Hurco KMB-1x, upgrade advice sought

Hi guys, this is my first ever post, cnc is totally new to me, apart from trailing sites like this for about a year while I was on the look-out for a machine I could afford to buy as a project. I have several manual machines in my hobby workshop, but have always wanted to get into the cnc end of things. I have never ran a cnc machine, and have zero knowledge of the programing ect...
I have picked up a Hurco KMB-1x mill in full working order, and would like some advice on the most cost effective way of getting this machines control up to a more modern standard. I have fair understanding of the electronics and major components like the drives, motors ect.. and would have no fear of pulling all the original control out of the machine to fit something driven from a PC, but there are so many options out there I am bamboozled at to which way to go. The ajaxcnc/mach3 route looks appealing as my budjet is vey tight. Basically I need some advice and recommendations, as to which software / control package is cheap, and simple to learn. I have a buddy who has been running cnc machines for years, he can help with the machining/programing end, but he knows nothing about the hardware/upgrade end of things.
Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated

Hi,
One thiing you may try would be to nix the tape drive on the console in favor of a tape emulator card, then find yourself a copy of Ultimax PC P/N 002-3431-003. The Ultimax program is extremely easy to use for part programming, then you convert the file to NC language, and then use the NCUPDN.exe to send the program directly to the machine, all within the Ultimax PC program. Of course all this is assuming you have a pre-Ultimax controller.

Great advice Rob, thanks. I have seen the emulator boards, my machine has been converted to floppy drive, and is running BX control.
Any suggestions where I could get Ultimax PC, is it expensive ?

That's the rub, finding a copy. It comes with a security key that connects to your LPT1 port on your computer. I bought a copy in 97, but sold it to an employer a few years later. Hurco may stock it still, I'm not sure. Their latest incarnation is call WinMax, and I know that's a bit pricey, but not so much as a total retrofit for your machine. All I can say is search the web. Sorry I can't help any better.

GT,


I have a km3p with bx control that I am retrofitting. The reason is that my servo drives keep going out from being an old machine. It has a fairly new CMC systems tape emulator board. I know that the emulator works good. It sells for about $500 new and I would take $225 + shipping for it if you are interested.

I also have an MPU board from Buddy @ amts. It has a cable connection where you can change the different master programs from a regular computer. The master programs are free downloads on the amts website.

The board sells for $1200, but I would take $500 + shipping for it.


If there are any other parts you need, let me know.

Jackal

I would keep the servo drives and throw away the rest. A mach 3 on that iron would be a nice combo. Control parts are getting hard to get, and getting very expensive should something fail. I would guess you could sell the old Hurco boards/CRT etc.. on ebay and pay for the Mach 3 hardware at least.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jackal66

GT,


I have a km3p with bx control that I am retrofitting. The reason is that my servo drives keep going out from being an old machine. It has a fairly new CMC systems tape emulator board. I know that the emulator works good. It sells for about $500 new and I would take $225 + shipping for it if you are interested.

I also have an MPU board from Buddy @ amts. It has a cable connection where you can change the different master programs from a regular computer. The master programs are free downloads on the amts website.

The board sells for $1200, but I would take $500 + shipping for it.


If there are any other parts you need, let me know.

Jackal

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very interesting Jackal, I have spoken to Buddy, and he needs some more information from me regards the machine to establish exactly what I have, then he is going to give me some advice, I am picking it up on saturday.

What is the "master" and are there several different ones for different machining functions, or just one master suited to the specific control the machine runs ? Do all machines have masters ( I am on a steep learning curve here, I know zero about cnc)

If I ran an emulator card, is there any software other than ultimax PC, such as mach3 or similar that can drip feed to it ?
Can I send G code to emulator ?
can somone spell out the absolute basics of G code, dxf and conversational, I am still at kindergarten with the termonologies involved
Sorry to be a pain, I feel really dumb, but I guess everyone has to start somewhere !

I really appreciate having this forum and its members to call upon for help.

Gt,
I sent you a PM.

