Here's a serious one!
This machine I purchased last year with a few faults. In other words Cheap as chips;)
1992 Leadwell GMC350 VMC, with 8 station BT30 toolchanger, 6k spindle. Nice small machine.
After a while the Spindle drive totally failed, so it was time to rip out it's heart and give it a new life.
Spindle drive was very proprietry to the Meldas control and was not simply a case of putting in any old VFD. The meldas control is totally digital ie no 0-10v analogue signals, even for the servo drives.
After struggling to find suitable drives for the Servo's I gave in and fitted Steppers, at least for the time being. minimising downtime was critical as I use my machines for my business.
This has been fairly successful so far. although the rapids are about half what they used to be. I can just get 200"min the original servos did a fair bit more.
At present all the main enclosures are off and being repainted.
When refitted I can run the machine again, although until I've developed my ATC controller it will be manual toolchanges for a short time.
If there's any interest I'll post a few more pics as I go through it all..
Wayne...