ecnerwal
06-20-2004, 09:25 PM
Well , I just got my shopbot (PR96) set back up after being in storage for 4 years (moved out of old shop, built/building new shop). The machine is 7 years old - it's got no serial number, but it must be "before 000118" because the driver boards are soldered to the cables going to the terminal board (per one of the power upgrade threads). It was ordered in early May of 1997.
I've skipped virtually all upgrades; I just upgraded from paralleization cable to drive cables as paralleization cables. I wonder if anyone else is still using cable drive - the advice has all been in favor of upgrading, but the funds have not been there, and at this point I think if the funds appear the "efficient" upgrade path would be to buy a new machine.
Still, the old thing works. The computer had to be deep sixed, as it was used for rodent housing while in storage, and I appear to need to pay the backup gods the sacrafice of rewriting what had been on the hard drive for .sbp files. But the new software (I was at 1.8c going into storage - now 2.38) can still work with ye olde machine, and once I calibrated the XY axes and figured out that the default Z value must be for that new-fangled ballscrew (and then that the default jog speed was causing my 3/8-16 Z-drive to lock up and lose steps) it does what it should.
I was able to buy it for hobby and occasional hopes of making money use based on its straight-line capablilites (planing, jointing, cutting, and it kept my fingers out of the way) with all the fancy features as gravy. I expect I'll add some of the new-fangled things I can do out of my junkbox (stop switch other than the spacebar, etc), and see if I can find something to do that makes money without making woodwork more work than fun. That has been an overriding self-imposed limit - I've seen too many people change "making money doing what you love" into "no longer loving what you now do do make money", and it's not where I want to take it.
So, for now I'm just ticking away with my antique, and I'll see how far it takes me, with all the many parts that have since been replaced by better ones on the machines you all have.
I've skipped virtually all upgrades; I just upgraded from paralleization cable to drive cables as paralleization cables. I wonder if anyone else is still using cable drive - the advice has all been in favor of upgrading, but the funds have not been there, and at this point I think if the funds appear the "efficient" upgrade path would be to buy a new machine.
Still, the old thing works. The computer had to be deep sixed, as it was used for rodent housing while in storage, and I appear to need to pay the backup gods the sacrafice of rewriting what had been on the hard drive for .sbp files. But the new software (I was at 1.8c going into storage - now 2.38) can still work with ye olde machine, and once I calibrated the XY axes and figured out that the default Z value must be for that new-fangled ballscrew (and then that the default jog speed was causing my 3/8-16 Z-drive to lock up and lose steps) it does what it should.
I was able to buy it for hobby and occasional hopes of making money use based on its straight-line capablilites (planing, jointing, cutting, and it kept my fingers out of the way) with all the fancy features as gravy. I expect I'll add some of the new-fangled things I can do out of my junkbox (stop switch other than the spacebar, etc), and see if I can find something to do that makes money without making woodwork more work than fun. That has been an overriding self-imposed limit - I've seen too many people change "making money doing what you love" into "no longer loving what you now do do make money", and it's not where I want to take it.
So, for now I'm just ticking away with my antique, and I'll see how far it takes me, with all the many parts that have since been replaced by better ones on the machines you all have.