Considering a Full Rewire on a Working Schaublin 125 CNC

Hi,I recently got a Schaublin 125 CNC and I have a dilemma that I wanted to get some opinions on.
The machine was previously retrofitted with Mach3, and it basically works, with a few small caveats. But the wiring is a mess, and I don’t have any schematics or documentation at all.
I previously retrofitted a Hermle 1200UWF to LinuxCNC and really liked the experience. From my first contact with Mach3, I can’t say the same about it.Right now I’m thinking it would be very easy for me to just clean it up a bit, fix a few small issues, and use it as-is. But with wiring like this, it feels like I’m just waiting for the first small problem, and then I’ll be standing there rewiring everything because I can’t find anything in that undocumented mess.
I don’t want to speak badly about the previous owner — if someone other than me had to work on my mill, they wouldn’t fare much better either. But still, this has me thinking about rewiring the whole machine from the start so I don’t run into the same headaches later on.I’m a hobbyist, so it’s not financially important for me to get the machine running as quickly as possible. And if I’m rewiring it anyway, I would probably switch it over to LinuxCNC as well.
So my question to all of you is: am I insane, or is this actually reasonable? I have a working machine, and I’m considering taking it completely apart and turning it into a months-long, or even year-long, project.
Another reason I would prefer LinuxCNC is this forum. I haven’t posted much here in the past, but all of you were essential in getting my mill up and running. The fact that I was able to solve almost all of my problems just by reading here says a lot in my book. Maybe that’s true for Mach3 as well, but I somewhat doubt it.It may be that asking here is like asking a lawyer whether you need a lawyer, but still…

I have a number of pictures of the machine and the wiring, and a video I made, so you can get a better idea of what I’m working with.


Any suggestions on how you would handle this would be very welcome.

Maybe you can preserve the existing wiring, but cut, cable tie, and twist it for better cable management.

Keep the wire, preserve the connections, but make it at least semi-sane, instead of that total mess.

If you already have some extra light cable (22-18AWG), you can also use that to keep stuff separate, and also keep down interference a bit.

I know the instict is to just rip it all out and start from scatch, but it might make sense to replace things in parts.

For example, I found 50ft.of 2 wire 18AWG cabl in a random cupboard, which I later used to connect my stepper drivers to power instead of the original 14AWG wire which was too short and too hard to bend.

Thanks for the suggestion. Do you mean sticking with the Mach3 system, or keeping the existing wiring even if I switch to LinuxCNC? One thing I’m worried about is not really understanding what is what unless I take everything out and redo it. “Just” cleaning it up and making it look more organized would definitely be possible, but wouldn’t I just end up with a nicer-looking system that I still don’t understand any better than the current one?

I haven't used Mach3 for more than 10 years (it's an obsolete buggy system), but I thought it was not great / had issues with lathes?

I did not encounter any bugs, but than againe i used it for 15min or so and did not run a programm, ohnly joged it a bit and tryed the simple to test stuff
But that is definetly an opinion strenagsening me in the get rid of it all thinking.

Mach 3 always crashed the PC whenever I tried it.

LinuxCNC worked first try.

I was referring to the wiring; LinuxCNC is good.

Software becomes outdated; wiring does not (normally).

Yeah, you’re probably right, and I’m leaning toward LinuxCNC anyway.

So, I did think a bit and decided to actually go on with a change to LinuxCNC. Thanks for the replies helping me to decide in that way.

I think I will try to leave the cabling in the machine mostly untouched, but completely remake everything in the electrical cabinet.

For many of the open questions I will probably stick closely to what Rotary did, as most of the design decisions were considered by this whole forum, and the pros and cons have been carefully considered. With that, I don’t see much of a point in redoing this myself.

I will update here now and again, but only with stuff specific to my project.

With this I will definitely change the Z-axis motor and driver. I do have a Chinese AASD driver from an old project that never happened.
It’s a 1 kW motor, so definitely overkill — but it is already there, so it will work.

One other thing: in the toolholders I got with the machine there was one that does not fit the machine. See picture.
If anyone has a machine that needs this style of toolholder, or knows someone who does, I would be happy to give it away.


 

Ewww...
Windows 11!

Is that Mach 4?