Opinions needed on what to do with *old* Hurco

[CactusChip]

I recently purchased a Hurco SDX made in 1984. Cheap! As I was eyeing it while it sat on a pallet in the previous owners back yard (thankfully it was covered from the elements), I was thinking about retrofitting it to modern electronics. It is in decent shape, and only the table itself shows any signs of rust. However, I have zero documentation on this thing.

Once I got the behemoth into the carport, an adventure in itself, I started investigating a little closer. 80V servos with massive encoders. Servomate CMC controller. 5HP 3 phase motor. Kwick Switch taper (looks neat). Two ports in the back with W,X,Y,Z circled. Are those control ports? That is about it. Too bad I do not have 3 phase power; I'll have to crank up my old military generator to give it some juice.

Does anyone have any opinions on what path I should follow?

• Replace the computer and try to figure out how to control the servomate controller
• Replace the computer and find out to hook the encoders to a step/direction type controller
• Hope the computer works, try to find a RS232 emulator board, and trickle feed it over serial (This is the final resort type of option because I heard old Hurcos don't speak regular G-Code)

If anyone has any better ideas on how to get this thing up and running, I'm all ears. If anyone has any scanned documentation that they could forward, that would be great. I'm hoping to keep costs to a minimum, but I'm willing to fork out some money to get drives and a power supply to drive the machine. This looks like it will be a fun project.

Thanks

[rkonnen]

I have a Hurco KM3P machine. I decided when something major happened to the control that I would retro. Well it happened. My opinion is gut the control, sell parts on e-bay. You can put new drives and computer for half what it cost to fix the personality board ( over $3,000 from Hurco). And when done if it breaks , you can fix it , upgrade it, what ever.
Richard Konnen

[cybeeria]

Those old Hurcos are solid machines but trying to do anything with the old controls is a waste of time and money. You can still use the servos and save $$$ as they are big and expensive. I went with the Ajax setup. You can see what I did here:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14841

Works awesome! Finally went with OneCNCXR2 and have never looked back. Best $$ I ever spent on tooling.

Word of caution though-if you have a kwik switch 200 series spindle you will find that the tool holders are pricey (the 100, 300, and 400 stuff is pretty cheap though).

Good luck and let me know if I can help further.

Bill

[CactusChip]

Thanks for the replies!

I will go ahead and strip the old computer and go with modern electronics and drives. The machine is definately large, especially when compared to my X1 micro mill I think this will be fun!

[newby]

I agree with Richard and Bill. Junk the electronics and start over. I learned on a brand new Hurco in school (a century ago it feels like). It was a brand new 10/90 machine. It ran 10% of the time (in a good month) and required rebuilding the other 90% of the time. Learned all about changing out the personality borad, driver boards, CPU and virtually anything else except how to tell if the program we wrote for it would actually run. Good luck and I'll keep watching, just for the memories! LOL!