Looking into a Mazak QT15n

EndlessWaltz said:

The thing to remember is Mazatrol may be easy to learn for a noob and watching youtube, however it is different compared to G-code/EIA which may help you to learn for other equipment like routers etc. Also, the reason I bring this up, is you can find a cheap one and still buy used parts HOWEVER if a board goes on that controller etc you will be hurting $$$$. Remember...they are old!

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I am familiar with g code. Have built lathes and mills and routers in the past from manual machines. Not as familiar with industrial machines. I was actually considering potentially doing a retrofit on one of these (Linux cnc) / provided that I buy a junk one for a super good deal but it's a lot of work and if mazatrol and all the boards work well which it sounds like the program is pretty good then I'd rather not mess with the retrofit.

If your getting into serious machine tools perhaps its worth inquiring to you service supplier about a larger drop-3phase? They know they'll make money on your usage, it can't hurt to ask.

For whatever it is worth- the older controllers are not forward compatible with Mazatrol programs written on the newer controllers. Newer controllers are backward compatible. In other words, if you write a Mazatrol program on say, a Matrix machine, you cannot use it on a T-32.

j1387 said:

Wow great to know! It seems I should be able to pull this off. My entire system is 60a but I rarely have other things going on at the same time. I would like to be able to run simultaneously but I can only do what I can do I guess. Problem is is it's on two breakers out of the panel and I think 40 amp (2 20amp breakers). The main outside panel has 2 fuses at 60a (pretty sure that is like 1 60a fuse) . I'm probably going to have to get a little creative with this lol.

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I think you may be a little confused on the breakers in what you've written here.
For 220v you need 2 breakers, one for each leg; but they are both the same, say 40 amps, not two 20's.
I believe you said you have 60 amps at 220 volts. If that is the case you should have 2 x 60 amp breakers tied together, 220 volts. That's 13.2 kilowatts available supply.
Your motors on the machine will only take the power necessary to do what you ask of them. So slow ramps, and lighter cuts will be "easy" for the motors, and they will therefore not take much power.
The difficulty may be if your mill is running a moderate cut and an air compressor kicks in. 5 hp air compressor needs about 3 kw, etc.

I just bought a 1996 Mazak VT-20 CNC mill. Had to replace one major board that Mazak quoted $3k; I got one off ebay for $600.
See if you can find a local freelance tech in your area, so you're not paying "new machine" service costs.
Where do you live ?
Bob