So I have a friend that bought a 4 X 8 CNC at an auction.
I Wont mention the name brand, but that company will absolutely not give out and helpful information.
The only way they will help is if they send out a technician at $1500.00.
He’s already paid that a couple of times and still has problems.
Is there any reason that we cannot simply switch out the controller with an X-Carve controller and then move on from there?
I’d imagine the motors are bigger? You’ll want drivers that can handle it.
Why not mention the manufacturer? Someone here may be able to help.
Well the cnc might be mach3 or mach4 driven if it is that big. Mach is different from GRBL. They are apples and oranges.
Newfangled Solutions CNC Software Home of Mach3 (machsupport.com)
The machine is an AXYZ.
Apparently they are horrible to work with and will simply not give out any information.
I’m going over to his shop today to look at it.
Any help is really appreciated.
It just seems to me that he / we should be able to simply junk out their controller and replace it with something that is open source.
Looking at the AXYZ site…those are some pretty heavy duty machines. They aren’t hobbiest machines running GRBL. You can probably swap out the electrical end of things, but I bet those are some big motors to begin with. I bet you would need something like this:
Your friend should look into cnczone.com That forum is geared more toward the larger machines.
Looking online, it looks like most of their machines are compatible with pendants. If your friend can move the axes around using the pendant and can start and stop the spindle, the machine is likely fine.
So maybe I shot my mouth off a little to soon.
I went there today and it appears that there is a learning curve to go through for him. (we all have that don’t we?)
Yes, the company is very difficult to deal with, but I posted a couple of files for him and he was absolutely able to run them.
We will be trying a 3D program on Friday, but right now I don’t expect any problems.