I've been working with one of these emco mills for many years, got to say the rigidity, precision ways and ball screws are so amazing. These little machines are are capable of so much more than these little machines were ever put to. I absolutely love mine. I went linuxcnc for my controller and have loved the use of it. Can't wait to see what you make with it.
After seeing what you've done to this machine, im glad you won the auction, not me. Certainly worth £2000 with everything you've done to it and will have a good following from the Emco crowd.
Brilliant job Andy! That was a very good auction win. A fair bit of work but you certainly know what you are doing when it comes to machines and programming a CNC.
How cool is that! What a nice little machine you have here. And for this price it's crazy! You did a great job of bringing this machine back to life. I'm absolutely envious about the batch of small cnc machines you got. Especially the small lathes look really interesting. I'm excited to see a video about making them working again. And if you don't know where to store one.... I know someone ;) Thanks for sharing!
Yes, I know I was really lucky to pick up these machines. I actually think the Boxford 160 lathe will be the most useful to me, I will probably end up parting with the other two machines at some stage.
@@AndysMachines Yes, I think the Boxford with the tool turret is the most useful machine you got here. But the emco seems to be quite cool to me. Looking forward for more videos especially on the Boxford lathe :)
I actually did an update like this recently on an old denford novamill, with Chinese fanuc imitation controller, so it's fascinating to see someone else's approach to this.
I enjoyed this very much - I have a mill that I think needs to be upgraded to modern controls and watching this has got me interested in getting that project underway - great work 👍👍
Thanks Andy, just what I was hoping for. You've helped me a lot. By the way, I "split" the old electronics to keep the original spindle motor driver. When it dies, I'll upgrade to a modern driver. You do good work. Thanks.
Love that little machine! well done! 👍 i think the electronics problems you have is EMI. i had a very similar problem with my build. had to redo my wiring and replace the cables with double shielded cables and i used EMI power inlet filters and ferrite cores. Not a single problem ever since.
Andy, soem tips: backwards on a cnc spindle can be handy; e.g. rigid tapping. And a centre drill has an included angle of 60 degrees. A countersunk screw has 90. Best! Job
Yes, but I don't think I'll be doing any rigid tapping on this machine (there's no spindle encoder). I guess you could try and do it by applying just the right torque (speed setting), but I'm sure I'd just end up breaking lots of taps. That's right about the centre drill cone, but the sheet metal was thin and there's not actually much of the screw head in contact with it so it doesn't make a lot of difference over such a short difference, but yes the correct way to do it is to use a countersink bit. (I was just being lazy).
The way cover of the Y-axis going trough a slot in the column is a pretty nice design. Maximizing the Y-axis travel while still having a solid cover. I have never seen anything like that before.
Yes, the machine has some clever design features. There's also a thin steel strip in between the Z axis ways that stops chips getting to the ballscrew, as the nut moves up and down the strip deflects around it. However the Z ways themselves have no protection and it looks like it was built like that.
Great video - many thanks. Lots of useful info like the limit switch arrangement. One mine, in addition to changing the steppers, I also replaced the (failed) DC spindle-motor with a Lenze 3-phase SDSGAXX063-32 600W motor.
Thanks, glad you liked it! Yes a 3 phase motor/inverter is much better then a DC motor but I didn't really want to go to that much trouble and expense on this machine. The main problem with this machine is the low top spindle speed.
@@AndysMachinesMy upgrade was from necessity as the motor failed (windings probably not designed to take the pulses from the PWM DC controller I was using - extra filtering apparently needed). I made both a spindle adapter and an aluminium mounting adapter to get the end the same as the DC motor, as both dimensions were bigger on the Lenze, so I could use the original timing-pully. My new spindle still has the low spindle speed issue, but I also have a 2" end-mill as one of my tools. I like the tool-changing thing though, so can preset each tool-hight. Since the whole spindle head-assembly is easily removable, I can fit an HF-Spindle in its stead if I do need something faster.
Loved it! Thanks for sharing that little adventure 20:24 Not sure you're reinforcing the right part there, the hook is gonna shear at its base. The reinforcement should go a little bit further, maybe bend around the screw holes for good measure.
Yes, I don't really like 3D printing for stuff like this, but it was quick and easy. I was more worried about the layers in the hook delaminating rather than the whole thing pulling off. The hook actually has not broken, but the magnets on the back keep coming unglued whatever I use to stick them on. I should have fully encapsulated them inside the 3D print.
