After roughly 10 years I finally have myself a second denford mill, having managed alright so far with a novamill it's nice to get my hands on somthing slightly more substantial. I have considered drip feeding or dnc to the original control but frankly I think it's still too limiting for what I want to do. I'm sure these early machines have be converted to mach3 or linuxcnc plenty of times. I was wondering if the stepper drives a worth using or should I just forget it and pick up some new ones. I will be replacing them long term anyway but would like to be able to get the machine working before investing more into it. I know it's easy done on the novamill with the 96 pin header but what about these relics?
First questioin, have you plugged it in and does it "light up"

Does it have an RS232 connection?
Does it have an RS232 connection?
It powered on as far as the the power indicator on the front. Monitor wouldn't display anything and couldnt hear any relays so I pulled the electronics tray out and started checking the harness' found 5 broken pins in connectors so rather than trying to repair the old control I pulled the main card out. So now I have the task of wiring a breakout board to the triac drive card and the brown pastell vfd. That and sorting the power supplies. Especially since there is no main pcb there now. I know it's not optimum but i need the machine running before I can justify further investment
Does anyone have a wiring diagram for this machine?
I have the GSM maintenance manual (not sure if it's the same machine but seems like it) and it has the step & direction wires and colours but no schematic.
I could really do with knowing the power requirements for the triac drive board/ digiplan sd2 & sd3 drives is there any documentation on the triac drive card specifically?
Found a manual online for the vfd so that shouldn't be to dificult to sort.
Long term I'll fit it with a new vfd and bigger 3 phase motor anyway
Does anyone have a wiring diagram for this machine?
I have the GSM maintenance manual (not sure if it's the same machine but seems like it) and it has the step & direction wires and colours but no schematic.
I could really do with knowing the power requirements for the triac drive board/ digiplan sd2 & sd3 drives is there any documentation on the triac drive card specifically?
Found a manual online for the vfd so that shouldn't be to dificult to sort.
Long term I'll fit it with a new vfd and bigger 3 phase motor anyway
Does anyone happen to know what the primary taps are on the drives toroidal transformer?
I have a purple, red and white to the primary, with red jumpered to a second terminal. Trying to get power to this without releasing any magic smoke. Also, what role does the contactor play? E-stop? It's an issue 2 system btw.
I have a purple, red and white to the primary, with red jumpered to a second terminal. Trying to get power to this without releasing any magic smoke. Also, what role does the contactor play? E-stop? It's an issue 2 system btw.
Just a daft thought, did you try pressing the two "Reset" buttons underneath the front panel ????
Nope, and frankly it's a bit late for that.
Got the spindle and stepper drive power sussed and fitted a mesa 7i98 card, breakout board, 5v and 12v power supplies and now it's just getting control signals sorted and linuxcnc configured.
Got the spindle and stepper drive power sussed and fitted a mesa 7i98 card, breakout board, 5v and 12v power supplies and now it's just getting control signals sorted and linuxcnc configured.

