Freaking awesome! that machine is a tank! I'm surprised they dont even have the software for it. I had one one of the first WL-400's they made and they happily send me the software free of charge. Maybe this one came before the WL Series. Anyways, such a great machine base for a retrofit.
Yeah, it seems super nice. I think when its up and running it will make small parts within about .001" or .002". All the parts are the name brand stuff.
Excellent! The parts look like off-the-shelf CNC components. The controller design appears to be a standard one. It's unlikely Levil would go through the engineering expense of building a proprietary controller. If it's their design, they probably integrated a bunch of discrete boards into a single one to save costs and simplify the assembly. It might be worth reverse engineering and keeping the board. If the board's protocol is just plain G-code, you're in luck. If it uses another industry standard protocol, it will be a challenge, but still doable. If it's a proprietary one, then it's probably not worth it. I would snap a high-res photo of the board and post it on one of the CNC forums. Someone should be able to tell you if it's worth salvaging by looking at the ports and their labels.
Good ideas, thanks. The board does seem to be proprietary, it has their name and part number on the silkscreen. I too was surprised they didn't use anything off-the-shelf. Maybe when this machine was built, there was no "middle ground" between hobby grade and industrial grade, so they had to design their own for cost reasons? I do have a UCCNC AXBB-E motion controller, and Gecko G320 servo drives, from 2 old projects that never began. I think this machine will be perfect for them.
Freaking awesome! that machine is a tank! I'm surprised they dont even have the software for it. I had one one of the first WL-400's they made and they happily send me the software free of charge. Maybe this one came before the WL Series. Anyways, such a great machine base for a retrofit.
Yeah, it seems super nice. I think when its up and running it will make small parts within about .001" or .002". All the parts are the name brand stuff.
Excellent! The parts look like off-the-shelf CNC components. The controller design appears to be a standard one. It's unlikely Levil would go through the engineering expense of building a proprietary controller. If it's their design, they probably integrated a bunch of discrete boards into a single one to save costs and simplify the assembly.
It might be worth reverse engineering and keeping the board. If the board's protocol is just plain G-code, you're in luck. If it uses another industry standard protocol, it will be a challenge, but still doable. If it's a proprietary one, then it's probably not worth it. I would snap a high-res photo of the board and post it on one of the CNC forums. Someone should be able to tell you if it's worth salvaging by looking at the ports and their labels.
Good ideas, thanks. The board does seem to be proprietary, it has their name and part number on the silkscreen. I too was surprised they didn't use anything off-the-shelf. Maybe when this machine was built, there was no "middle ground" between hobby grade and industrial grade, so they had to design their own for cost reasons? I do have a UCCNC AXBB-E motion controller, and Gecko G320 servo drives, from 2 old projects that never began. I think this machine will be perfect for them.