Re: Hardinge Conversions

Joe,

Your statement below is something I'm not so sure about. I helped a
guy with a full blown Ahha system a year or so ago. We never could
get it to perform anywhere near what you'd expect from a "factory"
made controller.

The main problems I saw were in getting it to do constant contouring
with cutter comp turned on. We had unacceptable dwells between arc
block moves.

That system was running on a very fast Pentium, but my 12+ year old
Dynapath controller powered by an Intel 286 chip would cut circles
around it running exactly the same Gcode.

This isn't meant as a criticism of Ahha (I liked the control), it's
just my observation that it's very hard for the low end PC powered
controls to equal what a dedicated control will do. I haven't had
first hand experience with the higher end PC type controls like
Camsoft & MDSI, although I would hope for good performance based on
their prices.

Doug

PS, on building your own Omniturn or Upgrade type slide....you could
eat a long ways into a $1000 bill just buying the main aluminum or
steel base plate after having it stress relieved, precision ground
both sides to thickness and squared up on four edges. Note, for the
average small shop those are all operations which would have to be
farmed out.

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@y..., Joe Vicars <jvicars@c...> wrote:
> As far as a control goes, the high dollar retrofits are doing
> nothing that we can't do in the home shop. All the control
components
> are available for 3500 bucks from Ahha.
(snip)