[mflux_gamblej]

I'm looking at a takisawa lathe. This machine looks like a pretty good one, although it's really tough to find info, parts, posts about trouble.

For a start, I'm looking for Fanuc 6T-B manuals. If anyone has them for sale, PM me please!

Secondly, if anyone has experience on a takisawa lathe, I'd love to hear about it. Any comments? Etc? The machine that I'm looking at is older (im a garage machinist...) but it looks alright in the photos. I'm going to see it in a few hours - I'll have more details later.

[fizzissist]

I'm not looking to sell mine, but would consider copying if you can't find one...
be advised, it's pretty thick

[mflux_gamblej]

I'm not looking to sell mine, but would consider copying if you can't find one...
be advised, it's pretty thick

Yeah, I'm interested. I haven't found this manual online through the usual 'manual sellers.' It might be pretty pricey to get this thing scanned at fedex/kinkos or whatever. I have access to a good sheet-feeding scanner. I think that the cheapest way to do this would be if I could get you to ship the manual to me, I'd unbind it, scan it, and print both of us a new copy. I'd ship you a new copy and your original back.

I'm trying to get this manual right away. I've got a second appt. to see the lathe under power next week - and i'll be writing a check for it that day if possible. I have about 5 days to learn as much as possible about the Fanuc 6T and this Takisawa TS-15 lathe. It's a lot of pressure to take in a lot of info in a short amount of time.

Let me know if this is possible, or if you have suggestions to expedite the manual scanning process. I don't really want to put more than $50 into it - especially because I might find it online and its usually around $25.

Thanks for your time!

[fizzissist]

Yeah, I'm interested. I haven't found this manual online through the usual 'manual sellers.' It might be pretty pricey to get this thing scanned at fedex/kinkos or whatever. I have access to a good sheet-feeding scanner. I think that the cheapest way to do this would be if I could get you to ship the manual to me, I'd unbind it, scan it, and print both of us a new copy. I'd ship you a new copy and your original back.

I'm trying to get this manual right away. I've got a second appt. to see the lathe under power next week - and i'll be writing a check for it that day if possible. I have about 5 days to learn as much as possible about the Fanuc 6T and this Takisawa TS-15 lathe. It's a lot of pressure to take in a lot of info in a short amount of time.

Let me know if this is possible, or if you have suggestions to expedite the manual scanning process. I don't really want to put more than $50 into it - especially because I might find it online and its usually around $25.

Thanks for your time!

PM me your email.... One quick thing I can do is take pics of the pages that you'll probably need sooner...You can open them up, view, print out what you need...

Something VERY important to consider will be that the control is also machine specific, and you want to make sure that the parameters are all there.
95% of the time a buyer will want to fire up the machine, run it through all the axis limits, spindle up and down, reverse, tailstock fwd & rev, chuck clamp,,,, conveyor, coolant...turret index, etc. If it ain't under power, then the value is a fraction of the asking price.

It's a basic Fanuc control, and the codes haven't changed. Go into jog and jog it. Go into MDI and input a turret index, spindle on, and some simple moves.

The machine this manual was for was a 1983 Wasino 3axis chucker... and what's funny is that the programs I wrote for it (by hand!) would still function today. What I loved about it was the macro capability.

[Al_The_Man]

Another aspect that I have covered before, is that when you get it, check all the DC motor brushes, these motors can be very expensive to replace and hard to find.
The brushes can be had from Helwig Carbon.
It depends on if it had any preventative maintenance in its time.
Al.

[mflux_gamblej]

Thanks for your support guys:

In terms of fanuc controls - I'm a total newb. I need to know

• how to initialize / zero the axis
• how to turn on the spinle (is it m03 s500?) but there might be some other buttons to press first..
• how to get to mdi mode to program movements
• how to program some movements (is it simply g02, x1.0, z3.0?)
• how to set the part zeros for x, and z
• a simple program to run after all this is setup if in full auto mode

And before I even get this far, that machine hasn't been under power for a 'while.' The machine comes from a company that went out of business - it's not simply a traded in machine with trouble. that said, you've heard it all before right? 'came right out of a running environment' ha! true or not it doesn't matter in my experience.

Anyway, the control's batt might be dead - no parameters - and a very delayed test under power before buying. I don't want that. It is possible that the params are on a piece of paper inside the control cab. I don't know - so i need them. This guy isn't gonna sell me this lathe for 1/2 off over some machine parameters.

Any / all help would be greatly appreciated. In return, I'll take lots of pics and post them so we can all geek out over this new / old as rocks lathe :cheers:

thanks!

[mflux_gamblej]

I just read that the fanuc 6 control stores its parameters in 'mbm' memory which doesn't need batteries to survive i.e. it is non volatile. So, if the machine doesn't have parameters - the problem is far worse than a dead batt.

So, i expect that the params will be there.

Can anyone confirm that this is true?

[gridley51]

Yes it`s bubble memory in a 6TB

[fizzissist]

I just read that the fanuc 6 control stores its parameters in 'mbm' memory which doesn't need batteries to survive i.e. it is non volatile. So, if the machine doesn't have parameters - the problem is far worse than a dead batt.

So, i expect that the params will be there.

Can anyone confirm that this is true?

You have email

[mflux_gamblej]

I'm glad I have some used machine buying experience behind me on this one. The lathe boots up with a 401 alarm (servo ready signal not received). it's on the x-axis. I suspect the drive board - the contactor for the big DC to the servo won't pull in. repairs / troubleshooting have been in progress for 2 weeks now and I'm getting impatient. That said, with my first machine, I just knocked a couple thousand off and dealt with the repairs myself. I'm happier buying a proven machine.

I'll post some pics once I finally buy the damn thing.

[mflux_gamblej]

Well, I bought myself a CNC lathe. I'll put up some pictures after the rigging happens (feb. 14, for once a valentines day event that I can relate to! ).

The 401 alarm that the machine was having (fanuc 6tb control) turned out to be a bad x-servo velocity board. I didn't work on the machine myself, so I don't know which component went; a board swap fixed the issue.

I never imagined that after 6 mo. of running an old CNC mill that I'd be buying an old CNC lathe.