Considering a Full Rewire on a Working Schaublin 125 CNC

Hi,I recently got a Schaublin 125 CNC and I have a dilemma that I wanted to get some opinions on.
The machine was previously retrofitted with Mach3, and it basically works, with a few small caveats. But the wiring is a mess, and I don’t have any schematics or documentation at all.
I previously retrofitted a Hermle 1200UWF to LinuxCNC and really liked the experience. From my first contact with Mach3, I can’t say the same about it.Right now I’m thinking it would be very easy for me to just clean it up a bit, fix a few small issues, and use it as-is. But with wiring like this, it feels like I’m just waiting for the first small problem, and then I’ll be standing there rewiring everything because I can’t find anything in that undocumented mess.
I don’t want to speak badly about the previous owner — if someone other than me had to work on my mill, they wouldn’t fare much better either. But still, this has me thinking about rewiring the whole machine from the start so I don’t run into the same headaches later on.I’m a hobbyist, so it’s not financially important for me to get the machine running as quickly as possible. And if I’m rewiring it anyway, I would probably switch it over to LinuxCNC as well.
So my question to all of you is: am I insane, or is this actually reasonable? I have a working machine, and I’m considering taking it completely apart and turning it into a months-long, or even year-long, project.
Another reason I would prefer LinuxCNC is this forum. I haven’t posted much here in the past, but all of you were essential in getting my mill up and running. The fact that I was able to solve almost all of my problems just by reading here says a lot in my book. Maybe that’s true for Mach3 as well, but I somewhat doubt it.It may be that asking here is like asking a lawyer whether you need a lawyer, but still…

I have a number of pictures of the machine and the wiring, and a video I made, so you can get a better idea of what I’m working with.


Any suggestions on how you would handle this would be very welcome.

Thanks for the suggestion. Do you mean sticking with the Mach3 system, or keeping the existing wiring even if I switch to LinuxCNC? One thing I’m worried about is not really understanding what is what unless I take everything out and redo it. “Just” cleaning it up and making it look more organized would definitely be possible, but wouldn’t I just end up with a nicer-looking system that I still don’t understand any better than the current one?

I haven't used Mach3 for more than 10 years (it's an obsolete buggy system), but I thought it was not great / had issues with lathes?

I did not encounter any bugs, but than againe i used it for 15min or so and did not run a programm, ohnly joged it a bit and tryed the simple to test stuff
But that is definetly an opinion strenagsening me in the get rid of it all thinking.

Yeah, you’re probably right, and I’m leaning toward LinuxCNC anyway.

So, I did think a bit and decided to actually go on with a change to LinuxCNC. Thanks for the replies helping me to decide in that way.

I think I will try to leave the cabling in the machine mostly untouched, but completely remake everything in the electrical cabinet.

For many of the open questions I will probably stick closely to what Rotary did, as most of the design decisions were considered by this whole forum, and the pros and cons have been carefully considered. With that, I don’t see much of a point in redoing this myself.

I will update here now and again, but only with stuff specific to my project.

With this I will definitely change the Z-axis motor and driver. I do have a Chinese AASD driver from an old project that never happened.
It’s a 1 kW motor, so definitely overkill — but it is already there, so it will work.

One other thing: in the toolholders I got with the machine there was one that does not fit the machine. See picture.
If anyone has a machine that needs this style of toolholder, or knows someone who does, I would be happy to give it away.


 

No its Mach 3. The seller of the Mashin did not include the hard drive so i had to install windows and Win11 was just wat i downloaded.

Thanks for the sugestion. As I now dsided to go full Linuxcnc i will not use the system as is wary mutch. But i will seranly keep it running for now to find some stuff about it out.

Welcome to the Schaublin retrofit club.

Could it be that that corner tool holder just has the height stop mounted on the wrong side, and flipping it fits? Or could it be that it fits on the aft mounted single tool post?

That AC servo installation on the cross slide looks nice. Your Z axis AC servo is a beast, and still smaller than the 1970's drive.

Could you please post some close up photos of that MACH interface board at top RH in the control cabinet. Is that something like a smart servo for Mach 3?

If it works, I would probably run it for a while and make some parts as is, just to see if there are any other issues you need to know about.
Cheers,
Mark

The aft-mounted one, I didn’t even think of that. I’ll try out tomorrow if it fits. It’s not just the wrong way around; there are no threads on the other side.

The servo is really much larger than needed, but buying a more suitable one when I already have this one on hand seems silly.
The controller is a CSMIO/IP-S
(link: de.cs-lab.eu/sklep/6-achsen-cnc-steuerun...und-simcnc-software/)
They seem to be sold on eBay for a decent price sometimes, so this might be the first retrofit in history that doesn’t cost more than expected (…it won’t).

To really run the thing I “only” have to replace the encoder belt on the spindle. If there’s one part I didn’t want to mess with, it’s the spindle — but I don’t think I have a choice here. I’ve seen some really bad belts, but never one that still worked despite having sections with no plastic left.

I’m considering just pulling the spindle and putting it right back in. What do you think? You replaced the grease without disassembling the bearings, right? Would you do it that way again?