1987 engraving machine recyceling...

Hello ,

want to show you my milling machine made of an 1987 Gravograph VX.

I changed the power supply, the controller board and the engraving spindle to some own build parts.
The machine can work at 300x200x60mm and runs with LinuxCNC absolutely perfect.

regards Guenther

Looks good!

Thanks for sharing.

Rick G

That looks very similar to my machine, built from a Hermes vanguard 7200. I removed the engraving head and made a custom bracket to hold a trim router I can reposition the router in the bracket manually to get an effective z axis travel of about 4 inches. I had the power supply and stepper driver from the original machine that I used instead of making one. It was a hassle though, if I had more money to invest in the machine I would have done something more like you did.

I know this is a longshot replying to an old thread, however my dad has 6 of these machines we would like to get going and i am wondering if any of you could share a bit more about what you did? any help would be amazing.

thanks in advance.

Hi, first i made a steel cylinder with two ball bearings and a ER11 axle(from aliexpress) that is fitting in the holder where the engraving spindle is. Then i made two very simple circuit boards, one as power supply, the other for controlling the machine. If you want i can send you the eagleCAD files. the whole electronic fits in the right side of the gravograph. It is designed for parallel port only! you can also try a cheap cnc board with stepsticks (also from aliexpress).
regards