I have had the upgrade sitting here for a few weeks. My shop is very busy and I can’t seem to find enough downtime to install the upgrade.
How long, ballpark, will it take to install the upgrade and have the machine back up and running? I would like to set aside the time between jobs if I know approximately how long it will take.
Thanks!
I did it over a couple of days but it wasn’t two full work days. About 8-10 hours, but I was not going fast. For me the two slowest steps were the teardown/rebuild of the z-axis and removing all the old cables I no longer needed and running the new cables. Avid’s plans are well done, so it was all quite straightforward. If you have a second person to help with the cables, that step could be much faster than it was for me.
Are you still using Mach 4 and changing to EX (CNC12), or just swapping motors?
Upgrading to EX and the Clearpath motors.
I also did this over two days but that time was split with non-related tasks.
In addition to the mechanical upgrades, if you haven’t used CNC12 before, there is some learning curves/gotchas that could extend your downtime. I would factor time for these potential issues.
I think one could do it in a day if you read through the upgrade docs ahead of time and really get your head around what you’re doing.
I’ve done them myself in a few hours, but I’m a special case given that I have done it several times.