Anyone know anything about Hurco mills?

There is nothing wrong with Hurco mills, good machines. I see one glaring red flag on the controller

''[FONT=Bitstream Vera Serif, Times New Roman, serif]FYI, mill takes 15 minutes to warm up and boot.''[/FONT]

That means that the power supply is probably failing. It should be replaceable with a standard computer power supply. A lowball offer might be in order.

If you want a CNC controller conversion project, this would be a good start. If I needed another CNC, I would take a hard look at this one.
 
I saw that also. Problem is I know nothing about repairing a controller.

I was looking at the Centroid controllers and they look pretty nice.

I guess the part I like about this mill is that it's a full 3 axis and uses cat 40 tooling. I have lot of cat 40 here left over from my shop. Ideally I'd like to have a
CNC mill that I could use manually, and I'd sell my Bridgeport. It's kind of a pain to have to write a program for everything you do other than jog it by the hand wheel.
 
alloy said:
I saw that also. Problem is I know nothing about repairing a controller.

I was looking at the Centroid controllers and they look pretty nice.

I guess the part I like about this mill is that it's a full 3 axis and uses cat 40 tooling. I have lot of cat 40 here left over from my shop. Ideally I'd like to have a
CNC mill that I could use manually, and I'd sell my Bridgeport. It's kind of a pain to have to write a program for everything you do other than jog it by the hand wheel.
Click to expand...

If it's just the power supply, then that should be pretty easy to replace. When mine failed, I just grabbed a standard computer power supply off the shelf and stuffed it in there. There is nothing wrong with the Centroid controllers either.

If you want to be able to switch back and forth between manual and CNC, then this is not the mill you want. Also most of the CNC mills with hand wheels are not easy to switch to full manual on the z-axis. That takes a little outside-the-box thinking like I did with mine. I just hit the E-stop, and shift a lever to disengage the z-axis drive, then I'm in full manual, or I can run it as a 2-axis for manual drilling if I want.
 
I realize it will be problematic switching back and fourth from CNC to manual. That would be the ideal situation for me, but probably not very practical.

Ive read some good about the Hurco control, but mostly not good. From what I read they are based on a 386 board and from and those are going for several grand now from what one person said. Who would have ever believed all those old computers I threw away would be worth anything now.

I found a Fadal VMC 20 on CL with tool changer for $11K. http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/bfd/4848205681.html

I run one of these at work all day so I know the machine very well. But it's old and a DC servo machine. We have a lot of problems with it, just had the spindle drive rebuilt, twice. Second time was under warranty, but it was still down for a month both times. I know our other Fadals are AC servos and we have less problems with those. I do see there are retro fits for the Fadals, but I also heard they are having problems getting the tool changer to work with a retrofit controller.

For now I'm just looking and thinking about my options. This one is close and looks like really sturdy iron. I'll wait awhile and maybe low ball him on it. If he goes for it I'll be giving you a call and owe you more favors :)
 
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Being the Newb- I think it looks pretty darn interesting. The Hurco that is. I doubt it will last long? Seems they all go so quick. At least here in the MidWest they do. Hmmmm 15mins to boot could be the internal EEPROM read tests, Memory tests, I/O bits and this that and the other- If you get an explanation from them on this - Shout back. I'm interested!
As for the swapping of the supply- Quite easy. We can help you there. I'm in the 1st phases of a SuperMax Allen Bradly Bandit III DC Servo to AjaxCNC change over. 1 thing I learned to ask if you do call is about the encoder resolution. Mine was 500L quad out or 2000ppr to the Bandit. I needed upwards of 8000ppr according to the AjacCNC and DSP design I was told. So I am now upgrading those myself. All easy and fun, but more $$ and more Time I find so short already!

If you go w/ the Ajax, the power supply setup should be much less demanding. PC supply is a switch mode -vs- these older and $$ linear / Xformer based types. And, you can just wire in a VFD and go 2pole 220VAC as opposed to the 3 phase. I'll wager there are two or 3 different power supplies in there. Same as my Bandit III that I am yanking out this weekend. TTL massive boards that probably suck 6A just to boot up LOL !
Ohh- $1K rotary phase converter he mentioned. $1K seemed really steep? that's usually in the 15hp range from American Rotary new!

Anywho- By the time I'm done w/ this conversion on my Supermax YMC-30 for $3K, Plus Ajax I'll be in the $5-6K range and I think that's pretty good for a state of the art Centroid setup. My mill was pampered too. This just looks pretty! PS- We all owe Jim! and he's superman on this site if you ask me. I'm getting the hang of it all and he's been a great help there. shout back or PM me if you go down the Ajax path sometime down the road. Would love to chat on that. Mine will be here soon.

Best, Jeff/CG
 
The $6k price you have in your machine sounds really good, especially with a new control. A new control is what I envision for the Hurco or another mill like it. But the $6 asking price for the Hurco plus a new control retrofit seems pricey for what I'd end up with.


I had Bridgeport CNC Boss series mills and the iron was fantastic, but the control left a lot to be desired. We retrofitted them with the AHAH setup but being stepper machines and got lost a lot, cost me a bunch of money in broken tools and scrap materials.
Like I say for $11k locally I can get a VMC with a tool changer. Catch is it's pretty big and heavy for a 2 car garage. So that's one reason a CNC knee mill looks good for me.
 
I'm thinking that the Fadal might be a tad large for your garage. But with a shoe horn it might fit. :lmao:
I'll be happy to help out with the controller if you get it. I just did an area search for CNC mills, doesn't seem to be much for sale locally right now. Just this one in Philomath http://corvallis.craigslist.org/tls/4799432706.html I'm trying to figure out what head it has on it, doesn't look exactly like a 2J2 or the Topwell clone of the 2J2. Just a bit lighter machine than mine I think.
 
I saw that mill. Seems a little expensive for me especially with the older control, and it's only a 2 axis. I guess it could be converted to a full 3, but at what cost. I run 4 axis machines all day and I just can't envision raising and lowering the quill every time I make a cut. I guess I'm spoiled from running VMC's all these years.

Something will come along. I've seen non running mills for under 2k, just have to be patient.
 
I've got a Hurco and the machine is great. (when it works, see http://www.hobby-machinist.com/show...he-Hurco-that-s-quot-ready-to-make-parts-quot)


Machine has plenty of mass, hog lots of chips and is made with quality parts but in my case the electronics are 30+ years old and starting to show it. I'm planning a retro but if I had known I needed to do one I would have offered lees to purchase or perhaps even walked. Once I get it working again I'll be very pleased with it but something for you to consider too is the possibility of having to do a retro some day.
 
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