Dahlgren Wizzard 80's engraving machine

[Mr_P]

Hi all,

Picked this up last week and mentioned it to another forum member and he said do a wip.

So here goes

That's a standard 30cm ruler in between the screen and the word Wizzard

It also came with a newish (Oct 2011) control box with usb connection. Sadly contacted the firm and they want $500 for the drivers. So cheaper to get a new board and mach 3 or even cheaper cncusb at 69 euros.

Used to be an engraver and worked in electronics so shouldn't be that hard to get the beast working again.

Next step is to open it up and have a look around inside and then attach some power to see what happens. Quite a bit of rattling when you move it so better to have a butchers first, last thing you want is a washer sitting on top of a pcb.

Have no desire to be an engraver again but I've got the infill bug bad so the plan is to have a bash at milling some steel with it. I've done it before on brass but not steel, I know its a big ask ask for an engraver but if I take it slow and do lots of passes it might work, even if it takes 4mm down to 2mm it will make life a lot easier.

 

[jimi43]

Hi Carl

That's a nice bit of kit! Can you do many fonts on the engraving? I was wondering because I could do with some engraving being done for lever caps, bridges and other things...are you able to do any of this sort of thing?

Jim

Hi all,

Picked this up last week and mentioned it to another forum member and he said do a wip.

So here goes



That's a standard 30cm ruler in between the screen and the word Wizzard

It also came with a newish (Oct 2011) control box with usb connection. Sadly contacted the firm and they want $500 for the drivers. So cheaper to get a new board and mach 3 or even cheaper cncusb at 69 euros.

Used to be an engraver and worked in electronics so shouldn't be that hard to get the beast working again.

Next step is to open it up and have a look around inside and then attach some power to see what happens. Quite a bit of rattling when you move it so better to have a butchers first, last thing you want is a washer sitting on top of a pcb.

Have no desire to be an engraver again but I've got the infill bug bad so the plan is to have a bash at milling some steel with it. I've done it before on brass but not steel, I know its a big ask ask for an engraver but if I take it slow and do lots of passes it might work, even if it takes 4mm down to 2mm it will make life a lot easier.

 

[Mr_P]

If you can draw it / find the the font it will do it.

The original machine had 2 fonts built in, a single line and roman 2 line you could buy extra cartridges with more fonts and stock logo's etc. However this will be controlled by a modern pc so the sky's the limit if I can get it working.


Once its up and running I'll be able to tell you what's possible and what's not. The one I used to use was rock solid and never jumped but the more modern machine that was windows based did occasionally jump. Just meant if it was doing something expensive you would have to stand and watch it with your finger on the pause button.

Could do with a new bridge myself
huge-job-lot-including-infills-ebay-finished-t78072.html

Then again if it ain't broke don't fix it.