, remember to take your test metre with you this time lol, if it fires up all you need to do then is get your head round the software which shouldn't be to difficult as your only dealing with one program. As I said before gerber used their own version of gcode but as far as I am aware using gerber advantage you will be able to design something to machine, create the code & then cut it all from the same program.
I say as far as I am aware because that is what I was told, I've never actually used the software myself because the machine wasn't working when I got it & as it's now been upgraded it won't be able to run it as it did before. I would also have had to sort out an older computer because the guy said that version 6 which is what I got with it wouldn't run on anything latter than windows 98.

[great-dragon]

Thank You Martin! and Everyone else!
LOL! Yeah the meter is in my truck. LOL! Not going to forget it again.

Just want to say I wasn't trying to highjack your thread. I was just looking for as much help as I could get. I'll be following your work regardless and may, more likely then not looking for more advice from you and everyone. Just wish I had a better net connect, LOL what should only take a minute or two takes me about 30. (Smartphone tether with crappy provider)

I don't see the software being a problem, I taught my self how to run around in AutoCad, thou I'm no expert. Just wish I had a way to throw Gerber's software on my laptop so I could play with it, but the whole Win98 thing kinda throws a wrench in the gears. Now I've got some old rigs but nothing that runs 98. LOL I knew I should have saved one of them.

I'm still interested in what electronics you used in your upgrade/update. I would think in the long run it might be a good idea for the company. Thou I don't work there yet. And I definitely need to know where to get the acrylics cause the aluminum slats need resurfacing.

Anyways Thx All!
Can't wait to see how things turn out for you martin.

Greg

[martin54]

No problem Greg, it was all related to the same make machine so I don't really see it as a hijack & if it's helped you at all then all worth it.
Worth keeping up with the forum anyway Greg if cnc is something your interested in, there are some very knowledgeable people on the forum who will help with just about anything.
My design computer runs on an AMD phenon x6 (blackbox) with 16 gig DDR3 & it runs windows 7, XP pro & windows 98 & all have been very stable. I use something called vmware player which creates virtual machines. People in the know say it is better than any of the microsoft virtual machines although I have never tried them myself.
Reason for that is down to software that I run. Inspire pro won't run above windows 98, adobe cs1 won't run above xp & I can't get drivers for my printer beyond xp.
Inspire has a parallel dongle which is recognised by the program when using the 98 virtual machine so gerber advantage may well work the same.

As for acrylic well they are a sign company so they will know where to get it or may already have it. What I used for my table was an old take away menu that came from a shop I did the signs for. The old menu was a board on the wall with external lighting, the new owners wanted a lightbox instead so the old board couldn't be reused in the shop.

[great-dragon]

Well good news, I replaced one of the rectifiers and low an behold the 2 24vdc LEDs lit up but not the mill on one. But I still can't control the X,Y with the control panel. Also I'm probably doing something wrong when I try to push a design to the machine even thou the panel says start ready. But there is some bad news as well there are a couple semiconductors with cracks, would it be worth trying to replace them? Pics below.






Is there a way to test the contactor?

Also I figured out what the unconnected wires went to, went to a plug on the side rail under the machine. I'm guessing to plug the power supply in for the control panel. Thou the plug isn't a standard US AC outlet.
Martin Just out of curiosity what do you plan on doing with all the left over (original) parts? Other then the motors.

Greg