Hello all this is my first post here.

Hello all this is my first post here. I heard it was a good place for CNC stuffs!!. Newayz I just got my hands on an old ISEL 2018 * corrected* and it is my new pet project. I plan on putting in a 32 bit processor that runs smoothie Ware, but I’m open to new ideas and suggestions. In love to hear what you all have to say about what you see so far:

Interesting project… there are several smoothie based boards to choose from!

I was eyeballing the reArm project

I’m really concerned about finding a good steeper driving solution.

It’s hard to get the ‘big picture’ from your photos. How big is your machine? What do you plan to do with it?

I have my Laser Cutter running off a Re-ARM board and external stepper drivers. If you go that way, I can give you tips.

It’s an isel 2030 . I’d have to look up the size of the the work area. What are you using for external steppers?

@Kenneth_Rooks1 I googled ‘Isel 2030’ but I couldn’t get specifics…

I have a preference for Compumotor drivers. The company was founded in the '80s by a neighbor down the street from where I lived, and I was the entire mechanical engineering department for its first two years of existence.

Zeta4 drivers are the ones I get most often. I keep an eye out on eBay and when I find a good price (< $100 ea.), I get some. They do not require a separate DC power supply for the motors (the operate on AC line voltage), and are capable of faster speeds (but can also overheat the motors if you’re not careful).

Depending on what you want to do with your machine, you may want a more capable (and more conventional) CNC control like LinuxCNC or Mach3. I have a Bridgeport CNC that would be a real pain to operate using grbl or Smoothieware. Of course I’ve also customized my GUI screen for my specific needs. It makes all the difference.

@Cris_Hawkins I am soooo sorry . I gave u the wrong model number. It’s 2018* I also found a spec sheet for it. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2RCavnBkPehUlAyYjEwZkFlZk0/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2RCavnBkPehUlAyYjEwZkFlZk0/view?usp=drivesdk

@Cris_Hawkins wow that very detailed and much appreciated

From what I’m seeing in my Google research I may need to move on from the idea of a smoothie board but I’m not sure yet. Have to read up on Linux CNC vs mach3

Looks like only some of my 3d printing knowledge is gonna fly here

@Kenneth_Rooks1 The machine you show above may be suitable for grbl or Smoothieware. It is a small machine and is more in the realm of a hobby machine. It would probably work well with a laptop running bCNC feeding g-code to grbl or Smoothieware. For simple jobs, it may even be suitable to run ‘headless’ by running the g-code from the SD card (Smoothieware only). This is how I operate my Laser Cutter.

If you wanted, it looks as if you could run your motors from Pololu style drivers. But you would be running them on the high end of their heat dissipation capabilities. Panucatt has some better drivers in that same footprint I believe. And you would need a separate DC power supply of 30 to 36 volts…

Interesting I have lots to read up on.

Thanks again