Thats a realy nice machine. You have made of like a bandit getting all setup for that price. I learnt g code on a small boxford lathe like the one you picked up they are great fun. Hope you get them running and enjoy them
TB6600 and TB6560- absolutely normal regular drivers. No problems when powered by 24V PSU. Yes, they are more loud than digital stepper motor drivers, but they do the job absolutely normal. Even DRV8825 little driver can work for Nema23 2amper motor.
Andy, I love your low profile 90° cable gland solution! Also, thank you for sharing your method of making your own coiled cables. You should be very proud of your new-to-you CNC mill, especially for your minimal total cost! I look forward to your future videos on your CNC machines and any other videos that you choose to make. Wild question here: Do you think that the "electronics" used in a DRO set-up could be used by the "control computer" to allow "accurate" movement of the axes, even with terribly worn screws (in areas) in the machine tool? My current wild idea is to use a PDP-8 of some sort, as long as it has flashing lights, toggle switches, & core memory, as the controller and non-permanently convert an old South Bend lathe (originally a treadle-powered lathe built in 1911) into a "CNC lathe" just to see if I can do it *and* use one of my PDP-8s to make the old lathe actually do something. Can you recommend any references that I should study? (I am *not* an electronics guru, but would like to learn a lot more about practical electronics & CNC machines now that I'm retired.)
Thanks! Yes, you could use DRO scales directly for closed-loop feedback which could compensate for inaccurate or badly worn screws. It won't help eliminate backlash but with a lathe the backlash is mostly in one direction anyway. There's a lot of useful information on youtube, I'd start by watching videos of other people's CNC conversions.
4. Interference. If you run the motor drivers all off a shared DC bus things will get very noisy between them. Also the cheap switching supplies leave out all common mode filtering. Ideally there should be filters on each driver, and on the input of the supply to prevent that interference getting to the digital side through any shared ground.
I think the PWM spindle motor controller might be generating some noise, but running several stepper drivers from a single power supply is common practice, I've always done this with no problems. Stepper drivers have fully opto-isolated inputs. I have seen people use a separate power supply for each driver, but this is mainly because it's often cheaper to buy 3 small supplies compared to one large one. How things are wired also makes a difference, all the power lines should be joined at one point at the supply, not 'daisy chained' from one drive to the other which people sometimes think is a good idea to keep the wiring shorter.
I Work at Emco and never seen auch a old F1, i only know the New Versions. The F1F and F1G. Your Maschine seems similar to the F1F, it almost has the same Tower (i dont know the english Name) and Bed. If wanted i can provide you with some Info on the New Types. I potentially could send you the original G-Code for the Emco Test Part we make at the Factory to Test the Machines. edit: my Bad, i looked at Work today and we have one of those Machines Standing around not in use. I didnt recognice it since it looks a little different since it has Side covers and is called "PC Mill 55". Maybe it is a slightly newer model than yours.
I've heard of the F1P, and the F1 'Woodworker' which is identical but has a different pulley ratio for higher spindle speed. I don't know a great deal about these machines but it seems solidly and very well made, it's certainly still accurate after all these years. I'd be interested to see the original test part G-code file.
I also bought these driver modules once (!) and found that they have bad heat transfer from chip to heatsink, drive the motor in a noisy way and do not produce a whole lot of torque compared to smaller trinamic, etc drivers. I would recommend to avoid these modules like the plague. They are probably also not very well hardened against back-EMF (overvoltage from turning the motor shaft). i can't see any schottky diodes to redirect the current on the PCB.
I'm not sure you got that torque right. The number appears to be to the left of its corresponding label on there. I think that's 60 oz in and 2 amps not 2 oz inches.
Yes, the label is laid out quite badly, you have to really study it to work out which number goes with which term. Having no preconceived idea of how many Oz In there should be, I just read the number closest to the words. Even so, 60 Oz In is still less than 1/4 that of the motors I replaced them with.
@@AndysMachines yeah for sure. It appears as though sometimes the value is to the left of the label and sometimes it's to the right. Coming from the RC world I knew that two wouldn't be correct so I was immediately alerted to look closer. Like you said though even 60 oz inches is pretty weak
Looking at the label again, you might be right! It's really poorly laid out. That would make them 30x better, but still over 4x less torque than the ones I replaced them with.
Hi Andy, I am looking forward to your video on the Boxford revamp. I bought one a few months ago. I have cleaned it up (see video ) but haven’t had time to take the plunge on the electronics. Will be interested to see how you get on.
I watched your video, yes that's the exact same machine I have, yours looked in worse condition to start, though you did a good job cleaning and repainting it and can actually jog the axes around which I can't. I'm hoping to keep the existing spindle drive and stepper motors but will probably change the stepper drivers. I might try LinuxCNC for this one, I've only ever used Mach 3 before.
