Grizzly G1006 with Servos

(my first post here)

I was given a Grizzly G1006 with a CNC kit.  The previous owner bought the mill new, and did the CNC conversion himself.  And he built the servo control box himself, including the power supply. And he built the pendant control box.  And he built the pendant.

Of course, I didn't know how any of this worked, but I knew I had all the cabling, and the computer.  So I plugged in the things that were obvious.  Then I had to reverse engineer the purpose of the cables that were not obvious. 

It was controlled from a 2003 era computer running Windows 10, and Mach 3.  The parallel port sent commands to a PMDX-122, which sent steps to three Geckodrive G320s. 

Anyway... I got it to move.
youtube.com/shorts/TgeZ-A3zM6M

Now I'm converting it to LinuxCNC.

I have a Mesa 7i96s, that will be replacing the PMDX-122. I have a USB game controller that will be replacing the pendant.
I'm going to try to keep his original servo control box, with his bespoke power supply.  

Grizzly G1006 Mill/Drill
Ballscrew conversion (unknown source)
Ametek 38v 12A servo motors
USDigital encoders (250 step)
Mesa 7i96s Ethernet stepper controller
Geckodrive G320  x3

Thanks to all of you who are building and supporting LinuxCNC. I have found many resources to help get me started.   I'm sure I'll have some questions, and probably a build thread. 

Just wanted to say hi.

I fixed an old system with a PMDX-122 at my high school.

It's a good board.

(not phenomenal, but good enough)

Mach 3 runs on Windows 10?

I couldn't get it to run on Windows 7 x86!

I thought XP was the newest OS that actually works 100%.

Yes, you're right... it was XP. 

Here's how I found it.
 
 
 

Spindle:
 

Servos:
 

Encoder:
 
 

Servo box inner bits:

 


Spindle SSR:
 

Pendant box inner bits:
This whole board, just to read the MPG, and inject some keyboard commands.


Keyboard passthrough:
 
 

My system had that exact PMDX board.

The original stepper drivers on my machine were troast.

You are lucky.

Mine also had insane amounts of sawdust..eveywhere.

Yours is so neat and clean and tidy.

I would leave it mostly as-is; it's so beautifully made.

He obviously took pride in his work.

What is that IPAC board?

Why change something so neatly and carefully made?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

PMDX boards are suprisingly pricey.

Maybe just put a mesa board in place of the PMDX and keep the other box just as art basically.

Why not just use it as-is?

(The old PC might make sense to replace, though it might work just fine)

Does it work fine right now?

(I have a tendency to become emotionally attached to machines, BTW)

> Why not just use it as-is?

• I don't have a license for Mach3
• I prefer to use Ethernet
• I'm removing Windows from all my computers, before October.
• LinuxCNC does not fit on the old computer.

The PMDX board and the pendant will be repurposed for a Sherline from the same guy.  The CPU is barely practical, but I'll give it a try for that Sherline. When that 22 year old hard drive dies, that's the end of that too.

> Maybe just put a mesa board in place of the PMDX
> ... wire the drives directly to Mesa 
Yes.  That's the idea.  I have a 7i96s already mostly wired.  I spent much of this weekend working on getting the configuration setup, using pncconf.  Only to find that Claude (online AI) led me astray.  I should have been using stepconf.  Or even better... MesaCT. 

> Does it work fine right now?
Who knows? It was working fine in 2009, when it was last used. Yes, the servos move. I can't yet try the spindle until I put in a new electrical circuit.  My garage has one outlet, shared with the lighting and garage doors. And my breaker panel is full. 

> What is that IPAC board?
It takes commands from button presses on the pendant, and injects them into the keyboard communication. Then you run Mach3 with keygrabber so that the pendant buttons are captured and sent to Mach3.  There are two ps/2 keyboard ports on the IPAC.  One goes to the computer, the other to the keyboard.  (Which is a real IBM M1... precious metal to me.)

> He obviously took pride in his work.
Yeah.  I was surprised he didn't use more off-the-shelf options. Learning and building was his joy, so that makes sense. 

>Why change something so neatly and carefully made?
I can't make use of the pendant because the new computer doesn't have any parallel ports, and the pendant needs its own parallel port. 
The servo control box will look exactly as it does, except the PMDX board will be swapped out for a Mesa 7i96s.