Retro advice needed on Hurco mill

macona,

The 802C analog Siemens is the one I meant. The Viper 100 or 200 would be my choice from Viper. The test didn't include those. I arrived at the the Viper opinion from following (Kerry) i_r_ machinist retro fit on CNC Zone.

My 2nd choice would be the Gecko 320X. If I could get some more feedback about it, the 320X might be the 1st choice.

The Whale & Dugong look good, but I'm afraid that they might just disappear with no support or parts repair. The same way the Pixie boards, and Rutex did.

I know some say Larry ( Viper drives) is flaky, but I have followed his responses on i_r_'s retro and others. He seems to get back to their questions and some of mine quicker than other companies have. Hopefully, with the Siemens, I wont be chasing my tail trying to piece together a system.
It will be real quick to find out if the Vipers will work. If no help or lack of response from them, or drives constantly fault out, etc. during set-up, get a refund and go somewhere else.

If anyone has info on 320X's, let me know.

JAckal

btm,

I looked at those mach motion systems a while back. Some people told me that you are just paying for the box, but still have all of the complications of wiring up Mach 3 . According to them you have all of the connections and setting up and testing that is involved with running your own break out board, and wiring.

This may not be true or could have changed since then. Does anyone else know for sure about those mach 3 control boxes?

As mentioned earlier, Hood is fantastic on Mach 3. If you look at their forum he has probably helped more people than the inventors of Mach 3.

Keep the info coming. This is really good.

JAckal

Update:

I contacted Siemens. Here is what I sent:


Hello,

I am looking at purchasing one of your Sinumerik 802 C controllers for a retrofit. It is listed in an E-bay auction :

Siemens Sinumerik 802C Baseline Controller *NEW - eBay (item 220422153363 end time Oct-18-10 06:37:39 PDT)

According to this listing, the Siemens local rep will honor the 12 month warranty & support technical questions referring to this product.

Is this correct?

Also, could you tell me if this system will work with Viper brand model #100 servo drives?

What type of encoders do you recommend?

Thanks for your advice,

Jack C.

Here is what they sent back:


We would not honor any warranty from a 3rd party reseller. The 802C does not have much support for the US market. It was primarily built for Asia.

I would recommend considering an 802Dsl. We have a nice retrofit package available from one of our Retrofit partners, Sanyog Automation.

You can contact me if you are interested.

From: [email protected]

I am guessing that their package contains: new ball screws, servos, drives, digital control,etc. for around $10,000

Extras are:

Operating system software $2500
Rigid tapping $1000
More than 1 gig program storage $3000
Spindle on/off $1500
Coolant control $1500
Their technician has to install it for $18,000.

+shipping probably about $40k to retro this $1800 mill and then it will be worth $4000.

I will contact him about the price of the 802Dsl. But, I get that
feeling of.......



JAckal

Jackal, you can get all that functionality from EMC2 and not pay a dime for anyone -- and you get free tech support also from IRC and email.



i

jackal said:

Extras are:

Operating system software $2500
Rigid tapping $1000
More than 1 gig program storage $3000
Spindle on/off $1500
Coolant control $1500
Their technician has to install it for $18,000.

+shipping probably about $40k to retro this $1800 mill and then it will be worth $4000.
JAckal

Click to expand...

Where are you getting these figures from?
Hood

Hood,

I was just being sarcastic. In the past some of the quotes that I got for a "kit" had some ridiculous prices for things they called extra. What they called extra were basic with other systems.

That is kind of like the starter package from Ajax/Centroid. They start out cheap and it will run from $8000 to $12,000 before you're done.

Looks like I'm back to Mach3 or EMC2. If I start on the EMC2 and it gets too complicated, or I'm just too stupid to configure it ( even with everyones help), I can switch to Mach3 will get my machine running.

Thanks,

JAckal

jackal said:

btm,

As mentioned earlier, Hood is fantastic on Mach 3. If you look at their forum he has probably helped more people than the inventors of Mach 3.

JAckal

Click to expand...

He does spend a lot of time on the Mach support forum helping people and also gets hundreds of calls and emails from all over the world.
I think he`s lucky that he`s independently wealthy and doesn`t have to work for a living like the rest of us,so has time to spare.
I`ve seen the retrofits he`s done and he makes a nice job of them,in fact I was in his place last night for a cup of tea and a natter,didn`t get a biscuit though,so maybe he`s not that wealthy.

