Lagunmatic 250 retrofit from Deltapath Delta 20

Well I am looking at this machine, it has a trouble child controller. I am thinking very hard about a full retrofit. This would be my first retrofit, I am still trying to wrap my head around the entire system to try to get an idea what the total cost will end up being. I already have a computer to use for this. It is the interface hardware that I will need, I have looked at PICO and MESA but I don't know all the parts I need to get this going. This is just a 3 axis machine at the moment X,Y, quill. I will eventually put a 4th axis on it with a rotary table. Would $1000 cover the hardware costs? All the servos are still good, the controller just seems like it is in the death spiral.

Thanks !!!!

If the servo motors and drives are good (and you have encoders on all axis)
The electronic hardware costs are considerably below $1000 for most interface options.

But you should consider that for a first time retrofit, the retrofit time including learning curve
for new control software will exceed $1000 in value unless you pay yourself very little...

Thanks!

Well I don't make a living with the machine so that helps with the labor cost on the retrofit. I figure I gotta get my feet wet on the retrofit at some point in time! I am thinking more and more about picking this machine up.

I am trying to figure out what encoder language that this machine uses, looking at the mesa and pico hardware I am lost on what I would need!

A (non Fanuc) machine of that vintage very likely uses quadrature encoders which is good since its the
easiest to interface

It may have linear scales with quadrature output instead of encoders on the motors and may possibly have resolvers
on the motors instead of encoders

All these feedback devices are supported, but you will need to find out if you have encoders or resolvers before selecting interface
hardware

From some further research I think this machine may have linear scales on it and not encoders on the motors. I am hoping for the linear scales, as replacements seem to be much more affordable than rotary encoders. But I am about 99% on buying this machine at the moment. I figured if the iron is good it is worth the price for the iron alone.

Well I have not been able to get the deal sealed on the machine, I found out it has been sitting for almost 10 years, so I would need to go through the entire machine. So unless they come down to what I am willing to pay I am going to pass on this machine. Especially since I have run across a VMC that is still under power, the machine had a dead battery in it and they lost all there parameters. There at the point where its time for them to grow so there replacing it with a big HMC. But the CFO wont let me cut loose of that much right now......