Denford Software & Machines

Dear members:

I have a Starturn4 used to run on its orginal software until its expired.

I have the orginal dongle with the ide card but , I suspect the card become faulty with my A drive: light always stays on.

I try to get it working some how.
I know all the components are sound including all the stepper drivers etc.

I love to know if I can get my machine runing again with direct connection with a newer pc with XP/98 ?

any sugestion please

Hi,

We will need the serial number and year of manufactur of the machine.

Its possible that a new controller card can be retrofitted.
For around £1000 (Depending on the current hardware) you can get the latest controller card and VR Turning software to run the StarTurn.

The software does not currently support StarTurn, but you would use NovaTurn (basically the same machine) as a starting point and adjust a few parameters to suit your machine (eg, maximum X Z travels, number of steps per mm etc..)

E03182/2


electrical serial no.78023872


I dont think I can afford a new retrofit card for 1,000 pounds tho.

If you want to look at fixing your PC card:

The euro PC card was from a company called DSP Design Ltd in Chesterfield: www.dspdesign.com

It could also just be the floppy drive that has failed

Could i use my orginal sesame dongle and connect it to a newer P4 PC .
If I cannot get it working economically with its orginal equipment.

I m considering to retrofit it with other cheaper CNC packages which cost me about 200.00GBP.

May I ask the orginal stepper motor is Bi-polar type please

I'm pretty sure they will be bi-polar motors on that machine

I m considering to retrofit it with other cheaper CNC packages which cost me about 200.00GBP

These packages are OK, if you are willing to spend a fair amount of time re-wiring, re-configuring and sourcing the relevant information and software - it just depends if you enjoy "getting your hands dirty" and can afford to spend a lot of time on a project like that.
In the long run you will probably have a decent solution, but I'm sure it will have cost more than £200 in real terms.

Personally, I would prefer to spend as little as possible and retrofit the machine in my spare time for the fun of it - it just depends on your own circumstances and abilities

Sesame dongle

Denfords stopped using these dongles about 20 years ago (back in the 1980s). They were serial dongles (you connected them to the PCs serial port in-line with the machines RS232 cable). They were very fussy about PCs clock speed and so will probably not work on a modern PC.

Have you tried downlooading the Starturn software from the Denford website? It doesn't need a dongle if it is conencted to the machine.

Also, I do not think the starturn machine ever had it's own special "IDE" card (or do you mean ISA card?). I think the card supplied with the machine is simply an RS232 card (because back in the 1980s a PC didn't come with a serial port as standard so we shipped them with the machine).

So try using the Starturn software on a new PC, with the machine connected to it's serial port - it "might just work"

since I m pretty sure every parts works in the machine, I hope to try to control it with Mech3 via my desk top. leave the only thing I have to do is try to connect the 9pin plug to the serial port of my P4 PC

I hope to try to control it with Mech3

I presume you mean Mach3?

If so don't bother - Mach3 uses the parallel port

Hi

As Triac Whizz mentioned Mach is completely different and will reuqire quite a bit of work and some component replacement to get it interface to a Starturn - I am currently trying to persuade the powers that be at work to me me do exactly this to our dead starturns. With thanks to Denford Admin and Mr Magoo I now have wiring diagrams for the machines and can see that it is feasible to do this - but is likely to cost slightly over £200 plus quite a few hours of work.

The reason is this - the original Denford system works by sending a command to the machine - in the machine, a controller turns this command into the movements of the motor that are passed to a driver of the motor.

Mach works by using the PC as the controller - so what you basically do is connect the PC direct to the drivers - this gets complicated as interfacing the system can be a challenge. Also the motor drivers are 1980s technology, and things have come on a hell of a lot since, so the majority of people doing retrofits also replace the stepper motor drives for newer ones.

Cheers

Dave

I tried to find the starturn software the Mr Magoo said to down load from the denford site, but I couldn't find it. Where do I find software for the Startturn that runs on todays faster computers?

Thanks

Karl

The starturn software can be downloaded from


https://www.denford.ltd.uk/index.php?opt ... &Itemid=51

Thanks
Got it

Karl

Thank you so much Dave


I 've a much better picture regarding the starturn4 's original design. How it actually works.

So I can think of a better solution.

I took the machine into bits and discovered it has 2 8 wires stepper motors.
I belive they are all unipolar stepper motor.

There are a no.s of stepper driver suppliers these days , we have a bigger choice now. ranging from 10 pound from an Aussie company
good value for a 2.5A stepper driver can run from win98 PC


for XP things cost slightly more dosh