alpha 550 is dead

[razoramon33]

Hello all my name is ray and I am new to this site as well as the cnc world. Years ago I purchased a Harrison alpha 550 plus lathe from my place of work when they shut our plant down. The alpha control, which is a fanuc based control was erased by a disgruntled employee. I am looking for help in getting the programming back into the machine. I managed to get the files emailed to me bu a sister plant but there is one file that won't take. Four of the five files loaded with no problem through the pcmcia slot on the console. there is also a com port in the back of the machine but I am not sure how to connect to that. Any help would be greatly appreciate this is way to nice of a machine to be sitting idle so it is time to invest some time and money into it. Thanks

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[CraigBeall]

I use the same machine at work. Good quality machines but when it comes to getting support for them it is a nightmare. None of the technical documentation or software for the fanuc system is available in the public domain so you either have to contact group 600 lathes (the agents) directly or find an ex-employee from harrison who can leak information or software and assist. Personally I wish they would ditch our harrison 550 and get us a machine that is easier to self maintain. Even something as basic as setting the backlash parameters requires an engineer if you don't have the correct manual. I have even been in touch with FANUC directly and even they cannot help me as the machine's software is a custom macro made under licence to harrison and harrison will not supply you with any technical documentation relating to the settings menu's or the software. All they will want to do is send you an engineer so they can charge you for it. My guess is you are going to spend a lot of money on an engineer to get all your software corrected again. Even the boot up screen on the Alpha 550 states "copyright fanuc ltd 1994 - 1997" and that's under licence to harrison so knowing them you will probably need special codes or keys before you can even back it up or re-install it.

[mbservice]

Craig
Parts are still available for your machine and not necessarily through 600
There are loads of service engineers that work on these machines and on the software
If you have any problems pm me