I won a load of old broken CNC machines at auction! Can I fix them? (Boxfords and Emco)

I bought all these not seeing them in person. I got them for a real bargain price, but what did I end up with and where am I going to put them all?
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[@RotarySMP]

Brilliant video Andy! Lucky for the machines that you won the auction. You should be able to make a tidy profit on those machines, as they are sort of size hobbiests are always after. My vote would be for Mesa cards and LinuxCNC :)

[@AndysMachines]

Thanks for the comment! I've not heard of Mesa before, I'll check those out. Other people have suggested Linux CNC, I'm going to stick with Mach 3 for the F1 mill, but I might consider Linux CNC for the lathes, I've never used it before.

[@RotarySMP]

@@AndysMachines There is a mesa employee (The designer? PWC) on the LinuxCNC forum, and he is really helpful answering issues. If you used Mesa cards, you can use a pretty low performance PC, as the FPGA on the Mesa takes over the motion control I never used Mach3, but have played with it. They are both based on the same source code from NIST, but developed in very difference directions. Mach3 is much more limited, but therefore simpler to set up. LinuxCNC is extremely powerful, but the learning curve is steeper.

[@hinz1]

Time to build a shed or 2 in the garden, I guess ;-D

[@AndysMachines]

2 sheds, one garage and a greenhouse, already full of machines, parts and tools!

[@azenginerd9498]

The greenhouse may be causing the parts to grow...

[@hinz1]

@@AndysMachines My first 8m² one allready filled with a Puma8 lathe, second 24m² one for like 2x FP4NC/CC and a FP2NC in planning :-)

[@AndysMachines]

@@hinz1 That's the problem with this hobby, I just keep acquiring stuff!

[@rvarsigfusson6163]

I will be back her....... Nice to see that it was not trashed as ALWAYS. Seen it to many times, when people do not have know how to use or fix it.

[@braspatta]

Amazing score! Perfect sizes for a garage..

[@gutsngorrrr]

That's an absolute bargain, these machines can go for good money if sold in the right place.

[@jamesdownes1974]

Nice haul! This little lot will keep you out of mischief for a while - I can't wait to see how you get on. I've had my eye on some of these little CNC mills on eBay hoping for a bargain, but no luck yet.

[@dougmorgan6616]

I really liked your graphics and animations BTW.

[@dav1dbone]

In a typical technical class in the 90s a machine like the EMCO would sit fenced off and never used, uneconomical timewise to teach pupils how to use it safely. For the top percentile of keen, deserving students - they would probably have access to better machines and/or the teacher's own cnc etc.

[@AndysMachines]

Yes, the machines look to have had very little use, just neglected and fallen into disrepair. I've seen machine vices that have come from schools completely drilled full of holes, tools that do get used tend to quickly get damaged.

[@hiperformance71]

Great project Andy!! You are the Man!!

[@themrworf1701]

I've retrofited many Emco F-1 machines. We thew away to trash control unit because all new electronics can fit without problem in the machine back. Also, don't use original steppers because they are unipolar and weak. Replace them with NEMA 27 or stronger. Mechanically, that machines are quite good and it would be shame to throw it away.

[@AndysMachines]

That's more or less exactly what I plan to do to it (actually already started). I'll put a mini PC inside with a touchscreen on a swing-out arm and a pendant control.

[@georgewocosky]

Nothing like an end of the year WNDFALL ! 'HO HO HO ! ' Congratulations !

[@dougmorgan6616]

Looking forward to the videos on these machines.

[@OneManEngineering]

Great news Andy. Well spotted those gems! Can’t wait for the vids! Greg

[@gregwmanning]

These will be interesting repair series

[@MJPilote]

Awesome score! That EMCO is way more capable than the size lets you think. Its much sturdier than it looks. Awesome little machines they are. Word of advice stay clear of mach and linuxcnc, something like Sgzh-990t is much more easier to assemble and to use. Its cheaper in the long run. And has everything enclosed. Regular PC and workshop dust is not the most reliable combination. There is a reason why industrial machines use bespoke controllers. Safety and reliability.