Personally if I was retrofitting a machine for a home shop I would use Mach3,if it was for a machine shop with employees I would use Siemens.I got quoted £5k for a Siemens 802D with analogue modules to use existing analogue drives for a four axis and spindle milling machine.This was parts only but quite an easy fit.
Unless the machine was something special I wouldn`t retrofit but just buy something else.Over here at least there is no shortage of used equipment.
Mark.

What about the GSK CNC controls ??


GSKCNC.com GSK CNC Equipment CNC Machine AC Servo Motor Servo Drive CNC Controller CNC Milling CNC Lathe Turning OEM Stepping system Ball Screw Power American Chinese made China

Lathe or mill, about the same price.....
*NEW* CNC CONTROL 980TD LATHE TURNING MACHINE + PLC GSK - eBay (item 330402714300 end time Nov-04-10 05:54:18 PDT)

jackal said:

Update:

I contacted Siemens. Here is what I sent:


Hello,

I am looking at purchasing one of your Sinumerik 802 C controllers for a retrofit. It is listed in an E-bay auction :

Siemens Sinumerik 802C Baseline Controller *NEW - eBay (item 220422153363 end time Oct-18-10 06:37:39 PDT)

According to this listing, the Siemens local rep will honor the 12 month warranty & support technical questions referring to this product.

Is this correct?

Also, could you tell me if this system will work with Viper brand model #100 servo drives?

What type of encoders do you recommend?

Thanks for your advice,

Jack C.

Here is what they sent back:


We would not honor any warranty from a 3rd party reseller. The 802C does not have much support for the US market. It was primarily built for Asia.

I would recommend considering an 802Dsl. We have a nice retrofit package available from one of our Retrofit partners, Sanyog Automation.

You can contact me if you are interested.

From: [email protected]

I am guessing that their package contains: new ball screws, servos, drives, digital control,etc. for around $10,000

Extras are:

Operating system software $2500
Rigid tapping $1000
More than 1 gig program storage $3000
Spindle on/off $1500
Coolant control $1500
Their technician has to install it for $18,000.

+shipping probably about $40k to retro this $1800 mill and then it will be worth $4000.

I will contact him about the price of the 802Dsl. But, I get that
feeling of.......
View attachment 26966


JAckal

Click to expand...

After all the cheap retro talk that I hear here, I stopped and talked to Seimens at The Show. I am not sure what the reality is of the 802 as that wouldn't touch my app, but the final ballpark price on the 840 is a true


They are claiming a new "retrofit" control comming out Jan1.



-----------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

jackal said:

We would not honor any warranty from a 3rd party reseller. The 802C does not have much support for the US market. It was primarily built for Asia.

Click to expand...

That's too bad. The 802C and 802S units would be an affordable solution for giving a new lease on life to older machines here. If they at least gave them support with an online forum it wouldn't be that costly for them and you think it could be a profitable venture, after all, they are apparently making money selling them in China.

If you decide to go the Mach route you will have a lot of flexibility. On my knee mill I added a 4th axis to control the knee in addition to also having the quill under control, this is really nice. I don't use the knee for actually machining very often but its great to have during those occasions where the 5" of quill travel causes problems, and the knee drive is great for saving my back for general positioning of the knee.

You can also fully customize Mach's control screen. I use work offsets a lot, so I added buttons on the screen to quickly set to offsets G54-G59 and P10 to P20, along with an display that shows me what offset number I'm currently set to.

You can also pretty easily and cheaply design and implement your own hardware controls, I have 2 joysticks, one for table XY and one for quill up/down and knee up/down.

I also added an MPG that I can assign to any axis and also separate knobs controlling spindle speed, feet rate override and jog speed.

But as I've mentioned, implementing all that takes a lot of time and futzing around, and you have to learn to be careful about how you use some Mach functions or you can have some big crashes.

I never messed with EMC, but it seems to be more targeting uses who are more interested in development and enhancement of the CNC machine itself than actually using it. You have that element with Mach also, probably a majority of its users are more interested in being on the cutting edge with new features rather than having a stable machine that is highly reliable. This unfortunately biases the Mach developers, so you see new features coming out before the ones that are already in the program have been made fully reliable.

So you have learn to work around some problems, but given that, and some occasional flakeyness that you'll see, it can work pretty well, I've made a lot of parts with it that made our customers happy.

Good luck-

Paul T.
Power Technology

Jackal
Sorry, I just found the thread.