JAckal

Hi all, I have been trying for years to utalize the servo's and boards on the KMB1 for a retrofit but i cannot find a system that will run them. Mach 3 is no better when you sum up the cost and time. The conversational programme was miles ahead of its rivals and suits us as small jobbing engineers very well indeed. Originally I wanted to use it for machining bevels therefore i wanted a fourth axis. Answer buy another machine and keep the KMB as it is, we use it every day and still going ok for the last 7 years. Why because I clean the filters and 50 pin ribbond and board contacts every 2months without fail. This is the Achilees heel of the HURCO, and gives more trouble than anything. By the way we converted it to direct switch on no pc, emulator purchased from Shane Martin at Martin CNC at St Petersburg USA Great Guy. BY the way I live in the UK.

If your looking for a board to run your older servo drives the best solution I have seen is the k-flop and analog board from dynomotion. They even offer a snap amp board for direct motor drive that would eliminate the need for your old drives but let you keep your motors. They can drive steppers, brush, and brushless servos. The board will work with resolvers and encoders. It can run just about any motor amp I have seen. If you talk with Tom the owner he can give you any advice you need. There is a dynomotion forum on yahoo you can join to speak with him or get feedback from other users. He offers great support and as far as I've seen this is the cheapest and surest solution for retrofitting almost any old machine control to modern standards. It can use mach3 or there own Cnc software. I can't say enough about his willingness to help with any issues that come up. Good luck as any Cnc control retrofit is a monumental endever for anyone who has not done this before. I haven't done any retrofits myself but am considering one similar on an old hurco bmc30. I did use a dynomotion controller for my Cnc build though and love the ease of setup and number of options the board offers. My biggest hurdle is getting my single ended encoders to track correctly. This has nothing to do with the board or software. It stems from my own electronic short comings.
Judleroy

Thanks for the input guys, any info and advice is greatly appreciated, the update on my situation is as follows,

Ended up buying two machines, both KMB-1x m BX control, they where bought new as a pair in 1985 by shorts aircraft factory in Belfast, and I thought it would be unfair to split them up after all these years:D

I hooked up power to one and the x axis refused to move, but after it heated up a while it came good, and I spent a bit of time working out how to program it, a call to Buddy Maughon, and soon I was in business.

Then we had that really cold spell here, with temperatures getting down as low as -15C. for two weeks, I had a feeling it would give me trouble, as there is no heat in my workshop.

Sure enough, when I booted the machine again no x axis again, this time it would not come good.

I spent a bit of time playing around trying to fault find, and switched drive boards around, then noticed that when I poked a ribbon cable connector on one drive, a l.e.d came on, suspecting a loose connection, I poked it a little harder to push it home ...... BIG... mistake......BIG bang and flash from the drive.....
This is when I get some help from "Bloke" on the forum, what a top guy he is, he correctly advised that the original problem was most likley one of the chips on the limit switch board, I replaced those and began to try and find the reason / solution to my servo drive bang and flash.


Turns out that both my machines are fitted with what appears to be rather unusual servo drives, not the randtronics like most others, my machines have servo drives made by PKS-DIGIPLAN, in Poole , Dorset , England, this company later became Parker / Hannifin. the setup consists on a seperate
80V DC supply, a fault logic board that also supplies reference +12v/-12v and logic supply voltage, and the three servo amps, I have managed to repair the fault logic board and one servo drive, one other servo drive was still fine, but I am having difficulty trying to find the fault on the z axis board, there is no short on the board, it will not do anything in the machine, but bings on a l.e.d on the fault logic board, and screen gives the error "z axis motion error - movement too large" replacing with a different drive, the z axis performs fine,

Why am I trying to fix this when I had wanted to retrofit the machine ?,

well firstly, I just dont have the money right now to buy the parts, ( after buying 2 machines instead of 1) and like what 140jodel said above, the Hurco conversational programming is great, I had no previous cnc experience at all, but within 2 or 3 hours I had the machine going through cycles, I was really surprised at how easy the conversational is, and although very basic, it may do most of the stuff I need at the moment, if only I could get the darn thing running again.