[@jo3sk1]

I was at college studying machining in the early noughties. They had training machines like this that we never used. They cost an absolute fortune new but as soon as somthing went wrong with them the colleges couldnt afford the call out charge for an engineer, which probably explains the lack of use.

[@AndysMachines]

I think this happened a lot, which is why schools/colleges rarely have engineering tools these days. (Unless you count laser cutters and 3D printers).

[@dav1dbone]

I take it you could have viewed them had you wanted too? Most auctioneers have a day you can go along and view, a must since they can be a dumping ground for shall we say, not pristine.

[@AndysMachines]

Yes, before they went to online bidding during covid the only way was to go there in person. You can still go and view but I tend just to look at the online catalogue and I only placed these bids a few hours before the end of the auction, not expecting to win. 90% of what's in these auctions is 'not pristine'.

[@robertedwards3147]

I restored a leadwell cnc cmc 15 1975 a lot of work and cost has worked well since glad I did but a lot of work

[@bobweiram6321]

Great score! Part of me is jealous and the other part is excited for more content! Yay!

[@brandontscheschlog]

Nice find!

[@bobdickweed]

Great find / buy

[@lumotroph]

Brilliant 🤩 looking forward to the series

[@douro20]

Emco makes both machines for serious work and educational/hobby machines...and all are exceptionally well built. I wonder why Emco never made a CNC version of the Compact 10 lathe? They made one of the Compact 5 and Compact 8. There was a guy who years ago refitted a Compact 5 CNC with DC servos and even added flood coolant...and it does some very impressive work for such a small machine.

[@paulquentin9387]

they actually made a cnc version of the compact 10, it was called emco cnc 330, I have found nothing about it online but i have a Picture of it from an old catalog

[@jimsvideos7201]

What a score! What you end up doing with them is your business, but a small CNC lathe is an attractive thing.

[@sabercnc]

This will be fun.

[@eddietowers5595]

Oh, man. I’d love to see the ones you restored, retrofitted and reused. I wouldn’t long format videos for those projects.

[@AndysMachines]

There's going to be a video on the Emco mill and at least one of the lathes, and it's looking like they might be quite long or even in several parts.

[@steamsearcher]

We have a Denford Micromill got from a School in Wales for £400 with all the software. About 4 years ago and it has sat waiting for other projects to progress. Looking forward to your journey. We have 5 working lathes. Then 3 Raglans 1 Myford super 7 to do up. a Raglan and a Myford were in a bad way and were free. David and Lily Reading.

[@JohnSmith-xs4sx]

I have 3 Emco mills , F1 with factory control and another factory control with Welmill installed, an F1P with the M1tronics control and a like new rarely run VMC100 with the TM02 control......they all work and they all payed for themselves in a short time , fantastic machines and built to very high standards.The standard 2.5d control on the F1 is more capable than it appears with canned cycles and will do 90 percent of everything you would ever need but the Welmill card turns it into a 3d 2-3 million lines (!?) of code little monster fed by a laptop running Win7P on compatibility mode for XP. Welmill has a ballscrew compensation feature as well and it makes the machine dead nuts accurate.The F1P is a much beefier 3d production version of the F1 and the one I run the most , larger ground ball screws , 4k spindle etc. Had Bobcad make a post for it and also the Welmill control years ago and I can send code out to both of them with their Predator Editor on the 232 cable. Point of this is Emco is far better at making reliable machines and controls that work everyday than most home users ....if you want to make parts.. and not machines :)

[@AndysMachines]

Very interesting! Yes, I seem to spend more time making parts for machines than actually making things with the machines. I've never seen an F1P up close, but one thing that slightly concerns me about the F1 is that the ballscrews are tiny, the smallest diameter I've ever seen, only about 8mm OD I think.

