Denford Software & Machines

I've recently acquired a Starturn4 (s/n 24106B2, control s/n ST191186, date Nov/86) and will be converting it to Mach3.
The first task is to get hold of the circuit diagrams from somewhere, but the diagrams here viewtopic.php?f=46&t=922 don't seem to match my machine. Are there any diagrams anywhere else?

Dave

I'd have a look through all the other info (eg Starturn 5 and 8 ) at the top of this section too - some of it may match what you have.

I've been through all the schematics I can find on the site and nothing seems to match, but inside the machine is identical to this one:
download/file.php?id=104
... it would save many hours of wire tracing if someone could point me at a diagram.

The spindle drive now works after a bit of fiddling-about but the X/Y drives are missing so I need to buy some drives, an interface for the spindle controller and a BoB.

I see that someone put an auto/manual switch on the spindle control - what's the advantage of this?

It looks similar to the Starturn 8 documents I uploaded last year.
Even those didn't fully match the actual machine


You've got SD2 or SD3 drives by the looks of it, so search the forum for those manuals (made by Parker)
The spindle drive is possibly Jay electronics which I've never found any info about.
However, from the diagrams I uploaded, you can work out what all the terminals do as other drives were similar.
HTH

I ended-up deciding to just reverse engineer the wiring and it turned-out to be a much simpler job than I expected, although I hadn't spotted the limit switch so working out where some wires went was a bit of a struggle. It all makes sense to me now EXCEPT:

• why is there a front panel switch to override the limit switch? The limit switch is operated by a stop on the bed so it isn't possible to go past it.
• why aren't there any homing switches? (I'm probably showing my lack of CNC knowledge here)

Unfortunately the drives were removed before I got the lathe so I need to buy some, along with an isolated spindle control D2A, a spindle rotation sensor and a BoB.

•why is there a front panel switch to override the limit switch? The limit switch is operated by a stop on the bed so it isn't possible to go past it.

You need to override the switch so that you can enable the drives in order to move the axis off the switch - otherwise you'd have to move it off by hand by turning the ballscrew.

•why aren't there any homing switches? (I'm probably showing my lack of CNC knowledge here)

I think the simple answer is the older software didn't use them. So you'd have to touch onto the job everytime.
From what I've seen, some of the older machines may have been used for manual turning (eg the spindle command could be switched over to a dial on the front, rather than taking speed command from the GSM controller via a DtoA circuit board)

You need to override the switch so that you can enable the drives in order to move the axis off the switch

Doh!

Initially I was thinking of keeping a front panel manual option for the spindle control but I can't see that this would ever be needed with Mach3.

Thanks for your help.

I`m just going through a starturn conversion to mach3 and I`m planning on taking off the limit switch override as, like you say, you dont need this on mach3 as the software automatically backs the axis off the switch. Also this could be dangerous if it was accidentally pressed in during a homing move. unlikely but you never know.

I would like to keep the manual control of the spindle motor rather than do it through mach3 so I`m going to add in a relay (as I took out the old board to make room for the new stuff) and this will keep the mains voltage away from the front panel

Hello guys,

I've just acquired a Denford Startum 4, and plan to convert it to Mach3. Now that some time has pasted since you've converted your machines, are there documents and diagrams sorted to be of proper reference for doing the conversion? If so, would you point me to where I can find the information? Thank you!

Cheers, Bernie