Most of the problems I've had with Mach3 is from the learning curve. There are alot of bells and whistles that I could do without on it. I know that there are different screen formats, and I'll try to find one that has more of a "Fanuc-ish" feel to it later.
For the money that I have in it, I'm happy with what I have.
I've had the computer lock up on me and had to re-boot. And I'm thinking that has to do with Windows somehow. I went in and turned off all the background programs I could. I don't think its happened since.
More later
i_r_

i_r_machinist said:

I know that there are different screen formats, and I'll try to find one that has more of a "Fanuc-ish" feel to it later.

Click to expand...

Brett (chaoticone on the Mach forum) was doing a Fanuc style screenset with all the buttons doing as a Fanuc would. Not sure if he has actually finished it yet but here is a pic of what it was like last I saw.
Personally I wouldnt have a screenset like that but I can understand the appeal if you are used to working daily with Fanucs. My own screenset I am using on my mill is also pictured, I wanted a screen with all the functions I use on one page. Its probably not to a lot of peoples taste either but thats one of the great things, you can do what you want/like

The seller on ebay contacted me about it. He said that "Siemens was just jealous that he was beating their price". I asked about who was going to warranty it, since he had 12 months Siemens warranty listed. He never replied.

I did give the Ebay link to Siemens when I inquired about it. So they may be checking into where those on Ebay are coming from???????????

Mach 3 will get my machine going and then I'll mess with the EMC.

Hood,

I like that screen on your Beaver mill. It seems easy to read and not a lot of clutter.

i_r_,

How do you like those Viper drives? Was Larry helpful in sorting things out with them? How about repairs/modifications?


Thanks everybody,

JAckal

jackal said:

Hood,

I like that screen on your Beaver mill. It seems easy to read and not a lot of clutter.

Click to expand...

I use touch screens on my machines (2x mills, lathe and coil winder) so an uncluttered screen is really a necessity.
Hood

The seller on Ebay that had listed the Siemens Sinumerik, sent me an e-mail.

Hello, a Mr. Jon send me a message, tell me that Siemens USA will not repond the controller sold by 3rd party. Obviously, this hurts their benifit, so I end the list, because I don't want to make a mass. Sorry for that.

Click to expand...

Apparently the guy ( Jon Cruthers) at Siemens that I had contacted, checked in to it a little more.

Maybe those controllers were walking out the back door of the factory.


JAckal

Jackal,
Larry has been great. I've had excellent service. The only problem I had was a tuning issue ton Y, but that was me and not the drive. I haven't played with the 4th axis yet.
First couple of jobs I did were in wood. I moved the table down so that I couldn't reach it with my tool, which was an outstanding decision. It's been a while since I've used fixture offsets.
There is a quirk in Mach3 that you should know about. There is a parameter that sets the "corner rounding", as in, get so close to a destination point before heading for the next point. I believe this error in position would accumulate and cause my Y to drift. I changed this parameter to .0002". No more drift, but the machine seems a little jerky cutting above 30ipm. Probably something else in there I can change to correct this.
I still haven't programed the vfd. I can turn it on and off in my program, and control the rpm with a reostat. The output voltage on the BOB is right, just a case of HUMA. I'll fix it later. I still need to order the programming cable for the vfd. Matter of fact, thats a good thing for me to do today.
I want a mpg.

gotta customer
i_r_

i_r_machinist said:

Jackal,
There is a quirk in Mach3 that you should know about. There is a parameter that sets the "corner rounding", as in, get so close to a destination point before heading for the next point.

Click to expand...

That is not a quirk, that is what you call Constant Velocity, the slower that your acceleration is the more corner rounding you will get. If you can not get a fast acceleration then it is likely that your motors are really on the small side for the axis.

i_r_machinist said:

I believe this error in position would accumulate and cause my Y to drift.

Click to expand...

It is not an error but rather a calculated move so no error no accumulation

i_r_machinist said:

I changed this parameter to .0002". No more drift, but the machine seems a little jerky cutting above 30ipm. Probably something else in there I can change to correct this.

Click to expand...

That is because by setting a low value you have effectively turned off CV and turned on Exact Stop mode.
Hood

Hood,
Could this go back to my servos not being tuned correctly? I didn't spend as much time on that as I should have. I was just happy to see the thing move and probably need to revisit that part of the manual.

Can I get a copy of that Fanuc screenset? The second screenset is much less cluttered, but the first is familiar.

thanks
i_r_machinist

Yes if your tuning is out you may no be able to get the acceleration high because you trip the drive due to following error. What is your accel set at?

You would need to PM Brett on the Mach forum to see if he has it finished and is willing to share. I know his life has taken him away from Mach for the time being so possibly he hasnt got it finished but no harm in asking. Heres his details View the profile of Chaoticone

Hood

I'll check when I get home.
thanks
i_r_