great-dragon
New Member
Hello Everyone!
I was looking for a job at a locale sign company and had brought along a CNC I built from wood, the plans i got online, thou its not complete cause I need the electronics to finish.
Anyways the guy took a look at what I had built and showed me his machine and said it hadn't run in years. And added that if I could get the thing running he'd give me a job running it in addition to paying me just cause I got, what he is now calling a 3500$ paper weight, it up and running again. The only date I have found on it so far is on the PCB which is 1988. It's a Gerber machine (I hope its ok to use names and such). It runs through Artpath software and a controller called ARC Station( advantage router control). He told me that it ran but not in years and the last thing they tried running wouldn't lift the tool high enough on of the material when it would need to move from the end point of one cut to the start of the next. So I figure that's just a Z height problem. I have plugged everything in and there is power, I haven't tried pushing a design to it cause I want to remove the cutter bit and try a dry run so I can see what the Z axis is doing. But from what I can tell I should be able to move the X,Y to the home location via the ARC Station (i.e manual control) but I have yet to manage to do that. I only have had limited time to spend working on it this last Thursday, and I was looking over the wiring and trying to get the work/move manually with no luck. After looking at the PCB, Transformer, Driver, Power supply are I noticed two wires not connected thou I'm not sure what they goto. There are four red LEDs on the PCB +5vdc, mill, (2)24vdc, when the ARC Station is plugged in the +5vdc lights up. But no others. Thou I'm guessing those may light up when the machine is running.
I spoke with the company but cause I haven't found the factory name plate yet they weren't much help other then I might have a Dimensions 200. Cause the numbers I have found located in different locations didn't help and I can't find anything through google.
I did find a youtube video the showed the same machine but no answer from there so far.
I'll say I have never run one of these before but that's not an issue. I have plenty of computer experience, I can draw in CAD, I have a knack for working with many tools hand or power. And with the bit of coding I had in collage I understand X,Y,Z.
Anyways Hope someone out there can help point me in the right direction with this, cause I'd love to land this job and I'd get to "play" with one hella "toy" LOL. Really I could enjoy doing this kinda work every day.
Thanks
Greg
I was looking for a job at a locale sign company and had brought along a CNC I built from wood, the plans i got online, thou its not complete cause I need the electronics to finish.
Anyways the guy took a look at what I had built and showed me his machine and said it hadn't run in years. And added that if I could get the thing running he'd give me a job running it in addition to paying me just cause I got, what he is now calling a 3500$ paper weight, it up and running again. The only date I have found on it so far is on the PCB which is 1988. It's a Gerber machine (I hope its ok to use names and such). It runs through Artpath software and a controller called ARC Station( advantage router control). He told me that it ran but not in years and the last thing they tried running wouldn't lift the tool high enough on of the material when it would need to move from the end point of one cut to the start of the next. So I figure that's just a Z height problem. I have plugged everything in and there is power, I haven't tried pushing a design to it cause I want to remove the cutter bit and try a dry run so I can see what the Z axis is doing. But from what I can tell I should be able to move the X,Y to the home location via the ARC Station (i.e manual control) but I have yet to manage to do that. I only have had limited time to spend working on it this last Thursday, and I was looking over the wiring and trying to get the work/move manually with no luck. After looking at the PCB, Transformer, Driver, Power supply are I noticed two wires not connected thou I'm not sure what they goto. There are four red LEDs on the PCB +5vdc, mill, (2)24vdc, when the ARC Station is plugged in the +5vdc lights up. But no others. Thou I'm guessing those may light up when the machine is running.
I spoke with the company but cause I haven't found the factory name plate yet they weren't much help other then I might have a Dimensions 200. Cause the numbers I have found located in different locations didn't help and I can't find anything through google.
I did find a youtube video the showed the same machine but no answer from there so far.
I'll say I have never run one of these before but that's not an issue. I have plenty of computer experience, I can draw in CAD, I have a knack for working with many tools hand or power. And with the bit of coding I had in collage I understand X,Y,Z.
Anyways Hope someone out there can help point me in the right direction with this, cause I'd love to land this job and I'd get to "play" with one hella "toy" LOL. Really I could enjoy doing this kinda work every day.
Thanks
Greg