Hi Andy have you made any decisions regarding the control hardware and software? I have decided to rip out the current electronics inc the steppers as a nema 23 frame will fit. I am currently on the fence re which gear to buy and could be swung by your decision!
I've actually been busy using the F1 for a project making around 100 identical small parts (at which it's doing really well). Until I can get this mill out of my small workshop I don't have space to start on the Boxford, but I'm hoping to finish by the end of this month and then start investigating what to keep and what to change.
Microsoft has been progressively dropping certain low level backwards compatibility features in each version of Windows, particularly Windows 11 does not exist in a 32 bit version, and does not natively support 32 bit software anymore, though I believe it can emulate it. Windows 10 64bit does have native 32bit support, and also can be installed as 32bit itself. All that said, for a single purpose computer like this, there's not much of any reason to go newer than windows 7, which has native 16bit support and a lot less general cruft. For instance, Windows 10 and up have mandatory update schedules and will reboot on their own if they think you're not actively using them. Not a great feature for a machine's brain!
This is going to open a can of worms! As I understand it, stepper motors are magnetised after they are assembled (inside a giant electromagnet). The stator acts like a keeper for the magnetic flux of the rotor (the magnetised part), if the keeper is removed the magnet immediately looses some of it's strength due to the flux path increasing and because of the type of material the magnet is made from. I can say that I had one once somebody had taken apart and put back together. It still worked but had lost all it's power, the shaft turned freely by hand with no resistance. I can't be sure they didn't do something else to it though (like remove the magnet).
@@AndysMachines nope, it's just a permanent magnet placed inside gear like shapes. The magnet is a common ferrite or neodymium type. So no, just urban legend RU-vid video pUBhWmYqMSg shows the stacking of such rotors from laminated steel plates.
I can personally verify that a brand new motor purchased in the second half of the 80s did in fact lose most all its torque when disassembled for the purpose of seeing how it worked. Note that this happened before said new motor was ever bolted to the machine being built.😢 Rare earth in should not have this problem but I believe the high temperature in a stepper motor would kill the magnets available at that time. I do not know if modern rare earth magnets can work at high enough temperatures.
@wiju That video actually states "rotor removal causes the motor to permanently lose two-thirds of it's magnetic field" ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pUBhWmYqMSg.htmlsi=XfpMr0mE03rJpN9O&t=77 The video does look quite old though, it may be that modern motors do not demagnetise, or not as much. I first heard this a long time ago, but have been careful not to dismantle a stepper motor since (even though I might have wanted to!)
@ParabolicLabs Interesting! I first heard this myth (if it is a myth) a long time ago, so possibly in reference to the alnico type. Even so I've been careful never to dismantle a stepper ever since.
If you swap the spindle motor for a 750W brushless industrial sewing machine motor, it might make the machine one to keep rather than sell off. That little machine looks rigid enough to handle a bit more power.
Yes, for a small machine it's surprisingly rigid, it can take quite aggressive cuts without any vibration. The main thing it really needs is more speed, this can be achieved by changing the spindle pulleys and apparently there was a 'woodworker' version built like this that could do 8000 rpm, but the trade off is less torque at low speed. I'm not familiar with the sewing machine motor, but googling them they look small and light enough to be a good swap (and not very expensive). There would need to be some way of interfacing it to the CNC controller, maybe this could be done via the connection to the foot switch? I can't find much documentation for these online and it looks like the foot switch might only be for on/off, with speed and direction controlled by buttons on the panel.
@@AndysMachines I have a couple of these that I am fitting on a small bench top horizontal milling machine and a minilathe. They are brushless dc motors with hall effect sensors rather than full blown servo motors I believe. They spin upto 5000 rpm and can run smoothly down to 300rpm with excellent torque in the entire range. Speed control is via a hall effect sensor hooked to a mechanical pedal. I removed the lever arm and spring on mine and I placed a knob on the shaft and use it like a potentiometer for speed control. The controls on the box are for programming parameters like maximum and minimum speed, direction, braking etc. They come in various powers ranging from 500W upto 1500W. They are worth having on the shelf even if you have no projects for them immediately. As far as Newton meters/ penny goes, they are best motors on the market . There is a bit of information scattered around a few forums and there is even a video of someone testing torque and current under load using a prony brake. From what I've gleaned as an amateur, they work to advertised specifications for the most part but the motor controller is built to a budget.
