TuChop

A 2002 Masterwood IDW280 CNC machining centre, being retrofitted from its original Tecnos controller to LinuxCNC and Mesa hardware.

This site is the project's working documentation. It is generated from the notes as they are written, corrections and open questions included, because a record that only shows the tidy conclusions is not much use to the person doing the work.

Where the project is

The machine	Runs, homes repeatedly, drills and saw actuate. Nothing has been changed on it
The paper	✅ Complete. All 40 schematic sheets, the 14-page device list and the 12-page connector schedule have been read and written up
The hardware plan	✅ Settled. Mesa 7I76EU + 7I77U + 7I84U, all bought. The build schedule is written
The software	🔨 Just started. What the logic has to do, and a simulation config to build it in

The thing worth knowing first

The retrofit is eight connectors inside one enclosure. No field wiring is disturbed and no field wire is re-terminated — every drive, motor, sensor, valve, switch and I/O module stays exactly as it is. One board comes out and three cards go in.

That was not obvious at the start. It became obvious once the wiring diagram was actually read. See the retrofit boundary.

Where to go

• :material-magnify: I/O lookup

  All 82 points, filterable. The page to open standing at the machine.

• :material-tag-outline: Naming

  Housing, cabinet, field. Read this before anything else — two enclosures were being called the same thing for weeks.

• :material-progress-check: Status

  What is decided, what is open, what needs the machine.

• :material-backspace-outline: Corrections

  What was got wrong and later fixed. Kept so nobody re-derives a wrong answer.

A note on what is here and what is not

The analysis, tables and conclusions on this site are the project's own work. The machine's original PLC source and the manufacturer's drawing sheets are third-party material and are not republished here — they are quoted only in short extracts where a point cannot be made without them.