[@JohnSmith-xs4sx]

@@AndysMachines the screws are small in the F1 but they are up to the job really with correct feeds and speeds , it was my main machine for many years and I punished it in 1/2" steel full depth of cut on tools I made, the machine shop it came out of punished it making cast iron pump parts every day and the thing just wont give up after over 2 decades with me. With ball screw comp it can go out on a CRAZY , dont get me started LOL, Bobcad generated 3d path , jumping here and there and hold TENTHS....its really unbelievable.I've had to replace the regular things that go wrong in the controls on occasion but lots of spares out there so no problem.If you run them stock you buy spares and they rarely break ,all the documentation you need for fixing is out there on the web forums. If you think the F1 control is big you should see the F1P's ! , it's HUGE and its built like something NASA would have done.I bought that one lightning strike dead out of a school and spent a few years gathering parts and manuals to fix it and going down a vast rabbit hole mentally... it has run perfectly ever since and can hold 2 tenths all day if you do your part with temps etc. Im just blown away by the T800 project your working on...AMAZING !

[@dabooge]

Several yrs ago at school auction I bought slightly older machines. An emco f1-cnc mill and emco compact 5 cnc lathe. The photos online were horrible. The mill was missing the table. I only seen it after taking a look back. The emco compact lathe is a toy compared to your Boxfords. The mill is nice with the quick change but as you mentioned the spindle is too slow. I could've retrofitted them but time is money and got a faster 3x return parting them on eBay. Plus I already own big industrial cncs so there was no need....A retrofit of the Boxford lathe with turret would be an interesting follow.

[@AndysMachines]

Yes the low top spindle speed of the F1 is it's main drawback, but then it's better suited for large shell mills at low rpm than my other machine with a high-speed spindle. Shame I don't really have space for both. I've heard good things about the compact 5, but it does look like a manual mini-lathe that's been converted to CNC, whereas the Boxfords look like proper CNC lathes.

[@TrPrecisionMachining]

good video Andy..good mini machines...go retrofit

[@OuroborosArmory]

Id be interested in the mill.. Not sure if shipping to florida is worth the cost.. but it looks right up my alley. I can even buy it as is if the price is right (i need a mill)

[@rickpalechuk4411]

I say; good score! I would think the little guy would be a good parts machine while the other two are certainly worthy of retrofit. Thanks for sharing Cheers

[@AndysMachines]

Yes, the small lathe is missing a few parts, so depending on the condition of the bigger one, it may become a donor. But If I can, I'll fix it up, even if it's just to sell it.

[@Smartzenegger]

Very nice. This will be a great success I can tell! :)

[@ado-alibri]

Great channel Andy The CNC key nowadays is in the software and control systems CAD - Does the drawings, Easiest and cheapest I've used is - Alibre Atom CAM - Does the tool movements- Again easiest and cheapest for me - Cambam but only really does 2.5D work as far as I can find Control software- I use GRBL32 but Mach4 does more serious multi dimensional work GRBL32 has some nice plug and play control boxes, the XProV5 and the Openbuilds Blackbox. With Mach 3/4 you've got to build your own electrics The really big issue with CNC-ing older machines is backlash which makes any CNC work fine for woodworking but frustrating for trying to do good accurate metalworking

[@ollysworkshop]

"I don't need, or have space for them" 😂 when has that ever stopped a home machinist! I recently got a CNC lathe and mill in partially built condition from eBay, probably not as good a deal as you got though. Do you have any advice on the best type of control board to use? My only experience is with grbl. It seems a little late in the day to get into mach3. There's loads of other options, I'm just looking for a push in a direction.

[@AndysMachines]

I've always used Mach 2/3 and I'm going to stick with that simply because I'm familiar with it and it does everything I need. I know there's a new version now, and also a lot of people prefer linux CNC. My first CNC machines used the parallel port directly driving stepper controllers, now I use a cheap motion controller board, there are lots to choose from. You can also pay lots of money for ethernet based controllers, but that seems like overkill for this project.

[@NagashiChidorii]

Looking forward to this one!!!

[@jhbonarius]

Don't throw away the Emco control panel! There's actually a market for Emco parts. Furthermore, some people really want a control panel with their CNC. Maybe you can also retrofit new electronics in the panel.

