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Thread: cnc'ed hercus 9 or 260 lathe
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8th Aug 2019, 08:59 AM #1australian metalworking hobbyist
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cnc'ed hercus 9 or 260 lathe
If anyone has successfully done a cnc retrofit on a hercus lathe or milling machine. I would be interested in how and what parts they used to do it. I have a lot of unused machines that could be useful to increase my manufacturing capacity, if they could be automated.
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10th Aug 2019, 11:30 PM #2Diamond Member
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not yet, but...
1) when I first about metric screw-cutting, I considered mounting a beefy motor in place of all the gears.
As long as it is synchronised to the cutting RPM, easy to key a pitch into a computer and press the go button!
2) Looking at the back of the saddle, I was considering adding a DRO!
The horizontal axis looks dead-easy as long as you don't have any extra tooling bolted down there?
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11th Aug 2019, 10:43 AM #3Member
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Yes I had Hercus 9” that I’d did a few years ago, and sorry no photos , removed the lead screw and apron put a ballscrew in there for the Z , used the original acme for the X but put roller bearings in for thrust and to support the tooth belt pulley, I used Chinese stepper motors and Chinese stepper drives and a Chinese brakeout board generic Chinese electronics, Mach 3 software and a treadmill motor for the spindle, did it work yes ,had all the usual Mach 3 problems, could not cut a thread properly, if you pushed the steppers to hard they lost steps, etc, could you make parts yes , could you make good parts , that depended on what you were after, i Learned a lot from this one
I then got hold of a Hercus PC160 that had had all the electronics and electrical removed , a failed retrofit I then put the steppers and electronics I had on to that ,a much smaller machine but designed as a cnc eg the Z axis screw runs down the middle of the machine so it doesn’t put a twisting force on to the saddle, same issues Mach3 and steppers , but a better machine
i the started collecting parts for a servo conversion and Linux cnc and Mesa boards for a closed loop control , i then found a PC 200 with turned tool changer that looked like it had been stored in a chook shed cleaned that up and rebuilt a Pentium 3 computer using all original Hercus electronics and software , as you can expect as a factory built machine that one works the best, limitations are spindle power and working envelope
also so a few adventures with milling machines with Mach 3 , Linux CNC and Hercus control
in the intervening time company’s like Masso, Acorn and also stand alone Chinese controlers have come around
I know of a couple of companies using Hercus CNC’s ( PC 200 lathes and PC300 Mills) making parts commercial basis
It all comes down to the parts you want to make, I don’t think a turret is an absolute necessity ganged tooling can be very fast if you can fit it around your work
i think a closed loop control is necessary so that leaves out most of the cheap retrofits
( I have noticed that Tormach has gone to closed loop servo motors)
just my experience over the last few years
Edit as an obsivation Hercus had accesss to 9’s and 260’s , when they went don the CNC path ( early 1970’s I think ) they chose to make a completely different machine ,the Computer Lathe with an ANCA controler then the PC200, and the PC 160 came after ,once again no legacy parts from the 9’s or 260’s maybe there is a message there
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11th Aug 2019, 02:04 PM #4Diamond Member
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For those of us who are getting a bit senile, what would closed loop mean? (versus "open"???)
I'm assuming it means linear, frequency or digital drive of your motors using one of:
- Rotary encoders on the driven cam/worm/gear, so that speed is known and load compensated for?
(like when your little stepper motors miss a step) - Linear encoders attached to the tool, so that machine slop is accounted for?
- Main-shaft speed detection, so that screw cutting is accurate.
(where open would be "I'm gonna rotate this lead screw at 82RPM, which on lathe spinning at 680RPM gives me a triple leaded thread of 90TPI, assuming I don't cut too deep and go below 650RPM"
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