Bandit 3 problems with G92

[JMOVT]

Hello everyone,

I'm searched and searched, and found a lot of great information from a lot of knowledgeable folks on here...but I'm stuck.

I recently picked up a bridgeport cnc with an old bandit 3 controller. The previous owner was drip feeding it with mastercam I believe? I haven't got that far yet...still trying to make everything work with the 1983 control.

Here are my problems... I can not seem to set part zeros with a G92 command. Maybe I'm not understanding things correctly (my cnc experience before this was with a shoptask using mach3, and a emco running mach3), but I thought that if I position my tool where I want X0Y0Z0, then go to MDI and enter a G92xoyozo the machine should now recognize that as the origin of the part. Am I wrong thinking this? I've tried multiple times, a bunch of different ways, no luck...does not change the display, still appears to be right where it was.

I can power the controller down and it will of course reset all the axis to zero, but then the drives are turned on the machine jumps slightly and I loose my position. The machine does not indicate that is has moved on the machine position display, but I can put an indicator on and see that it's jumped at least 7-15 thousands each time the drives are engaged. This is a problem when trying to jig up and modify an existing part, I never can set the zero position where I need it.

I can throw a piece of stock in the machine and set it up knowing where zeros are, manual type in code, and makes parts...but only from scratch, can't indicate a part and set zeros, always jumps.

Any advice?? Am I doing something wrong, or is there a problem with controller?

One more thing, when I home the machine the axis do not move at all. Cycle start doesn't move anything, but the machine doesn't seem to care, it always says it's homed and doesn't throw any errors.

Thanks for any help. I know this this in ancient, but I'd really like to get it working. I've got a batch of simple pulleys with bolt patterns to make and this is the perfect machine for the job right now.

-Jason