[@AndysMachines]

No, I'm not throwing it away, just 'disposing' of it! I've stripped it down and have already rehomed some parts. (Anybody who wants any old Emco boards -let me know, can't guarantee they work though).

[@Alan-hd9ov]

I found myself in a similar situation this spring when i got two 160s, with no computer and no clue how to get them going after many weeks i eventually got them running on boxford software with the original electronics :)

[@Moonrakerd]

cool machines, will be brilliant after converting to GRBL

[@fisshuman]

I'm waiting the cnc video sir, its going ti be fun to watch and maybe I could learn something from it.

[@davers1610]

Great wins Andy. I am currently working on a denford CNC lathe similar to one of these. Myself and a friend are developing the controller from scratch to run Linuxcnc through a raspberry pi. I would be keen to talk to you about it and if you would be interested in testing it further.

[@AndysMachines]

I've already started work on the mill and I'm using Mach 3 running on a small form factor PC. But for the lathes an RPi would take less space (there's still probably plenty) and Linux CNC might be a better choice. I'm not sure how I'm going to control the tool turret with Mach 3. So yes, I would be interested in what your controller can do.

[@davers1610]

@@AndysMachines the toolpost won't be a massive issue. My lathe has one on there too. It will be able to run off the same controller. How do I go about getting in touch? We're in the UK too.

[@AndysMachines]

Name of channel AT gmail dotcom

[@eveningecho5334]

This should be interesting!!

[@SlinkySlonkyWaffle]

god i wish i had such an emco and the boxford 160... 😭

[@onlooker251]

Andy - if you decide to sell the Emco mill in its present condition I’d be very interested.

[@AndysMachines]

It's actually progressed quite a lot since this video, not finished yet, but I'm able to make chips with it now.

[@MF175mp]

Well, don't spend too much on them if they look too bad as working ones are only worth about 1,5k-2,5k

[@AndysMachines]

Yes, that's around the figure I was thinking. It's worth putting a little time and money into them to get them working.

[@IrenESorius]

Intriguing,, 👍🌟‍‍👍‍‍

[@ML-jf1xe]

I love these little cnc machines. The F1 is very neat

[@marinpaveskovic5130]

i have same one emco mill cnc. Same condition😁

[@WatchMeSpore]

Hey Andy, I'm about to start on an Emco mill like yours. I'd love it if you started with that one first.😊

[@AndysMachines]

Well I'm working on the Emco right now and this will be the first one I do a video about.

[@WatchMeSpore]

@@AndysMachines Wonderful, thank you. I’ve bought new stepper motors for mine, but I need guidance. Looking forward to your process.

[@AndysMachines]

Yes, definitely a good idea to replace the steppers, modern steppers and drives are far superior.

[@jansaljaj3042]

Although the Emco looks quite rigid it is not that much. I think the small ballscrews and weak bearing blocks are to blame. If you plan to reuse the original spidle pcb (it can be controlled via 0-10v and external relay board) make sure to change the electrolytic capacitors as if they are bad, the speed regulation does not work correctly.

[@AndysMachines]

Yes, you have to remember this is only a small machine. It is quite rigidly built for it's size, around twice the weight of most mini-mills with a similar work envelope. Yes the ball screws are tiny, only 8mm, but from what I've heard they are up to the job and I don't think you could actually fit bigger ones in there (they have dual nuts on each axis). I'm not keeping any of the original electronics, some of it is definitely broken, I don't know what works and what doesn't, and modern equivalents are far superior.

[@jansaljaj3042]

Yes the problem is that tool diameters that this machine is comfortable at the spindle is way to slow (about 3000rpm). I would recommend changing the spindle motor to something like AC servo, but I am not sure that tapered roller bearings in the spindle can handle higher rpm. I have modded my F1 with nema 23 motors directly driving ballscrews which gives enough force and about 2500mm/min rapid.

