CNC Documentation a must

[Al_The_Man]

You would think they would learn it happened again this week.. I was contacted by an old customer that I did a retrofit on about 6 years ago, a (French/Italian machine) he had bought for a song but did not think to ask for the documentation, at the time it cost around $2,000.00 to get the original documentation from France plus the time to translate and reverse engineer.
Now he has another machine he wants to retro-fit and did not think to ask for the documentation at the auction. I know for a fact that the documentation was available, but has now disappeared.
I guess the point I am trying to make is that buyers of machines do not always realize the value in documentation of machines especially when they are 1970's/80's vintage, and require a retro-fit.
The cost of obtaining doc. if available, or the cost of reverse engineering if not available can double the cost of labour for retrofit purposes.
......Ah I just had to Vent

Al

[ynneb]

Al,
What documentation would you need if you were going to retofit ?
I figured a retrofit was done from the stepper/servo back ?

[Al_The_Man]

Originally Posted by ynneb Al, What documentation would you need if you were going to retofit ? I figured a retrofit was done from the stepper/servo back ?

Benny, If it is a basic mill or lathe or a plasma gantry it is not too bad, it is when you get into machines with extensive hydraulic sequences etc, like Complex tool changers, pallet changers etc and in the case of the examples I mentioned , they were 3 axis line punches with a multitude of hydraulics as well as the CNC positioning.
And then of course, its often a case of figuring out how the machine originally worked.
One of the main areas in saving time from documentation is identifying all the existing I/O circuitry that has to be hooked up into the new PLC side of the CNC retrofit. Otherwise it is a case of tracing everything and documenting as you go.
Al

[MetLHead]

Al,

I know exactly what you are talking about . Being a retrofitter myself, the first thing we do is ask for prints before quoting a job. And of course, documenting changes made during the retrofit are just as important. In fact, I'm working on a Parpas right now. It's a big travelling column horizontal mill made in Italy. The original prints were done in both Italian and English, but they were marked up by a Parpas tech who wrote in lots of changes in Italian. So I've spent several hours taking off covers, checking wire numbers, and making notes on the prints. But hey, at least there ARE prints .

Regards,
Scott

[Scott_bob]

An excelent thread!

Even documentation that is available is not always correct or very good. Anything is better than nothing though...
A customer of a machinery supplier has more influence on that supplier than a retrofitter, in our case we, as the customer of a machine tool builder were able to request, and recieve quickly, a CD with legacy (old versions of scanned schematics). If our retrofitter had been the one to ask, they likly would have been ignored.

Any retrofitters in the San Diego, CA area?