I recently purchased a Hurco SDX made in 1984. Cheap! As I was eyeing it while it sat on a pallet in the previous owners back yard (thankfully it was covered from the elements), I was thinking about retrofitting it to modern electronics. It is in decent shape, and only the table itself shows any signs of rust. However, I have zero documentation on this thing.
Once I got the behemoth into the carport, an adventure in itself, I started investigating a little closer. 80V servos with massive encoders. Servomate CMC controller. 5HP 3 phase motor. Kwick Switch taper (looks neat). Two ports in the back with W,X,Y,Z circled. Are those control ports? That is about it. Too bad I do not have 3 phase power; I'll have to crank up my old military generator to give it some juice.
Does anyone have any opinions on what path I should follow?
- Replace the computer and try to figure out how to control the servomate controller
- Replace the computer and find out to hook the encoders to a step/direction type controller
- Hope the computer works, try to find a RS232 emulator board, and trickle feed it over serial (This is the final resort type of option because I heard old Hurcos don't speak regular G-Code)
If anyone has any better ideas on how to get this thing up and running, I'm all ears. If anyone has any scanned documentation that they could forward, that would be great. I'm hoping to keep costs to a minimum, but I'm willing to fork out some money to get drives and a power supply to drive the machine. This looks like it will be a fun project.
Thanks