Anyone Using An Ajax Dm45nc Mill?

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SEK_22Hornet

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Looks like I'm about to become the owner of an Ajax DM45NC CNC mill. It is currently dead, but the machine itself is really solid. I won't be able to get it home for a couple weeks - not sure if he is going to be able to find the manual or not, so I may be starting from scratch. I'm only into it for $800 plus the trip to go get it (about 150 miles round trip). Looks like an ATX motherboard, solid state drive of some sort, and a PLC driving brush type DC servos. Nothing powers up, so I'm hoping it is a power supply problem. I won't know until I get it home. In the meantime, it was built in 2005. Sounds like it is running Linux CNC. It has a single floppy for program transfer. Anyone using this mill or the equivalent Ajax conversion? They list posts for Mastercam, but I have not looked for BobCAD, which is what I have access to. Just curious what kind of rabit hole I'm about to go down!
 
I don't know anything about that particular setup, but it sounds like a fun project. For $800 I would buy it. Since nothing powers up, that normally means an easy fix. The ones that drive you crazy are the partial failure, or the dreaded intermittent issue.

Best of luck and keep us posted.
 
Just a quick update and some questions - it looks like I'm headed to get my mill tomorrow. I've been on the Ajax support forum and have had some encouraging feedback - including the software manual and some troubleshooting suggestions, so I'm anxious to get it home and plug in the controller and see if I can get it booted up! The question I have is this - anyone know of a reasonable source for BT 30 tooling? Should I bother getting a drill chuck or should I plan on using collets to hold drill bits? He had two end mill holders - one 3/4" and one 1/8", and one ER16 collet chuck with a set of collets up to about 3/8". I know I'm going to want several more holders - Bolton Tools has collet chucks for about $30 each and collets for around $5 each. So far that's the best option I have found. Dedicated holders run about $42 each.
 
Got my dead CNC mill home today and had it running in about a hour - it just needed the memory card re-seated, and then it came right up - so I have a CNC RF45 style mill for $800 plus the trip after it. I have not applied spindle power yet, but the table and column work fine. Now I just need to figure out how to set it up and run it. I just ordered 3 BT30 collet chucks from Bolton tool - along with 5 collets, the total was about $120, so not too bad. I'll be set up for 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" mills plus 3/4" with the single holder that came with the mill. Here are some photos of my prize -

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I would say that you got a deal on a CNC. :encourage:
 
Great find and a super price. Is this your first CNC machine and are you going to upgrade the PC and software? Bob
 
This is my first CNC - I actually was looking for a larger manual mill when this popped up - and I felt that the price was too good to let it go. I have done (and do) some CNC programming using both BobCAD and a proprietary software package on CNCD wood routers, so i have some basic CNC knowledge, but the Milling application is totally new to me. Read up a little last night in the Centroid manual for the V2.70 software, which is the only manual they had on line. As for upgrading, I am limited to using a micro ATX motherboard with a serial port and a PCI slot that will run the Linux program unless I want to rip everything but the servos off and replace it all, so I may at least upgrade to a later version of their software and find a later PC board. Hopefully, I will at least be able to get to ethernet or USB for file transfer, instead of the floppy.
 
I'm sure that you gain lot of experience by converting old CNC to newer CNC.
I have used linuxcnc on my lathe and Mach3 on my mill.
 
wow, congratulations! that'd be a deal for a manual rf45, let alone cnc. sounds like you're getting an awesome shop together, especially with that cnc plasma table. is this part of a business plan or just for the fun of it?
 
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