Can a Partner be upgraded from 2.5d to 3d?

[borne2fly]

I'm looking at a 1996 Partner knee mill that has 2.5D. I was told this means that any two axes can move in a nonlinear manner (like cutting a circle) while the remaining axis can move simulteneously but only in a linear manner. Is this true?
Can this machine be upgraded to 3D? If so, is it a matter of a few boards or a whole new electronic everything?

[cambridge52]

Should be abale to cut 3d. It will more than likely be slow like under 8inch per minute.
I ran 1995 knee mill, milltronics with partner V controler we would drip fead over rs232 port.
Like I said it was slow but it would do the work 3D mold making.

[borne2fly]

Does that mean it can run 3D CAM software? I wanted to run Vcarve but was told I needed a full 3D machine for that, and that 2.5D wouldn't work.

[cambridge52]

If the machine takes G ANd M codes And all three axes will move at the same time.
It will do 3D work. Like I Said before it will be slow do to the prosser spead on the old
controlers. Your CAD softeware has to be able to post short move in X,Y,Z to make the
Machine move in all three axses at once.

[cambridge52]

Does the machine have servo on Z

[borne2fly]

Yep, servos on all 3 axes.

[borne2fly]

"And all three axes will move at the same time ....."

As it sits, I'm not sure if the controller supports this. I need to bug Milltronics in the morning. I was told it could, with the restriction that one of the axes move in a linear manner only, but I haven't actually seen this demonstrated. And if this is indeed how it functions, I have to wonder how most available CAM software would handle it?

[borne2fly]

Did your mill run 3D CAM, 2.5D, or did you Gcode it all? I guess my concern is how most CAM programs would work with it.

[cambridge52]

You Have to G code every thing you will not be abale to put A cam package on that machine.
If you could why? Do all your programing in A pc with cad cam software post out G code pro
Then drip fead to mill. That was the best way we found to do large and long programs.
Whitch is what you will get into with 3D work.

[borne2fly]

I was figuring a full 3d controller would allow me access to 3d cad/cam software, and speed up the whole cutting process. I'm a little worried that it might be hard to get 2.5d software that can talk to this thing as it is now.

[borne2fly]

Exactly how did you drip feed it? I'm new to all this, so I figured on just writing the gcode to a floppy then plugging the floppy into the mill.

[trevj1]

Originally Posted by borne2fly I'm looking at a 1996 Partner knee mill that has 2.5D. I was told this means that any two axes can move in a nonlinear manner (like cutting a circle) while the remaining axis can move simulteneously but only in a linear manner. Is this true? Can this machine be upgraded to 3D? If so, is it a matter of a few boards or a whole new electronic everything?

How about some information, first.

What mill exactly, have you got? Milltronics hung the Partner name on a bunch of them.

What control exactly? Centurion (insert roman numeral here).

If you want to get good answers, you need to give at least some good info to get things rolling.

FWIW, I operate a Partner IV, with a Centurion V control at my workplace. (A round of applause for the 386 chip therein that is still working!)

The factory documentation states that it will move three axis' simultaneously.

Our folks were too cheap to pay for software to program past 2 1/2d, so that's what we use. We do almost no conversational or hand coding at all.

Machine is capable, us operators are pretty much meeting our needs without the stuff.

If you are not conversant in G code, and do not have a software program that will output code that matches what is required for the machine to understand it, you have a few problems to get past, before you start worrying about drip feeding.

We still use a floppy to transfer info over to the machine. If the program is too large to load and run, it can generally be DNC'd off the memory board (No Hard drive) or directly off the disk.

My advice. Get iot set up and running first. Then work out what you need to do to get it to operate in 3d mode (likely just software changes) then start working on DNC from the computer.

Call Milltronics. Have the serial number in hand. They may be able to supply you with a set of the books that should have come with the mill.


Cheers
Trev