I have not even wired the other machine in yet, and do not want to risk swapping boards between the machines in case I damage more, as these PKS boards really do seem to be almost unheard of in Hurco's

Hopefully someone out there will prove me wrong and come up with a blueprint schematic or some other info on them that may help me get mine sorted, or I am going to have to go ahead with the retrofit once funds allow ??

Hi
I just bought a machine exactly like this, but my problem is that it was disconnected too long and lost all of the parameters
Can someone help me get the parameters for it and tell me how to load them

thanks for the help
Tibor

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GT390

Thanks for the input guys, any info and advice is greatly appreciated, the update on my situation is as follows,

Ended up buying two machines, both KMB-1x m BX control, they where bought new as a pair in 1985 by shorts aircraft factory in Belfast, and I thought it would be unfair to split them up after all these years:D

I hooked up power to one and the x axis refused to move, but after it heated up a while it came good, and I spent a bit of time working out how to program it, a call to Buddy Maughon, and soon I was in business.

Then we had that really cold spell here, with temperatures getting down as low as -15C. for two weeks, I had a feeling it would give me trouble, as there is no heat in my workshop.

Sure enough, when I booted the machine again no x axis again, this time it would not come good.

I spent a bit of time playing around trying to fault find, and switched drive boards around, then noticed that when I poked a ribbon cable connector on one drive, a l.e.d came on, suspecting a loose connection, I poked it a little harder to push it home ...... BIG... mistake......BIG bang and flash from the drive.....
This is when I get some help from "Bloke" on the forum, what a top guy he is, he correctly advised that the original problem was most likley one of the chips on the limit switch board, I replaced those and began to try and find the reason / solution to my servo drive bang and flash.


Turns out that both my machines are fitted with what appears to be rather unusual servo drives, not the randtronics like most others, my machines have servo drives made by PKS-DIGIPLAN, in Poole , Dorset , England, this company later became Parker / Hannifin. the setup consists on a seperate
80V DC supply, a fault logic board that also supplies reference +12v/-12v and logic supply voltage, and the three servo amps, I have managed to repair the fault logic board and one servo drive, one other servo drive was still fine, but I am having difficulty trying to find the fault on the z axis board, there is no short on the board, it will not do anything in the machine, but bings on a l.e.d on the fault logic board, and screen gives the error "z axis motion error - movement too large" replacing with a different drive, the z axis performs fine,

Why am I trying to fix this when I had wanted to retrofit the machine ?,

well firstly, I just dont have the money right now to buy the parts, ( after buying 2 machines instead of 1) and like what 140jodel said above, the Hurco conversational programming is great, I had no previous cnc experience at all, but within 2 or 3 hours I had the machine going through cycles, I was really surprised at how easy the conversational is, and although very basic, it may do most of the stuff I need at the moment, if only I could get the darn thing running again.

I have not even wired the other machine in yet, and do not want to risk swapping boards between the machines in case I damage more, as these PKS boards really do seem to be almost unheard of in Hurco's

Hopefully someone out there will prove me wrong and come up with a blueprint schematic or some other info on them that may help me get mine sorted, or I am going to have to go ahead with the retrofit once funds allow ??

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by geobuild

Hi
I just bought a machine exactly like this, but my problem is that it was disconnected too long and lost all of the parameters
Can someone help me get the parameters for it and tell me how to load them

thanks for the help
Tibor

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Does your machine have the tape drive still in it??

[yes it had


QUOTE=Jackal66;1955118]Does your machine have the tape drive still in it??[/QUOTE]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by geobuild

[yes it had


QUOTE=Jackal66;1955118]Does your machine have the tape drive still in it??

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[/QUOTE]


I have the master tapes. If you have a way to load them.

That would be great
Is there a way you can copy them?
i pay for the tapes, copy and postage ...

thank you



I have the master tapes. If you have a way to load them.[/QUOTE]

I have copies of the masters on floppy disk, if your machine has a floppy drive, I can send you copies

Rob

I manage to get a floppy drive working instead of tape drive if needed, can you make a raw copy of floppy disk?
i can provide a ftp to upload them or you can give me a link where to download from

thank you for your help