I used to want a Denford ORAC but I found a forum thread where someone took one apart to refurbish it and it's just a modified clone of the EMCO 8x20, which has also been widely cloned as the common 9x20 with a 1/2" increase in center height. For the ORAC the back end of the cross slide is cut off so the back of the enclosure doesn't have to be back so far, but that limits how far back the slide can be moved.
What would be nifty in an ORAC is to replace the car stereo with one of those DIN1 sized MP3 players and fit it with a waterproof shield made for use in a boat. Yes, the Denford ORAC is the only metal lathe to be equipped with a car stereo and speakers. The reason for it was to play the instructional cassette tapes that came with the lathe. No reason one couldn't play their favorite tunes while the lathe is running. The EMCO Compact 5 is limited by it's 75 step per rotation stepper motors. Many owners toss them and all the electronics then retrofit with 180 step motors. There was a company that made an add-on circuit board called the WELTURN (and WELMILL for EMCO's CNC milling machines). I assume one would be nice if you wanted to retain the original hardware and improve it, but try finding a WELTURN or WELMILL board. Even if you can, how likely is it to work with LCNC or other modern CNC software? If you're intending to work with the original electronics, the EMCO Compact 5 came in a standalone version that went through several revisions, with the last being the best. Then there was the Compact 5 PC which connected to a PC for controlling it. In any case the Compact 5 is a *very light* lathe though much "beefier" than the tiny aluminum ones, the name of which currently eludes me. The bed is made from an aluminum extrusion and the parts and pieces have been used by many companies to make tiny "instructional" CNC machines after companies like ProLight, Intellitek, Denford, Emco etc bowed out of that market, went out of business, or discontinued their quite capable benctop CNC machines to build wee ones from that company's parts bin. On Sunday, December 26, 2021, 08:24:15 AM MST, Andy Pugh <bodge...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 26 Dec 2021, at 13:44, Mark <wendt.m...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> stallation or do a number of standard operations. > > Sure. As long as you can guarantee that every single machine manufactured, > designed, built in someones garage or basement will be identical to each and > every other machine out there. To get back to the original subject if this thread: I think that could be done for some hardware. Emco Compact 5 Denford Orac Maho MH500? Any other suggestions? ie, reasonably common machines with reasonably fixed hardware. _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
