[glenthemann]

This is driving me completely bonkers. I was in a rush friday to get a tool made so we could get it out to heat treat by the end of the day but I hit a block when I coudlnt send a program to my mill anymore.

I cannot create a new program or rs232 recieve. It says there is plenty of memory but i just assume it to be too many programs in memory (no mention of that anywhere mind you).

So I figured, "no problem lets just delete some old useless programs and be on the way"

but no.

Ive searched through the manual, ive looked online. Nowhere anywhere does it describe a way to erase programs. Ive been through every single god damn menu and even some I didnt know exist.

This is frustrating to say the least, another great american product!

[ZZZZ]

Go to F8-Prog or F10-Util, then F3-Files, and F9-Erase.
Use the F7 and F8 arrow keys to move the cursor to the file(s) you want to erase.
Press F2-Set to select (it changes to reverse video on that line) and then F1-Start.

This is similar to the technique you use to load files from the floppy drive.

[Farmers Machine]

Call your dealer and set up a control training class. if the dealer can not support you then call milltronics and set up a training class at the factory. you will then realize that you own the very best and most powerful CNC control available!!!!!
When you have waken up more mornings than you have mornings left to wake up, you will appreciate the finer things in life. Milltronics CNC machines in your shop, and a good bar B Q pit under the beer drinking tree.
chill out and you will still be writing programs when you are 79 years old.
Good Luck
The Farmer

[glenthemann]

Call your dealer and set up a control training class. if the dealer can not support you then call milltronics and set up a training class at the factory. you will then realize that you own the very best and most powerful CNC control available!!!!!
When you have waken up more mornings than you have mornings left to wake up, you will appreciate the finer things in life. Milltronics CNC machines in your shop, and a good bar B Q pit under the beer drinking tree.
chill out and you will still be writing programs when you are 79 years old.
Good Luck
The Farmer

Hah, thats actually pretty funny. Out of all our mills the milltronics is by far the worst. We've had issues galore with it. The control can be pretty nifty, but it is by far no comparison to others.

A training class would be useless, other than they may show me how to delete programs. I eventually figured out my problem thanks to the second post and because I realized that someone had turned the edit key....

Glad to hear someone enjoys Milltronics though.

[moldcore]

Nothing wrong with Milltronics. They make a great machine. Care to elaborate on the issues you’ve had so we may all learn. That’s what this forum is for, isn’t it? We’ve had two Milltronics here, one is over 15 years old with a few problems that come with age and the other is 10 years with zero problems other than a lousy chip auger design. Yours has a centurion 7, which means it’s probably much newer than ours, so I would be interested in hearing what kind of problems you’ve had. If the issues are like the delete problem then it sounds like an operator problem rather than a hardware problem, but we’ll never know until you enlighten us.

[glenthemann]

Well, the issue with the erase, I had never done it and it was not mentioned in the manual at all. Turned out I coudlnt do anything because of the edit key which is a doh moment, but I never use it, and I am the only one who runs the machine so I never would have thought someone in the shop would have walked by and decided to turn the key for no reason.

Aside from that, we've had a number of tool changer issues, the air unit has been quite problematic to the point where we've to take out the valve system and fix it in under a year of having it. We been told we had to replace the entire drive unit because of an electrical problem that was causing the atc to fault (which mind you was completely absurd considering our electrician found the problem and it was nothing more than a part that cost a dollar vs the $1000 + labor the dealer and milltronics said..)

if you have too large a negative diameter offset the machine does weird things causing extreme gouging which I have not experienced on other machines.

For the size of the mill we have it is anything but rigid, by comparison our smaller matsuura at nearly half the swing is rock solid and never shakes. The lack of rigidity causes pretty large chattering on circle pockets at feeds and speeds and depths of cut which I do not experience with other machines and which I feel a machine of this size should easily be able to handle, it certainly has the rated horsepower. I speak from a specfic job where we have to machine a hole 2+" in diameter with a .0005 tolerance which I can just narily hold. You can actually see marks in the hole from where the axis switch directions and it is easily measureable.

Personally, it is a fairly easy to use machine. The one thing I love is the offset pages, they are very handy as is the verification function. Maybe Ive gotten a bad apple, Im not sure but I am not entirely sold on milltronics and I dont think I would be egging the owners on to get another.

Oh and yeah, the chip auger is ridiculous.. We modified ours a little so that it doesnt trap the chips as much between the auger and the tube welded in the middle, but still we find ourselves unwrapping stainless chips every once in a while. We try not to turn it on for certain jobs but sometimes the guys do, something they shoudlnt.. kind of like the edit lock key hah.

Glen

edit::

Oh and if you're running in single block and you start into the tool change macro and then decide to halt the program for whatever reason, it can lose track of what tool is actually in the spindle since the machine says to itself that the tool has changed before it even has. This caused one hell of a nice crash for us once. Milltronics basically said to us "thats the way it is lol, not our fault"... Also perhaps there is a way to change it, but I would love for the macro stuff to just be in the background and not show up in the main program as it does on any other machine when you use a canned cycle like peck drilling for example. I believe the previous manager looked into it and we were told there was not a way, if you know of one please enlighten me. When I hit cycle start on a TxM6 block it should change that tool, I shoudlnt have to go through 50 lines of atc macro before I can get to the next block.