Emco PC turn 55 upgrade..

With Fanuc every little thing is optional, Meaning you must pay for it. If your machine builder didn't pony up the dough for it, you don't get to use it Even tool offsets have to be paid for, and then you only get to use a small number of them, it is extra to get more. The list goes on and on... And G81 has been around a very long time, if your Fanuc machine doesn't have it, it was more likely just not installed (activated) unless your machine is positively ancient (more than 30 or 40yrs old).

Guys,
the orginal post was emco ugrade - where are we now?

You can with moderate effort ugrade this machine, I did it, you can.

The emco pcturn 55 is a really great machine to play with, learn, use, make small parts.

What are the otions - use the really old existing dos based cam system/controller that came wth the machine or use linux cnc or similar as the machine controller.

If you decide to convert/change the machine do it.

You need to read all the linuxcnc docs. On the machine keep what works, change what doesn't. I used a mesa card to control the machine, got the turret changing simply, used scripts provided by the very knowlegeable linuxcnc users to make parts.

Walk before you run. Forget pathpilot, fusion, etc, etc...
This is a very small lathe, learn to use it and go from there.

Cheers,
James

How about a step by step how you did it? Not everyone wants to retrofit a cnc machine just for fun. It is looking like my machine isn't going to make a proper thread as is.

Well there's your problem. I'm hoping this is an easy fix. Juan did you ever get the "axis not ready" error when you had the lathe? I suppose it might do something different in WinCam than WinNC.

Axis not ready is not an error message. Its all in the emco docs. You have to home the axes before you can do anything. This is a learning lathe sysrtem as supplied by emco. It emulates fanuc g-code as far as I remember. You should have an input device or you can home the axes via the dos prompt. If you dont have all the docs and read them it will be hard to learn to use the system as supplied. You need to decide what you want to do. Convert to linuxcnc or not....

This is not a trivial undertaking. Expect to take some time to read and learn. Help yourself then others will help you.

If you dont want to do that or enjoy doing that just buy a working machine...

Good luck and get started!

James

You should do more research before you tell me to do more research.