Linux CNC conversion..

[DR]

I've asked about this previously, but maybe things have changed a bit.

I have an Accuslide CNC conversion mounted on a Hardinge chucker. A nice setup except the monitor of the Fagor 8025 control is bad. So I want to convert to a better control, the 8025 is not so easy to use. Everything is already there, DC servos and drives, ball screws, limit switches, etc, etc.

I want this to be as easy as possible and not a major research and learning project. I'm willing to pay for some sort of kit if one exists.

My first thought on this conversion was Centroid Acorn and replacing the DC servos with Clearpath step-direction servos. That may not work though since the Clearpath's space-wise may not fit in place of the existing servos.

[Sparky_NY]

I retrofitted an American Way lathe to linuxcnc several years back. The American Way lathe is very close to what you have. It was a pretty easy retrofit. I used a mesa interface boards, a 5i25/7i77 but there are other mesa alternatives now including ones with ethernet interface to the computer. Linuxcnc, like any advanced software will have a learning curve but is well worth it. You should have no problem using your existing servo motors and drives and all the other existing hardware. Its ability to interface to just about any hardware imaginable is one of the biggest strong points of linuxcnc.

[DR]

Thanks for the reply Sparky...

Where would you suggest I start? Is there a forum dedicated to LinuxCNC?

American way? Yeah, a friend had two of them. When I bought the Accuslide conversion the choices were Omniturn, Accuslide and American Way. The Accuslide served me well, support from Fagor is practically non-existent though.

[Sparky_NY]

Thanks for the reply Sparky...

Where would you suggest I start? Is there a forum dedicated to LinuxCNC?http://linuxcnc.org/ag

American way? Yeah, a friend had two of them. When I bought the Accuslide conversion the choices were Omniturn, Accuslide and American Way. The Accuslide served me well, support from Fagor is practically non-existent though.

American way made the adapter kits for hardinge lathes and also a complete enclosed lathe of their own. I had the lathe, not the conversion.

Here is the main website, a link to the forum is at the top of the page http://linuxcnc.org/ There will be a lot of advanced topics on the forum as well as beginners. You can get extremely deep into it if you desire but its not necessary, I never got real deep and have retrofitted 4 machines now to linuxcnc.

There are lots of wiki pages, videos and more to help with learning linuxcnc. One big misconception is that you have to learn/know linux to use linuxcnc, nope, the interface is just like windows, just click the linuxcnc icon to launch the application and from there its no different than working in windows.

You can download the "live cd" from the website, run it and test drive linuxcnc without loading it on your computer. It will operate as a simulated machine but all functions work and you can play around and get acquainted.

[macona]

There is also the kflop with it's dedicated servo boards. It has its own CNC gui under windows as well as Mach3 plugin which I use. It is very versatile, you probably want to know some C as that's how a lot of the parameters are set up.