The Craftmans Shop > New from Old
The Sequel - Oh Blimey I bought a CNC Lathe (Beaver TC 20)
awemawson:
There are firms out there that would repair and reload the controller for a price.
Hood on the MIG welding forum has a friend (called Forbes but not Peter) with a TC-15 Beaver lathe (slightly smaller than mine) that they have retrofitted with MACH3. By one of those amazing co-incidences it was sold to his friend (without the 820T controller) by the aforementioned Mark McGrath before the poor chap popped his clogs.
. . . .small world isn't it
(Mark was a friend of John Stevenson, and Tim Leach, and Peter Forbes . . the list goes on . . . all lost to the big C )
awemawson:
While I was waiting for the Chicken to put themselves to bed I bolted the 'Funnel Strips' back on the coolant tank. This involved replacing four of the M6 'hank bushes' that I'd had to remove to get the rusty bolts off. Fortunately the ones I carry in stock had the same diameter body, so it was just a case of tapping them in with a mallet and setting them with the special mandrel tool.
Prior to this some more extensive Googling turned up a reloading guide written by Siemens - seems much the same as I've previousy followed, but I'll work through it word by word tomorrow when I'm back from picking up the pig food.
vtsteam:
I feel your pain, Andrew. This winter I worked on resurrecting an MTI dicing saw circa 1990's, all Fanuc boxes, with a bad XYZ servo amp, bad HSSB fiber optics comm card, and NT4 Windows uber-computer with about a 3 gig hard drive and "difficult" controlling software, and little useful documentation. Mfr. no longer in business.
I feel your pain especially re. the non-standard mfr.. innovations, like slightly altered ASCII, and the joys of RS232 trial and error com parameters (and cable terminations). Always fun if those params also can be user DIP switched to alternatives, or even re-written to static battery backed RAM, no longer battery backed.
But I know you'll crack it in the end. These things only have a million or more combinations. And there will be a breakthrough somehow, or through someone. 99% of them are due to somebody not explaining something "special" onboard in the right terminology, or at all. You'll get it. :beer:
awemawson:
Things have progressed in leaps and bounds :thumbup:
Having got the pig feed I was free for a bit to try that new document. It >almost< works - still a bit fuzzy where they talk of changing from German to English, as if it is already in English some of the steps described are still needed. However the main controller software is now loaded. One file, which appears to be a main memory dump of all the programs, took nearly half an hour to load at 9600 baud.
The one file I'm missing is one of type 'PCA' which cross references error numbers to error text apparently. But if you look at the picture below at least some of the error numbers are translated :scratch:
Incidentally all those errors are expected - it's reporting errors on the various servo systems - not surprising as they are not connected.
ps Will_D where were YOU when I had to unload quarter of a ton of pig feed with only the dogs to help :lol:
awemawson:
So enough of this software malarky - let's get something physical done !
I replaced the level gauge and drain tap on the coolant tank, then went for a dance with it, shimmying it into place. I was sure it would fit as I'd tried with a wooden mock up some time ago, but the workshop is a bit crowded round the back there and it was a relief when it was in place.
Then I loosely re-fitted the plate with the coolant pump on board just to see how everything fits together. I suspect that this pump came off ten years ago !
I've done a modest bit of investigation round the 'tripping 100 mA RCD breakers' issue. I'd suspected the main spindle drive - a "KTK Mentor" 26.5 kW DC spindle drive. I've not been able yet to source a manual for this model, but the 'Mentor 2' that replaces it says it could have leakage up to 185 mA :bugeye:
However, with mains disconnected, measuring from phase input to chassis ground I am measuring 300 ohms, and if the breaker for the Mentor is opened this 300 ohms goes away. Now this isn't conventional chopping high frequency leakage - the power is off and I'm measuring with a DC ohm meter (Avo 8) but if the drive is powered up (no earth on the chassis :bugeye:) the drive comes up and says it's ready to play
Maybe there's a dead mouse in there somewhere - a job for tomorrow I think.
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