Hitachi-Seiki HT20 Lathe with Fanuc 10T-EF Controll, Any Good?

[blakemachine]

Ok, so I already own and a Matsuura 1000VS2 Machine, as well as a Matsuura, MC710v Ram master machine, and a Miyano 6BC cnc.

I needed a lathe with a little bit more travel, so today I picked up a Hitachi-Seiki HT20 Lathe.

I know it has a tool setter on it, which I have never used, but not sure of much anything else.

I am used to Fanuc 6b Controll, and Yasnac 3000G, and yasnac Mx5. How different is the Fanuc 10TEF controll?

Anyone have and experience with these machines, and or this controll to provide any feedback? Thanks in Advance.

[skullworks]

Nice machine. My Uncle has a 1986 HT20 with the Fanuc 10TEF

The "F" is for "FAPT" = Fanuc Auto Programming Tool a basic built in CAD/CAM that makes good programs optimized for the machine.

It has a 2 speed geared head with a top spindle RPM about 3600.

Servos are FANUC Yellow cap 4 brush DC units. Rapids are not impressive by modern standards, but the machine repeats great.

Had the 12 tool turret and made some endcaps which gave us through the tool coolant... a very nice improvement over external hoses/jets.

There are crash clutches between the ball screw and servo which will reduce major damage in the event of a crash. - If you do "pop" the clutch it can be a bit fun getting the unit in sync again.

Control is a 10T which has a 8086/8087 CPU

I may be able to give you pin outs for the serial port - be careful as there is a hot line that if a "standard" cable is hooked up will feed the power back into the control and blow a fuse which is a royal pain to replace.

You have to cycle the Tailstock quill a few times as part of your start up.

If I found a really good deal once I get into my new building I'd love to pick one up. Smaller and slower than what I am used to now, but built like a panzer tank with a Mercedes engine that won't quit.

[Al_The_Man]

Some advisable preventative maintenance is check all DC motor brushes, if really low the end caps should be removed to check for carbon deposits and cleaned out.
If you do not have hard and/or soft copy of the parameters, down load them ASAP, including the options P9000, also any 9000 macro's.
Change the batteries, but ONLY under power.
Al.

[cnc2149]

Good comments from the 2 previous posters. The 10TF was a FAPT conversational control, as mentioned. The 10TF-E was a CNC made for the Eastern Bloc (communist) export and had some limitations on available feature content. It's hard to get a used machine that comes with documentation so you should try to get these manuals for the CNC -- Maintenance, Operators, and Operators (Appendix) -which is mainly parameter definitions. The 10TFE had a different operators manual than the regular 10TF did, but again it only differs in feature content. Wouldn't be a bad idea to get a set of machine diagrams from the MTB, as well.

Parts are readily available for the CNC and drives and motors so you should be in good shape.

[higgo]

I ran one of these for a few years and found it to be very easy to setup and program.
I own a newer model H20SII and to be honest i'd nearly have your machine over mine although they are getting a bit of age about them now.
a few hints
1. Draw a white line across the two halves of both clutches, you'll find that if you 'pop' one of them its only a matter of lining the marks up and checking the 0's again and away you go. If it's out it will only be (usually) one turn either way of the screw. Simply click the clutch out and rotate the ballscrew one turn one way or the other. A lot quicker than re teaching or offsetting tools.
2. Keep the way cover under the turret clean ALL the time. Even with the flood coolant doing the cleaning there's always a bit of swarf under there waiting to wear or rip the cover as the turret rotates.
3. When warming the machine up MDI T1300 and the turret will spin around searching for a non existent tool. Ours used to miss index on the first few parts and a couple of minutes of this in the morning cured that.

We used to write programs for every other machine we ran on the HIT20 because it wrote such 'neat' programs. No extra lines of garbage and very little to clean up when writing programs to run on other controllers.
Make a list of the tool shape ID codes you use most often... it makes programming a lot quicker.
AND like they said... back up the parameters!

[stevo1]

Touching more on what Al has stated. Also make sure that you make a copy of your PMC parameters. These are not punched out of the control as most people think. These have to be written down. I have attached a cheat sheet that I use for writing this data down. It helps keep it organized and ensures you got all of the data.

So backup your NC parameters including 9100 option parameters. Write down the PMC parameters. Backup your 8000 and 9000 macro programs. These can be unlocked by parameter 11.0 for the 8000’s and 2201.0 for the 9000’s.

Stevo

[blakemachine]

Well I hooked it up to three phase power today, and now the problems begin. I bought this machine not under power so I had no way of testing it. I turned on the main switch in the back, then went to the control panal. Hit ON and the screen turns on, but the screen says "imput search" Then after a few seconds it says, NO SIGNAL! Umm, Have no clue where to start now. Any ideas? I hope I didnt get burned.