brother tc 211 retrofit/upgrade possibilities

[ihavenofish]

so i found a pair of these for sale locally for a pretty low price. these are basically tapping centres with 11.8x8.5" xy travel and a 10 tool carousel.

my understanding is that they have very limited milling ability due to the controler. basically straight lines with no look ahead so contouring is a bit of a no. this particular model is only 4000rpm in the spindle. so its pretty clear why these sell so cheap - they have very limited uses. that said, ive seen people doing some nice things with old brothers on youtube.

anyone know much about these and of possible ways to enhance milling performance?

my first inclination is to put the machines in tandem operations, leaving one stock, purely for drill and tap. then id take the other machine and swap out the control for something more robust with a 4th axis and maybe a spindle motor speed upgrade. if i go mach3, i lose rigid tap and all the fancy features. anyone know of another cheap option to add? emc2? maybe a brother made upgrade? id like to keep the original servos and drives and keep the costs low as possible so tacking on something like a fanuc mate 0i is not really viable as it costs more than both machines combined and then some!

[samco]

what kind of drives does the original control have? Are they standard +/-10v servo drives? You could do a reletively inexpensive conversion with emc either way. (and you can rigid tap - with a spindle encoder)

sam

[PMT]

I believe the pitch of the screws and the size of the servos make it a poor choice for decent milling. Had a customer who had a problem with the part moving while he plunged an end mill. Turns out nothing wrong with machine or fixture, the motors did not have the power to hold the table in place. I could push a couple thou. out of position by hand, See that the control knew it was out of position, release and it would come bak.

[ihavenofish]

I believe the pitch of the screws and the size of the servos make it a poor choice for decent milling. Had a customer who had a problem with the part moving while he plunged an end mill. Turns out nothing wrong with machine or fixture, the motors did not have the power to hold the table in place. I could push a couple thou. out of position by hand, See that the control knew it was out of position, release and it would come bak.

thats interesting. they are supposed to be sanyo AC drives. ive seen videos of the larger version mowing through steel though.

i can imagine that its got high pitch screws though for speed which means lower thrust. the Z must have at a fair bit of force though for the drilling the machine typically does. the things only got a 2hp spindle, so its not like its putting out massive cutting loads.

its not out of the question to replace the motors, or even screws, but the preference is to be cheap here and not replace things that arent broken. a set of new servos and drives can easily out value BOTH machines combined.

[ihavenofish]

what kind of drives does the original control have? Are they standard +/-10v servo drives? You could do a reletively inexpensive conversion with emc either way. (and you can rigid tap - with a spindle encoder)

sam

ive been looking at emc, but its always scared me away cause it looks so complicated to implement. im used to mach3 - any halfwit like me can set that up