Biesse Rover 346 Retrofit

Pulled the trigger on this CNC router last week.

It is a Biesse 346 point to point cnc router.

It has 3 huge routers, 31 drill mills a tool changer, vacuum pods and many other neat thingies.......
The guy ran it for me and everything is working. He has maintenance records for everytime it was worked on and or maintenance. Everything looks in good shape.

It cost a whopping 5 Gbirds. The guy has been trying to sell it for years. Last year it was at 10,000. I offered him 5000 and he took it right away.

I will be putting mesa cards 5i25-7i77, and some I/O.

Looks nice, but it might be simpler to use it with the original control, if it works.

andypugh wrote: Looks nice, but it might be simpler to use it with the original control, if it works.

The whole reason these machines go for nothing is the control's are antiquated. Nothing to do with them.
I would not buy this machine to use existing controls. The servo and drives are a piece of cake with mesa cards. So the hard part is the ATC and the offsets for the tools. They are all in/out, so a matter of programming whether PLC or in HAL.

Of course it wont be easy, but it is a challenge, and I am up for it. Not going to be more difficult than my VMC I did.

On another note, all the outputs are relays and I can use them as they are not on control boards. Seperate 8 relay boards.
That is good news....

Here we go. Machine is in the shop.....

All wires are labeled. Not so bad, no schematics so have to trace wiring to be sure.

I have to check the relay boards but I think I can use them and have the 7i77 drive the relays. All low voltage is 24vdc for all solenoids and air valves. There is an existing 24VDC power supply, but I think I will leave that to drive all the solenoids and valves and add a 24vdc power supply for field power for the 7i77. The issue is they are sending +24vdc on line say P3, then sending the single lines back to input and the opposite for the relays. common +24vdc sitting on all the relays, then sending the 24VDC line out to drive the solenoids and valves and having common line going out to all the solenoid and valves.

I either have to ring out the wiring to seperate and use two power supplies otherwise use existing 24vdc PS to power solenoid and valves and use it for field power for the 7i77. I am skeptical to doing the latter as spikes and kickback from solenoids hitting the 7i77.

Not sure yet what I am going to do.

The power supply is just a rectifier and filter cap. Dont know if this would work for field power for the 7i77. Not really regulated this power........

You can replace the existing power supply withba new one, but i would use the exisring one. Just be sure to use another power supply for the 7i77, and set the jumper to use separate Vin and field power. 7i77 has that option, but the default is set to use the same power.
there are a lot of Biese machines where i live, but no one will pay 7 to 10000 for a retrofit.
Your machine looks really nice, so it is worth the effort to retrofit, for sure.
The last one i was called to check, was in a misserable state and hardly working, it took the seller 3 hours just to make an actual cut.
Good luck with retrofiting, you will enjoy working with it once it is done.

The Rovers are good machines. We have many of the different Biesse models (including the 346) where I used to work (and still do contract work). May be able to find a schematic/manual for it, unfortunately, they are Christmas shutdown now.

Dave

beltramidave wrote: The Rovers are good machines. We have many of the different Biesse models (including the 346) where I used to work (and still do contract work). May be able to find a schematic/manual for it, unfortunately, they are Christmas shutdown now.

Dave

That would make my day if I could find schematics......