EmcoF1

[troy hParticipant @troy-h]

Hello! I’ve recently found myself working on an EmcoF1 cnc mill. Our school lab got it from university surplus a couple years ago and sat untouched until the past few days as I have been working on it. It has been Retrofitted with new stepper motors and appropriate electronics from what I can tell. I was able to use Mach3 to jog the X,Y,Z axes just fine. However, when it comes to the Spindle, I cannot get it to spin using Mach3. We were able to disconnect the speed controller from the CNC interface board, jump the terminals and use the potentiometer to successfully spin the spindle manually. When plugged in as it is designed to work with Mach3, the “Output 1” in the diagnostics tab blinks red, and the “Spindle CW F5” blinks yellow. Using other forums, any information that came with the machine, and other outside resources, I’m being told it could be a Relay issue, or an issue with Pin14 on the ST-V3 cable. That being said, Electrical stuff is not my specialty so I’m unsure if the testing I did was accurate or necessary. If anyone has some insight on where I can look to, I would appreciate some help.

Our best alternative at the moment is to drive the spindle manually on a switch with the potentiometer outside of the Mach3 software.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Did it come with the PC and Mach3? Is the PC interface via the parallel port, ethernet, or USB? I assume that you have the Mach3 manual?

I have to say though that I run both a lathe and mill from Mach3 using manual control!

[troy hParticipant @troy-h]

Hello John!

Thanks for responding. The PC and the Mill came into our possession together. From what I’m understanding looking at it, the PC is being interfaced by an ethernet cable, but there is a parallel port that is not connected, and was unconnected when I started working on it. I do not have have a Mach3 manual, and truthfully haven’t looked for one yet. Mach3 and Mach4hobby both were on the computer already. I’ve been using Mach3 as the Mach4hobby has failed to load properly.

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