These people seem to do CNC conversions, though up in Leicestershire.

Why Mach 3? It's old fashioned and no longer supported. I have used it for quite a while on my lathe but will need to change soon. Compatibility with PCs and Windows depends on the goodwill of what is probably a dwindling user base finding fixes.

Alternatives are LinuxnCNC, Mach 4, or a number of others have been mentioned here, but it may depend on how much of the current machine you want to keep.

Geoff;

1) There's a fellow who posts here sometimes (can't remember his name at the moment) who had figured out how to drive a parallel-port equipped Emco CNC lathe from LinuxCNC. He and his father got a batch of them.

2) A local club member took his Emco Compact-5 CNC lathe and LinuxCNC'd it, including tool changer. Works very well, when he gets the chance to use it. (young family syndrome)

3) If you have a Tormach 1100, you'll know that the PathPilot upgrade (*) is LinuxCNC with a Tormach UI and conversational programming layer.

(I put a star on "upgrade" as I know we all have our own preferences, and some people have difficulty with anything other than Windows on a computer). Tormach dropped Mach in favour of LinuxCNC for a reason.

4) I CNC-converted a Unimat SL lathe, which I gave to a club member, and have recently picked up a Sherline lathe, CNC controller is my old LinuxCNC one from my Unimat-SL. Sherline's CNC controller is LinuxCNC, so that's another company who chose LinuxCNC for their products.

I'm a LinuxCNC advocate, as, not only is the price right, it just works 100% of the time for me, on 3 machines. I have converted to the "GMOCAPY" UI, which I like more than the standard UI.

Again, there's lots of choice out there; every solution has good points and bad points.

Hi,

I've converted an Emco Turn 50 to run of Mach3 a while back, ripped out all the Emco controls but kept the original Main Drive motor and stepper motor's.

I used a Generic Chinese [E-bay] parallel port interface controller card, Vertex 5 phase stepper drives, and a Omron VFD .

It was mostly re-wiring rather than building new electronics.

I run off a Windows XP pc the Operating System has been stripped down to the essentials and NEVER connect it to a network or the Internet. [Mach 3 control via the Parallel Port only works under XP or 2000. Windows 7 and above should use a USB interface card]

The Main drive is under manual control as is the Tool changer, Mach 3 looks after the X and Z axis.

So far this has done every thing I have asked of it, including taper turning, threading …. the awkward stuff …etc.!!!

I use Fusion 360 for the CAD – CAM, and the Mach3 Wizards for simple stuff.

Steve

Update:

A bit of a senior moment dyslexia with the spelling of the drives I used!

The 5 phase drivers are by VEXTA , to use these the Emco Berger-Lahr stepper motors have to be re-wired internally about a 5 minute job changing links around. The Vexta pentagon drivers have five output terminals; each one connects to two motor cable conductors

I've added the information about how I did my modification to this thread as the title may draw folk in who are looking to do a modification.

Steve

Edited By The Novice Engineer on 01/03/2019 21:00:18

Hello!

I`am Andy from Germany and a friend of me bought a PC Turn 55 too. But he had also Problems with the original Fanuc Control and want to Keep them out and replace it with another control (i`am looking for Mach3 too).

Anybody knows which mainspindle Motor the machine has? (Didnt find a Information sign on it). And how epensive are These vexta Drivers?

Kind regards

Andy

I run Mach 3 on 2 milling machines and a Denford Easiturn lathe. They all work fine for what I do but I am still thinking of going to the dark side (linux) and have bought a Denford Orac as a test bed machine. If I get on with it I will probably switch over on everything.

The main reason is threading. While the easiturn is big enough to manage this on short threads it loses sync over 40mm or so. This is going to be much more of a problem on a smaller lathe like the PC Turn.

I have always meant to try linux but have never got round to it so now hopefully I soon will.

Regards.

David.

David beat me to it – threading.

LinuxCNC works well, and blows Mach3 out of the water, from what I hear.

The reason seems to be that LinuxCNC uses two spindle sensors – one to mark 0.00 degrees, and the other divides the spindle rotation by "lots". Mach3 only has the 0.00 degrees and interpolates the spindle rotation from that.

I use "Mesa" boards, which seem to be inexpensive compared to Mach hardware. The whole stuff just works.

Note: John Stevenson (miss that guy) and I used to "argue" – he liked Mach3, I like LinuxCNC, so my comments above regarding Mach3 are from discussions with Mr. Stevenson, not my personal experience.

If you want true spindle-synchronised lathe threading, there are three reasonably priced options that I know of.

1/ LinuxCNC.

2/ Centroid Atom.

3/ PlanetCNC TNG.

Martin.

The Tool change motor is 24v DC,

The small control board for it will apply 12v to reverse the motor to locate the toolholder in position against a pawl/ratchet,

The 12v is maintained continuously to hold the tool in position. The motor housing has a large heat sink it does get warm but not hot.

Trust this helps

Steve

What type of motors drive the X/Z axis on the Orac? What is the spindle motor?

I would be happy to help you get the lathe onto Linuxcnc , to the extent that I can! My homebrew CNC lathe was reasonably easy to get working as a simple 2 axis lathe – but had a hernia getting the C axis function implemented. If you are not doing that sort of thing, the system configurator tools in LCNC get you very close to a working machine.

The issues lie in the axis motors, etc – if X/Z are plain steppers, you could configure it yourself. If closed loop steppers or servo's, notwithstanding all those linuxcnc experts who claim Linuxcnc is the answer to all questions – you will endure pain! And if the spindle motor is a big closed loop servo, the pain is exquisite…However, similar pain lies ahead for such implementations even with the likes of PlanetCNC, Centroid, etc…unless for the latter you buy a 'configured' kit with motors, etc..= money..

Joe