Gerber system 48

[martin54]

Like Irving has said a failure like that could have caused all sorts of other damage, if your still thinking about a complete change out then why not sit down & work out the cost & put that to the owner as an option, you will need a BOB, 3 x drivers, power supply, software licence for mach3 that you already know of then a small safety type circuit, got the layout for mine from on the forum & didn't cost much to build, few relays an estop & some wiring basically. You could use the machines existing estop for this so that helps reduce the bill, I built my control box before I got the gerber for something else I had started before it came up & it was all built into an old computer case.
Original motors are superior electrics slo syn can't remember model but they are 1.8v, 4.7A 6 wire nema 34. If you intend to use the original mators then you need a 36v power supply & drivers to match. I will eventually fit nema 23 motors that will handle a higher voltage so the drivers I have fitted are wasted just now as they are capable of a lot more but until I can make some adapter plates for the motors I'm limited to 36v.
If your looking for info on step & direction then I would need to double check this & my notebook is at the unit but I think it goes
Green A
Blue A-
red B
Org B-

Black & white are centre taps, black for red, red/white & white for green, green/white

Like I say don't take that as written & go applying any external power but should be ok for testing.
will update that latter after I have been up at the unit. Might not be the best idea to buy the cheapest drivers you can find, remember this will be a production machine for a business if plans go well & could be doing a lot of hours running.

[Swarfing]

I'm guess by that you mean a repair kit

They may do a repair kit? The energiser coil is where you apply power to the contactor and it closes it, so that your mains power then runs through the unit. Most contactors allow this to be swapped out as it wears out quicker than the unit. A good one will work at a much lower voltage, you could try a 12v supply just to see if the contactor moves? no guarantees

[martin54]

I don't want to put a jinx on myself but things seem to be going pretty well just now, got the electronics all hooked up & the gantry moving about, was going to do a little video but wasn't sure how to put my camera into video mode lol.
Not quite sure what to do long term at the moment, I was going to put all the new electronics in the old control box with connections running out for things like power, parallel cable, usb cable etc but now I am thinking that the box is quite big so might be just as easy to fit a motherboard & hard drive in there as well so it is pretty much a self contained unit, Sure there would be somewhere it wouldn't be to difficult to fit a small flat screen monitor

[YawString]

Hi everyone this is my first post on mycncuk.

I have really enjoyed reading the posts on this thread

I really wish I had seen this thread a few years ago. I have been running an old gerber system 48 / ar400 for about 5 years.. In that time I have spent many a frustrated hour testing and diagnosing electrical problems, replacing resister packs, and trying source obsolete transistors etc etc...

Anyway, I now have use of two all singing and dancing axyz's
The little gerber is gathering dust in the corner and looking for a good home if anyone's interested... I am about to put a post in the for sale section of the forum but thought I'd say hello in here first.

I have no idea what these machines are worth these days...

After reading the previous posts I'm almost inspired to keep the gerber and refit her with new electronics but I am so pushed for space...

[martin54]

Being pretty new to all this CNC stuff I wish I had bought a machine to refit or built my own machine 5 years ago, well longer than that really lol. I've got an industrial unit so I have placed it in a spot where I can get round it & it has enough space to allow me to fit a full size sheet on for cutting should I need to because it's not going to get moved about lol
I can see from the solid construction of my machine why people in the sign industry thought they were so good, don't think the machine I bought originally to try & repair had done a great deal of work in it's life to be honest, it really was in good condition but then maybe the layers of caked on cutting fluid mixed with aluminium swarf & sawdust helped protect it lol.
Having read your post about the time spent diagnosing & fixing electrical problems maybe it is just as well I couldn't find any technical info on the machine & was talked into refitting it. My only concern is that the gantry height might be a bit low & if this were the case then I would look at ways to raise it a bit rather than part with the machine.
Still has the original motors fitted at the moment but I have some nema 23 3.1nm motors that will get fitted once it is up & running, need the machine to make the adapter plate so the motors fit as originals are nema 34 & frame size is different. Once the motors are fitted then the 70v power supply will go in & I will then get much better performance from the AM882 drivers that are fitted.
I had the electronics already because I was collecting parts to build a machine when this one came up but I would probably have got round to fitting something like that anyway, might just have taken a bit longer lol. The porter cable spindle was suppose to work when I got it but it didn't & when I stripped it it was pretty bad. With spares for it being almost impossible to obtain the machine now has a Chinese 2.2kw spindle fitted which will be quieter than the porter cable if nothing else lol.