Denford Software & Machines

Just fired up my Starturn4 on Mach3 tonight and all went well. I used the original spindle driver and replaced the power supply, drivers and steppers.

The conversion went well so looking forward to turning some metal! )

I really like the red paint job

Weren't they always red?

It's before Admin's time when we made the Starturns.

The machine is only a few years younger than I am

Its a shame it wasnt green though as it doesnt match my novamill...ha

I'm sure my Dad's starturn has green castings

Are you saying you haven't repainted it then ??

I have seen green ones on the web.

Nope, thats how it came. The one in the picture for this starmill page is red and the one of the front of the Denford Brochure too . Maybe green were later ones.

they can be red or green, i've seen both.

que tal alguien que me pueda ayudar con mi starturn4, necesito que funcione con mach3 porfavor

You may be able to get your starturn working on Mach3 using all the original electronics but I decided to replace the stepper motors, controllers, power supply and add a modern breakout board. How much of the original electronics you will be able to use will depend on how good your knowledge of electronics is. I opted to replace most of it keeping only the motor controller.

Hope this helps,

Mike

Hola que seria mas viable para un torno starturn 4 cambiar todas las tarjetas o implementar un compaq rio por que la verdad no tenemos conocimientos de electronica gracias por tu atencion esperamos nos puedas ayudar y brindarnos algunos consejos para su desarrollo.

Hi,

If you dont mind the extra cost then change the stepper motors and controllers as I did.

I used NEMA 23 double stack stepper motors, 4.2A peak stepper controllers, breakout board (which requires a 5V power supply) and a 42V power supply for the stepper controllers.

You will have to check what motor you have before choosing your spindle motor controller.Mine was made up from bits I had in the workshop

Mike

Mira mi idea es tratar de utilizar lo mas que pueda de mi starturn, pero realizando esta actualizacion, investigando he encontrado que es necesario cambiar las tarjetas de control pero aun no he identificado que tarjeta controla cada parte de mi starturn y como mencionaba no estoy muy familiarizado con esto pero es lo que tengo que hacer y me serviria de mucha ayuda si me pudieras orientar un poco mas sobre esto o brindarme algunas imagenes para poder mguiarme un poco mas de antemano te lo agradezco y que estes bien.

You should be able to use the spindle motor controller no problem but I think the best option is to use new stepper motors and controllers as these are not expensive items. A modern packaged power supply will also make the wiring easier.

You may not need an additional 5V supply, this will depend on what breakout board you decide to use.

I purchased all my parts from Zapp Automation.

estas son algunas fotos que he tomado y te agradeceria si me pudieras ayudar diciendome para que sirve cada parte de las fotos seria de gran ayuda. gracias

Hi, I think your machine is newer than mine and some of your electronics is different. The PCB's with the large heat sinks are the stepper controllers and whatever else electronics were used to communicate with the computer, you will probably replace these. The optical sensor mounted on the perforated disc attached to the spindle is the rpm measurement. This is useful so you should keep this and incorporate it in to your new system.
It would be best to download the wiring diagrams for your specific model from the Denford literature on this forum and identify the motor control board and how you can connect to it. The motor control is an expensive item but you can easily use the original controller if you can find out from the wiring diagram how to connect to it. On my starturn I think speed control was possible through the computer. This added complexity so I only used the manual speed control via the pot.

The Toroidal transformer will give you different voltage outputs for the different electronics but I scrapped all this and put in a new power supply.

It might be helpful if you took another photograph but a little further away showing the complete electronics layout.

Mike

Que tal mira esta es la foto que me pides, y otra cuestion por lo que estoy entendiendo lo que me serviria es el motor del husillo y su controlador, lo unico que faltaria seria identificar cual de todos es ese controlador?

oye otra pregunta, crees que se pueda solo cambiar la tarjeta de control de la pc con el cnc y mantener todo lo demas tanto los motores y sus controladores,asi como su fuente o sabes de alguien que lo lograra satisfactoriamente?

The 'blue' PCB in the bottom left of the photograph looks like your motor control board. You can certainly keep the motor and motor control board. The other parts are slightly different to mine but looks like boards for the power supply and stepper motor controller which I think you will change.

que tal tu sabes con que voltaje trabaja este motor a pasos y cual es su amperaje me ayudaria mucho ya que no se si hacer un driver para 2 o 4A.
Gracias