So here she is, I love her. I don’t care what you think of her, sure – she ain’t the prettiest, but she excites me. Yeah, so that’s weird, I get it. Ever see the movie Christine? Heck my wife and kids tease me, and say she is my girlfriend. In fact, they’ve given her the name “Mildred”. Get it? Mill-dread.Okay, I’m being goofy, but I’m only half kidding when I say “she excites me”. I’m excited about the opportunity this old mill gives me to create things you just can’t make with tools found in most people’s garage.
I enjoy making things, and so far these have mostly been wooden things using my table saw, router table, planner, etc., but you can’t run metal across those types of tools. To shape metal, namely – blocks of steel and aluminum you need a big ole beast of a machine. Something like this old mill.
This website is dedicated to how I figured out how to put 2+ tons of 1980’s CNC milling awesomeness in my garage, get it up and running, and make cool stuff. My hope is that this inspires someone else thinking of doing something similar to go for it. Likewise, I hope it helps others see that with some effort, there is a lot of life left in these old mills.
Awesome effort
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Jack…I’ve had a lot of fun putting it all together. Stay tuned, I’ll be adding more to the site!
-Mike
LikeLike
Excellent work! Keep going on!
LikeLike
Thanks Martin, let me know if there is anything in particular you would like to see.
LikeLike
Congratulations on your mill. I had a small bench top x2 milling machine
LikeLike
Congratulations on your mill. I had a small bench top seig x2 milling machine but I always wanted a full-sized one. Finally found one locally for the right price and have never regretted the purchase.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks James! I considered going the small mill route too…but just held off, and this one sort of fell in my lap. It had problems, but I’ve worked though most of them!
Thanks for taking the time to send me a message!
LikeLike
Sweet mill, I just finished upgrading to linuxcnc with mesa hardware and dmm servos. I find my the old Journeyman Tree is alot easier to deal with not adjusting potentiometers and old hardware. Having a xhc pendant is an added bonus although the hours spent can be daunting getting this hardware working its pretty awesome seeing it come together. Spent three years beating around the bush collecting hardware hardware before a neighbor needed 50 holes drilled in 1/4″ angle finally motivated me enough to finish the project. The initial was pretty humorous as everything was slapped together for the control panel. If you ever consider an upgrade, drop me an email. I use a raspberry pi 4b, mesa ethernet board to a 7i77, and 3x dmm 1.3kw servos, currently have a hf430vfd 10hp on single phase, but working on adapting from a marathon 5hp motor 1150 rpm motor to a 3hp mitsubishi spindle 8000rpm motor. The original spindle motor bit the dust and adapted the cheapest thing I could find at the time. I occasionally mill soft materials and need spindle speed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mike,
Thank you for taking the time to put this all together. I have been looking at a Supermax Ycm-40 with the 8400mp Allen Bradley Control and was not able to find much about it until your I found your posts. The owner of the mill doesn’t have any manuals of info that come with it. All the information you have posted here will be very helpful. Jim
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello Mike,
I hope yill read these posts, I have a YCM 40 with an Allen Bradly Bandit 4 controller , I can not seem to get past the Password Recovery as it will not let me in, The Person I purchased the Mill from stated he could Drip feed the mill but could not unlock The controller, I could use some assistance as I am not Mr. Computer and am just learning CNC I know the Mill is in great shape it has a long tablr which will give me great size tomake wheeels and almost anything I can design. any advise is welcome If you need a fee I will gladly welcome you help as I do not want to upgrade to a new system.
Sincerely.
John E
johnescolano2@gmail.com
LikeLiked by 1 person
Did you try the password ABBP?
LikeLike