Hurco KMB-IS CNC update

Mystery thingy attached to the power head. Looks like an air cylinder, but no air lines attached??

Left hand cabinet. Mostly gutted. Main power disconnect also missing. Don't know why someone would remove that?

I did find the air input hose. It comes out of the top of the machine... kinda weird. I wonder if machine is supposed to sit with its back up against a wall? Although the oiler seems to be mounted to the rear.

I looked more closely at the Hurco computer. There appear to be 1979 and 1980 date codes on the parts. I was doing computer system design during the era (paid for the Porsche). I can look at the parts and tell you what most of them do. I have no interest in trying to resurrect it. A $50 Raspberry PI is about the size of a credit card, runs LinuxCNC, a modern GUI and accepts G-Code from CAD programs over the network.

Don't see the missing contents of the left hand cabinet as a big problem. VFDs are relatively cheap. Quill motor should be pretty easy once the servo system is working.

Try to verify that the non-quill motor part of the machine runs on single phase 220V. Which of course is readily available. Bring up the power supplies. Try to figure out how to cleanly separate the Hurco computer from the rest of the machine. And then attach the PI probably via some Mesa board.

The beast is currently parked outside. Needs to be moved to a warm and dry place where restoration can begin. I don't think I need to mention how difficult it is to move a 3500 pound milling machine .

At work, super busy, but some quick responses and I will be more detailed later.

Your cabinet is really close to mine. Yours is definitely a later model machine as the yellow Hurco tag is the dead give away for that.

The spindle motor can be re-wired very easily to use the LV 220 side. There should be 9 leads (I think 9, may be that are in the motor. You change up the leads and that will make it either the 220 or 440. 440/480 was the norm for just about all factories. Not many step above 480 to the machinery. Once again, 440/480 would cut the electric bill in half compared to using 220V.

Looks like VFD was ripped out for some reason.

Yes the single phase out of the transformer will supply all 3 of the amps at one time. This is where you can follow the wiring back to the left side cabinet and get power to the transformer.

Not sure of the air piece on the side... definitely looks like a air solenoid and my guess is that is a "cool mist/air system" that would have had a line going over to the spindle area for blowing refrigerated air onto the parts during machining. It looks to be in the same place that most of the coolant lines bolted, so that is best guess.

No need to take anything apart at the limit switches (Proximity Switches). All of the wiring comes back to the TB-8 connector and then over to the limit switch board and then over to the amps and back down to the computer card cage. I will take pics and show you where to tie in as there is no need to take anything apart anywhere else on the machine for the proximity switches. I took all of it apart to trace it, only to have to put it all back together with nothing done to any of it. You did find them as they are identical to mine.

Most all of the work you will do is in the one right hand cabinet. If you do what I did, you should be able to get the machine fired up pretty quick. Very little work to do everywhere else as most all the wiring from all equipment terminates in the right hand cabinet.


Hope this helps until I can respond tonight.
Robert

I forgot to add.

There are 2 ways to move the machine. I am not sure what you have as we have several forklifts up to 30K lbs. So i never have a moving problem. If you need to move it with say a pallet jack. You can go get 4pcs of 5/8" threaded eyelets and thread them into the 4 holes in the base of the machine where you would bolt it to the floor. The holes are for bolting the machine down, but they are tapped also so that you can do this. When you screw in the eyelets, they should have a large enough hole to slide 1" pipe through. You can put a jack on each side and slowly jack the machine up, we used 2 floor jacks and would bring the front up about a inch, then move to the back and keep moving back and forth front to back, while adding wood chocks along and along to get the machine up and off the ground enough to slide the pallet jack under. Me and my father did this for one machine to get it out of a guy's carport. We showed up with our little 5K hyster lift and it would not clear the carport door. SO had to improvise LOL.

Always be safe on moving. That is how riggers loose a finger. Met plenty of riggers missing a index or middle finger LOL


Robert

We've already moved the beast once. It needs to be moved to the "restoration shop", which happens to be my garage. This garage is across town and down a somewhat steep driveway from the machine's current location. We have to load a forklift on one trailer. Load the beast on a flatbed trailer. Get these trailers across town. Back the flatbed down the driveway and hope everything fits. And of course when you're moving something so heavy, it needs to be done with care. If things go well, it will take the better of a day to move the machine.

I've been thinking more about how to breath life back into the Hurco. First, I need to find out the voltage used to power the drive transformer, and the DC supply transformer in the RH cabinet. Its probably 220VAC, but need to know more than probably.

I was thinking about not even trying to power up the Hurco computer. One of the reasons is the "backplane" the boards plug into is really poorly done. There's a ribbon cable bus and then some loose wired hard attached power wires I think. Why they didn't build a motherboard to plug the daughter cards into is beyond me. Maybe I should plug the thing back together as well as I can and apply the juice. It might actually do something sensical. If it does, then that's the best starting point for figuring out the go-zintas and go-zoutas. Probably the worst thing that could happen is I could somehow damage the servo drives. But I think that's a pretty remote possibility.