Certainly an interesting option, I like that they are brushless. I wonder if the controller could be replaced with one that's more easy to interface a computer to?
just my 0.02 but those tb6600 drivers belong in the garbage. Try the DM542Y or DM556Y if you insist on staying open loop. another order of magnitude better are the closed loop kits, and even better are the 180w integrated servo motors which would make that machine amazing.
On paper the TB6600's should be up to the job, and I've used them before with no problems (though with a little smaller motors). But the DM542 proved much better, I've used these with Nema 34's in the past. I've never used a closed loop stepper kit, but servos of course are in a different league.
You read the label wrong, that was 2A/phase, the torque is 60 Oz/In. (read left-right not top to bottom) But in the end, I would still have replaced them, as even that is only 0.42nm, far too anemic.
Somebody else pointed that out and yes it should actually be 60 on the left, not the number directly under the label. Not that it makes a lot of difference, the new motors are far better.
I was expecting at least 1 of the drivers to go POP when i saw the model, they're truly awful drivers and don't deserve the light of day haha For the puny 2.8a stepper motors you're using, consider using a few very cheap TMC2209 and corresponding breakout board, there's a plethora of them that are for the simpler machines using GRBL out there for very low cost, removing the need for the separate controller board too, as it's all integrated :) Should save you quite a bit over the remaining machines!
With these issues, and the ongoing costs of repairs and upgrades, it's a no-brainer to go with cheap EtherCAT servos($150ish each), LinuxCNC... and nothing else. No external peripherals are needed, no power supplies, no ugly and unreliable USB. Mostly plug&play, and not so incredibly antiquated like Mach3(or even 4), especially in 2024. It's definitely a bit more expensive(especially with an £84 machine and £343 total budget), but it's far nicer. Other than that, great project. Total bargain.
Yes, had I spent more on the machine to start with I might have gone with something like the Ethercat servos, but really I got the machine by chance, I wasn't actually looking for one and don't even have space for it! I know Mach3 is old, but I've had a license for well over a decade and am very familiar with it, so it was the natural choice. I might go with LinuxCNC though for the lathe I'm going to tackle next.
Hi, love the content! I would love to get my hands on something similar, trying to find such machines in Norway is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Being a Brit myself i do regularly visit though and was wondering, maybe, possibly, if one is feeling charitable....... could i have a few names of some auction sites you would recommend ? 😁
I got this machine from a local auction place (www.tsauction.co.uk/), they have been in business for over 100 years but only went online in the last couple of years. They have tool auctions every other month but machine tools rarely come up and these are the only CNC machines I've seen there in probably 10+ years. You might have better luck on Facebook marketplace or even ebay. Facebook has groups for enthusiasts of Emco, Boxford, Denford etc. and machines and parts are often for sale.
I was actually thinking of doing that. I first looked on thingiverse as I was sure somebody must have done this already, and whilst I did find one, the holes were in different locations to my motors so I designed my own (quite similar) one. I actually made two, with the threaded hole on either the left or right. I don't have a thingiverse account but I could put the files on Patreon and make them available to free members (no payment required).
BNZTRUCK is pronounced bunz-truck or bun-struck, depending on your dialect. Usually mentioned in comparison to Rolex, as in "This piece of shite Bun-struck sure ain't no Rolex!"
Oh, ok! I might have heard "bunz-truck" before, but I've never actually seen any products from this brand. I have seen the exact same monitor with different branding on it. I might even buy another one for my next machine.
I've lost track of the current terminology regarding PC formats, but I believe it's a mini ITX motherboard, which is actually a smaller form factor than a 'micro' ITX. The case it's in may be called something else though. Anyway it fits perfectly inside the machine.
No, because I already have one and have had for many years which is the main reason I still use it. Mach3 is pretty old now so if you don't already have a license you might want to seriously consider something else, eg. LinuxCNC.
Original motors in this machine are awful. After few days of trying to get them to work strong without overheating resulted in buying new modern stepper motors. Newer generation of EMCO machines use servos, but electronics inside are pure nightmare. Not to mention that EMCO machines and parts for them are inexcusably expensive if you have to order new. That entire company is one big scam. We recently bought new machines but from other manufacturer and they are 3 times cheaper and way way better in every way.
The machines may be expensive but judging by this one they are very well made. The motors seem to be the only part that wasn't made in Austria (they are American). Far eastern machines nowadays are much better quality than they used to be, and you can't compete on price.
Wow 🤯 Thanks for the Video , I’m actually in Germany and I try to found the same machine but is expensive , not less at 2500€ and if I need fix all things that you exchange 🥲🫠 is hard for me because I don’t have enough knowledge about electronics 😢,I’m more mechanic. In this way I will try another way 😢
