What do you guys think of this old Gerber machine?

I'm looking at diving in and buying a machine running on EMC 2. Take a look at the ad here: Link
Would be interested to hear of anyone who has used one of these Gerber machines or any other prepurchase advice. Machine has had the drives replaced with a Gecko g540 so looks good from that perspective.

I do not have any experience with these particular Gerber machines. But we do have a couple of the Gerber Sabre models that replaced them in their line. They are OK light duty routers. The Gerber software kind of sucks and was geared towards the sign industry. But since that has all been removed... I don't know how well part support will be from Gerber, since those have been out of production for about 15 years or more. Does the table have vacuum hold down? That adds a huge amount of functionality to a light router like this.

Well andypugh I live in New Zealand (all be it about 5 hours drive away) so shipping is not necessary. The thing does weigh around 900kg though so moving it will still be a considerable task. I believe it is being sold because the owner has no use for it.

Todd, there is no vacuum hold down. Perhaps this is something I could add. There is also very little travel in the Z axis (only 50mm) so I was thinking this could possibly be extended. Are the Sabre machines similar in design. Do you think it is feasible to extend the Z axis?

Thanks for the replies guys, anyone else seen one of these machines?

Also I would like to be able to cut parts from aluminium sheet with the machine. I understand that these machines are highly over engineered and very sturdy. do you think the attached dxf is feasible? These are some of the parts required for the Lasersaur laser cutter

These Gerbers are made for cutting light Aluminum, and other such things.

I am asuming this machine started life as an AR-600. Here is a link to Gerber's web site and all the info they have for you to down load on them.
www.gspinc.com/default.asp?contentID=203#AR600
There are manuals and some maintinance info.
The X and Y axis are belt driven, and the Z has a lead screw. These machines were pretty slow (at least with their oe controls). And probably would not be very suitable for conversion to a laser.
If you are asking if this machine could cut out the parts to help you build a Lasersaur, then the answer is almost certainly. (You would want to have a mister for cutting alu, which I am guessing this machine probably does have or once did.)

If it were down the road from me I would certainly have a good look at it. I spent about AU$ 1,000 on building my 2.4 x 1.2 M bed router and then about two years perfecting it and it certainly doesn't look anything like as sturdy as that. I have cut and pocketed aluminum on mine. You may need to alter the gear ratios, mine has a top speed of 7,000mm per min on X and Y axis and around 3,500on Z but generally run around 2,400 to 3,600 mm per min on X and Y and 800 on Z cutting wood and various composition boards. Cutting aluminum around 300mm per min and around 200 for brass (brass is a pain) and a plunge rate of around100 to 150. I run my gantry on Gecko 540 with four 387 oz motors (two slaved on X axis. I have a cheap 1/2" router with a speed control which I adjust till the cut looks good.

Todd, have you informations for Gerber Servodrives and Motors used in Plotters?
I have slaughtered an old Gerber Plotter and hold back the electronic parts.
For the motors I have found they want 40V at 15Apeak, the dual servo Amp is called GGT055369 revA
The only interesting part on this board is a connector J201 which made the connection to the contrller board.
I need the harness of it and if the card is controlled via Step/dir or +/-10V. Any other possibilities were not good.

i don't have any experience with their plotters. We do have a couple of their Sabre routers. These use Elmo drives for their DC servo motors, but that is the extent of what I know about them. We are still using them as intended by the manufacturer, and I haven't really had to dig into them. I might go out on a limb and guess they probably use analog control inputs for the drives, but I really don't know. I would try looking up your drive model on the drive manufacturers web site to get the details you need.