Monarch Vmc-150 Retrofit

[HuFlungDung]

But Karl, just think of all the fun you would have missed if you'd hired a pro the first time

My experience pretty much parallels yours by the sounds of it. I really enjoyed learning all the stuff as I did my Camsoft retrofit, but I did not have urgent need to get the machine running on a short time schedule. You've got to have time available to think and learn when doing a Camsoft retro. I'm the boss at my shop, so that helped a lot so far as scheduling time to do the job.

[Carlo Rechi]

I couldn't agree more. I too spent a month helping my friend do his machine. I learned my self and did not have a retrofitter help us. CamSoft offered but my friend was too cheap. But when I did my second machine it was so much faster. I think I can do another Camsoft now in no time. I am getting very good on my own. The tech men at Camsoft are very smart. I think every one should have access to real men for technical help when learning. The Monarch is a big machine I think. I think now I can do a knee mill in 3 days on my own. But you will need Camsoft for this machine. If you had more time it would worth learning. I have been in the business many years and there's nothing like this Camsoft that could match what I am able to do.

Carlo

[wild01]

If this was my machine, I would love to spend weeks going through it with camsoft on the phone to help, But If it takes 2 or 3 months for me to do it on the clock, thats 5-7 grand out of my bosses pocket. I like this Idea, but somehow I don't think he will, especially as it would also mean that no money is coming in for that whole time period.

any advice??

oh for those of you who asked the monarch is about 11 feet tall 12 feet wide and 14 feet long

[Karl_T]

This is like any other job, if you hire the work done. Do you want somebody that don't know squat to do the job?

Now it would make sence to hire the installation to a pro for systems work and an electrician for wiring. And an in-house systems person to watch the job with an eye toward future maintenance.

Just my 2 cents

Karl

[camsoft]

Wil,

You've got pretty good advice here from all the folks.

Therfore, in summary this is going to take more time than the average mill. Some one will have to make the effort.

Explain the choices carefully to your boss as plan A,B or C.

(A) You can do most of the grunt work such as removable of the tape unit, general clean up, mounting terminal strips, running cables and so on... This will use only your time with our free help. Also consider the aide of a local CNC Repair gentleman from the phone book to help you with the electrical portion only. They don't have to know CamSoft. Just be our eyes and ears. This will save a great deal of money and not use so much of your time. When you have made as much progress as possible with our free technical support then call in a CamSoft installer to finish the rest. The actually cost is related to how much work you can do and how much you leave for him, but keep in mind that some one with the right skills can get done in one hour what would take you a 10 hours day to do.

(B) Ask a CamSoft dealer/install come in for a "site-survey" and ask them to provide a time estimate and quote for doing the whole project. Because of your remote location expect them to charge for at least the per-diem and travel cost.

(C) Sell the machine "as is" don't bother retrofitting it and take what you can get with a little more extra cash to buy another used machine perhaps somewhat smaller that is working.

We do have installers if you want us to send someone, but anyone out there that would like to help Wil the spec's we have noted is that this is a large Monarch mill with 6 axes including the two rotary tables, Spindle invertor and most likely resolvers that either have to be converted or replaced with digital encoders. There are 2 Z axes. The second is an indexable 24 position Z axis head.

This machine also has a 50 tool automatic ATC (tool changer)

The good news is that these are Gettys drives and Wil has the wiring charts. We also have Gettys wiring charts here that may or may not apply. The end result is that we can reuse these motors and drives with out any labor to dis-mount them or deal with high voltage motor wiring or cost of replacing the amp drives. You would only be re-directing (2-4) 10 volt signal wires to our terminal strip.

We also can provide pre-written Monarch tool changer routine from what we have copied from others. Again this will take time to customize for your machine, but only a small fraction of the time when compared to writting ladder logic from scratch. Check it out, because it may be something to leave for the installer. Remember some one with the proper training can do this much faster than you. Some installers are faster than others, so ask for a quote. There is no need for PLC's or Ladder logic. The computer becomes the PLC and runs the logic including the tool changer. We will provide the M6 code logic and support for it free of charge. We can also provide a generic 6 axes mill operator interface that uses dual rotary tables and a indexable 24 position second Z axis head. However, it is not that easy. This is not your typical 3 axis mill of simple motion. Think of a machine like this one as something you will have to take your time set up and think of the CBK file you get from us as a template. This will take some ones efforts, most like 6-8 weeks of on and off work, where the majority of time is spent electrically.

The average quote you would get to retrofit a machine like this from the other commercial vendors such Fanuc, Seimens, Allen Bradley ect.. would be $40,000 to $80,000. In the end bring to light to your boss that you would have added a great deal of value to this machine. From a business mans point of view you most likely would have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled the value of his machine from it's current worth, plus you would still get to make all the parts you wanted.

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