EMCO Compact 5

[cfos00]

Hey,

Looks like I am going to be picking up an EMCO Compact 5 CNC lathe with the attached mill, and wondered if anyone had any experience with them. My father-in-law's uncle passed on, and he had one thst looks like it's never been used. Wondered a few things---What is their reputation as equipment? Where should I look in terms of learning the CNC coding? Anything I should look out for with them? I've only used manual lathes in the past.

[XEMON]

Theyre awesome, extremely well built lathe!

Is is the manual or the CNC version?
yellow or grey?

I got lots of doc for them I gathered over the last 10years I've had mine, ask away ...

[cfos00]

It's the yellow version, and I believe CNC. The crazy thing is the condition. It really looks like he never used it.

Is there anything that I should be looking out for? Any recommended upgrades? Any place to learn the coding for it?

[XEMON]

Ok, next step is to figure out what version motherboard you got in there: mk1; mk2 or Mk4 (there is no official mk3)

Also, do you have a screen? Digital memory tapes?

In term of upgrade, there is nothing ... A few people part dead ones out and sell the pieces for their weight in gold ...

For coding, it takes M/G code, no one lear this stuff anymore ... And you have to enter one line at a time in the machine. Every time you turn the machine off, you loose the code if you didn't save it. Once in, it's extremely difficult to modify ... It takes a lot of prep just for the code ...

Don't expect to do the same type of work as on a regular lathe ... It's an amazing too and very capable, but it won't replace a manual lathe. Understanding what you can and cannot do with it is a hard learning curve.

Ho, and the "mini-mill" is an absolute joke ... It's not rigid enough to do anything else than soft wood, maybe soft plastic .... It was an afterthought for teaching aide ...

[flyweightnate]

As a bearing nerd, you're gonna want to take extra care to start it up by the book. Bearings that sit for a long time are susceptible to unique kinds of damage, whether from humidity/ dissolved water in the oil or vibrations on the floor.
If there are grease lubricated bearings, the grease is almost certainly toast and the new grease needs to be fed in slowly while performing the run in/ burn in procedure. 10% of max speed during the fill and for up to an hour is a good starting point.

Any bearing questions hit me up... just know they typically "expire" after ten years in storage.

Very excited to hear reports on what it can do - love seeing stuff get made!

[Araphel]

This machine is how a taught my self to program g/m code in high-school. Surprisingly quality construction dor a michine of its size, but a completely outdated controller. If you mess up a line of code, you have to delete everything up to that line, make your corrections, then rewrite everything afterward again.

Does yours have the integrated display w/ mag tape or the discrete PC interface? 3 position turret? I was seriously considering picking one of these up for an arduino/grbl conversion.

[XEMON]

They were originally designed as teaching units ...
the make and above can edit the code without delete everything ... The PC rs232 interface is a nightmare and needs custom programing on a wXP or older running 16 or 32 byts ...

Conversion to mac3 is a possibility but you'll need to change all the steppers and they all have custom gears, so be ready to do some interesting coding ... Possible, but tricky ...

In function of how much you plan on using it what you want to do will determine which way you may want to go ...

But, again, first step is determining which version of mother board you have ...