Powermatic CNC Display

[Evan Meier]

Good Morning Everyone,
I am working with our local high school to get their powermatic CNC working. It was purchased brand new 2 years ago and has been collecting dust up till last week. I was in there the other day and got it fired up and did a few cuts to say im less then impressed is an understatement. I don't think this is a shock to anyone given what i have read. This is what they have though so the adventure begins.

Im wondering if anyone knows of an external display that can be used with these. Currently it has a green screen LCD on a hand hold controller that offers no graphical display.

I would love to figure something out to have a display like my probotix's that runs a linix based control. Does anyone know if there is anything to do short of replacing the entire controller that would give some sort of graphical interface? There is no ability to step through code on the powermatic to recover after a crash or an Oh Shi! moment.

Has anyone worked with one of these and could offer any other general tips? I feel bad for the school with how much money they sunk into this for some pretty yellow paint...

[Jim Becker]

The PowerMatic is, um...."very similar" (wink...wink...nod...nod...) ...to the Axiom CNC machines so you might want to leverage that community, too. I don't know for sure if they use the same software, but it's a possibility.

[Gary Campbell]

Both the Powermatic and Axiom machines use a version of the Richauto (Chinese metric) pendant controller. I do conversions for them, as noted on the Axiom forum; send me your control box and $1200 and it gets you a Centroid Acorn controller and CNC-PC, along with CNC-12 v14 "Pro" software, setup and ready to plug the motors back in. Plug and play with your monitor, keyboard and mouse. Shipping additional

GCnC411@gmail.com for more info

One real advantage of industrial controllers over hobby controllers is that students can learn practices and terminology that is used in the machining world rather than many of the "cutesy magic" terminology that is used by many of the hobby OEMs.

[Mick Simon]

Gary, wish there were a Like button for that post.

[Brady Watson]

Gary's the man. If you want that thing to just work and be reliable - he's definitely the guy to talk to.

[Evan Meier]

Gary,
Thank you for the info. I will pass it onto the school shop teacher!
Thanks
Evan