- Joined
- Jun 17, 2016
- Messages
- 22
So I work as a Middle School Engineering and Technology teacher in a very poor county in South Georgia. Much of my equipment is toss outs from other school systems. Me and my students have fixed/ retrofitted several CNC mills and a CNC router. Some we convert to a new CNC system or some we have converted back to manual models. I got a call at the end of school form a Eng/Tech teacher a few counties away who told me to come pick up a CNC lathe and a mill they were throwing out. I have enough for my class room and was looking to refurbish them for me. I went and picked up the two items and began to work on the Lathe, much to my wife's dismay, on the kitchen table.
The lathe is a EMCO Compact 5 PC. And was not running when he took over the lab 16 years ago. I cleaned it up and troubleshooted various issues, traced wiring, cleaned all the PC board contacts, built an old computer and installed DOS 3.3 on it. And she's Alive. I currently have her running on the original DOS based EMCO Basic program. I have designed a small Chess Pawn (cause there were some plans and tutorials in the EMCO manual) and I turned it out of some aluminum stock. I'm very pleased with it and myself. It came with almost all the educational tooling and accessories. I'm looking for a collet holder and some collets when I come into some money. My wife asked how much I have spent to get her running....The truth is I spent 50 cents plus tax because I needed one for the tail stock and they only had the size I needed in a two pack. (so really 25 cents and I have a spare nut)
So here are some pics and a link to a video of it running and the finished pawn (not parted off because I don't have a parting tool yet.
The "new" Machine after a little cleaning up:
The guts, The beer can sized capacitor scared the heck out of me while tracing wires and electrical work!
Lots of wiring to go through.
Stepper controls and I believe optical control board for reading spindle speed for cutting threads.
DOS EMCO Basic (remembering how to use MSDOS is like using 9th grade Latin again)
Check out that number crunching computer platform vintage OOS (Old Old Stock, as apposed to NOS) When I finally got her booted up she thought the year was 1994. Poor girl.
Finished Pawn with a pile of rat tails.
Youtube link of her cutting for the first time in about 16 years.
The lathe is a EMCO Compact 5 PC. And was not running when he took over the lab 16 years ago. I cleaned it up and troubleshooted various issues, traced wiring, cleaned all the PC board contacts, built an old computer and installed DOS 3.3 on it. And she's Alive. I currently have her running on the original DOS based EMCO Basic program. I have designed a small Chess Pawn (cause there were some plans and tutorials in the EMCO manual) and I turned it out of some aluminum stock. I'm very pleased with it and myself. It came with almost all the educational tooling and accessories. I'm looking for a collet holder and some collets when I come into some money. My wife asked how much I have spent to get her running....The truth is I spent 50 cents plus tax because I needed one for the tail stock and they only had the size I needed in a two pack. (so really 25 cents and I have a spare nut)
So here are some pics and a link to a video of it running and the finished pawn (not parted off because I don't have a parting tool yet.
The "new" Machine after a little cleaning up:
The guts, The beer can sized capacitor scared the heck out of me while tracing wires and electrical work!
Lots of wiring to go through.
Stepper controls and I believe optical control board for reading spindle speed for cutting threads.
DOS EMCO Basic (remembering how to use MSDOS is like using 9th grade Latin again)
Check out that number crunching computer platform vintage OOS (Old Old Stock, as apposed to NOS) When I finally got her booted up she thought the year was 1994. Poor girl.
Finished Pawn with a pile of rat tails.
Youtube link of her cutting for the first time in about 16 years.