[@AndysMachines]

I have to agree, the top speed is too slow for probably 80% of what I do. The spindle bearings are rated (I think) to 11,000 rpm (grease lubricated). There was a version of the F1 called the woodworker which used the same motor and spindle but a different pulley ratio and could do up to 8,000 rpm. What it really needs is a high/low range, even just moving a belt like on a drill press. I'm going to leave the head of the machine as it is. I have another CNC mill with a 24K rpm spindle, but the F1 is better for things like cutting steel with medium sized HSS end mills, even though the DC motor is less than 1/3rd the power it has more torque at low rpm.

[@andypughtube]

I use my CNC-converted manual lathe all the time, but rarely bother writing G-code. I use a set of LinuxCNC macros that cover all the usual turning processes, and just use them in sequence. This ends up feeling much like using a manual lathe with a power feed, except the power feed repeat and cuts tapers and threads just as easily as straight cuts. RotarySMP has demonstrated using them, with actual cinematography and being in focus, but here is a video I made deomstrating the idea on my previous lathe. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pHq8fpmvm5mdeqs

[@AndysMachines]

That's a good idea, I don't have a proper power feed on my lathe either.

[@nick1bb1]

Watching with great interest Andy! I have a TCL125 updated to the TCL 160 by Boxford itself (many years ago). I'm in the process of converting it to run on Clearpath servo's 😃very interested to see what you do!

[@AndysMachines]

This sounded unlikely to me that you could convert one to the other, but when I measured them I found the bed and frame are exactly the same, the 160 just has a different cross slide.

[@nick1bb1]

@@AndysMachines Glad you verified that, as I only have the one ( originally the TCL125) I had to take Boxford's word for it - I think the electronics package on the 160 was different from the 125 as well?

[@AndysMachines]

Mine have completely different electronics, but I think the 125 has already been retrofitted and I'm not sure how much (if any) of original the components remain.

[@nick1bb1]

I've got a box of the old electronics ( and software) from mine that I won't be using, if they are of any use to you you are more than welcome to them if they assist in getting the 160 running?

[@AndysMachines]

I suspect I will have a similar box of old parts I won't be using after the upgrade. I'll be replacing everything with modern electronics, but thanks for the offer. I'm thinking of trying Linux CNC for this one, or it would be easy for me to use Mach3 (I already have a lathe running on Mach3). I won't be using the original Boxford software.

[@janosnagyj.9540]

Wow, what a godsend! I'd be (back... 🤣) very, very happy with one of those Boxfords...🤭 Congrats for the winning bids, sometimes thing like this just happen (just never to me... 🙄)

[@thefekete]

What do you plan to do with the angry squirrels in the 160? 😋

[@onlooker251]

Hi Andy. I have a circuit diagram for the 125 TCL. I it’s identical to the TCL 160. I don’t know how to contact you to send you a copy. Regards John

[@AndysMachines]

There's a facebook group for Boxford/Denford lathes and they have a lot of files available, I don't see this one though. I probably won't keep much of the original electronics except maybe for the spindle motor controller, but a circuit diagram would be useful nonetheless, thanks!

[@haydenc2742]

The poor 160 sounds like it has a pissed off wife squirrel in it...

[@DPTech_workroom]

👍

[@gutsngorrrr]

Is that a made up auction house, because doing a search for Thackeray & sachwell doesn't bring anything up.

[@AndysMachines]

Names may have been altered to protect the innocent! But search a little harder and you should find it.

[@gutsngorrrr]

@@AndysMachines :)

[@gutsngorrrr]

@@AndysMachines I've got to admit, it looks a little like my local Reading auction house. If it was, I'm a little annoyed I missed those machines, as I missed the last auction.

[@AndysMachines]

It does look a little like that doesn't it? I was sure you'd land in the right place. 😁

[@comradeweismann6947]

Comments for the algorithm

[@AndysMachines]

Response for the algorithm!

[@DatBoiOrly]

booo! how could you tease us like this i was hoping the "fixing" was part of this video :(

[@AndysMachines]

The 'fixing' is going to take me a lot longer than I can fit into an 8 minute video. Watch out for at least one (or more) longer video on each machine. 😊

[@DatBoiOrly]

@@AndysMachines aww you tease