On 2010-11-28, Pete C. wrote:

"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" wrote:

Ignoramus18541 fired this volley in
:

This is really a winner, then. You have a beautiful piece.

Mechanically, it is nearly perfect. Cosmetically, it's a little rough.
Most of the machine's pretty nice, but the stuff from knee level (mine,
not the machine's) down looks like it got in a hail storm but with rocks
instead of ice. I don't know exactly what could beat it up that badly
below-level like that. Everything inside is spiffy-clean.

The only REAL ugly thing is that at one time or another the decimal point
key failed. It's a TI-style "dome switch" membrane covered keyboard, and
not repairable unless you replace the entire switch sheet. So whoever
fixed it GLUED another dome switch onto the _outside_ of the decimal key,
and routed the wires down across the face of the panel under some tape to
disguise the wire. It looks stupid and carelessly done, but it works. I
know I can't fix the membrane, but I might find a better-looking
miniature switch to fasten in place of the decimal point.

It probably _wouldn't_ be a good idea to drill through the panel for lead
wires -- you never know where the other switches' runs go.

I may eventually use the machine to cut a bezel that matches the switch
layout, and go with some better switches for the whole thing.

LLoyd

For the amount of effort it would take to rework the existing keypad,
you'd have a good start at a retrofit with a modern and more capable
control like Mach3 or EMC2.

My thinking exactly. The control will handily pay for any new hardware
that is needed, I think, even including a PC. Especially if you take a
video of it operating. There is someone out there, with an R2E4 with a
dead control, desperate to buy it at any price.

Your expenses will be roughly:

1) A PC. How much you want to spend depends on you. $150 and up will
get you a used or new PC. I started with a used POS that I had laying
around, which worked fine, but later upgraded to a PC that I built
that cost me $500. On this new one, watching youtube movies or doing
whatever else I want, is possible while the mill is operating. Because
EMC2 is locked to one of the cores, and memory, it does not care how
busy is the other core.

2) DC Servo drives. About $100 for three.

3) Miscellaneous wires, terminals, DIN terminals etc. $100.

4) A monitor. 15-17 inch LCD will work very well. I got one from junk
pile at work, it was missing a stand, which was very fine with me.

5) Possibly you may need encoders or encoder converters. ???$$$
New encoders from US Digital are not very expensive.

6) Networking gear, various PC cables

The retrofit process took me about 300 hours, but this is because I
knew nothing when I started. So it was a lot of asking, reading,
etc. If I had to do it again, on an identical machine, I would say it
would take me 50 hours of work to complete.

i