[drumsticksplint]

Hi guys,

I've got a late 90's cnc lathe that runs on a dos based industrial computer. I've only owned the machine for a few months, but when I bought it there was one servo that was bad. Long story short, I've bought new drives and servo's because the old ones are obsolete and unrepairable. While the machine is down I'm thinking about the control, if the computer ever went down there would be no spares available. if i was in the middle of a batch run that would really mess things up....

I've been looking at standalone controllers such as Adtech and Syntech. I couldn't afford, nor justify a Fanuc or Siemens, though it would be nice The Adtech 4620 seems ok, but the screen is small and it just seems a bit lacking... I've seen that some newer machines are using Syntech controls, which have come up alot when I was buying a cnc router from China. I like the look of the control, but can't find a distributor in the UK or anywhere even, so I don't know if they just sell oem? If anyone has any experience with Syntech controls and can recommend a seller then that would be great!

Thanks

[gfacer2]

I don't know of a UK distributor (though there might be one) but look at Centroid too. Might be more than a syntec but less than a fanuc etc. Sort of designed for retrofit market. I'm a fan of sorts, though I have a 15yr old version (and just sold it but not yet out of the building).

[xjdubber]

Since your in the UK, just across the pond from you is Eding CNC, would also be a good choice.Since its a lathe, if i were you i'd make sure if I bought a controller i'd make sure it supports threading and all that fun stuff.

[drumsticksplint]

I don't know of a UK distributor (though there might be one) but look at Centroid too. Might be more than a syntec but less than a fanuc etc. Sort of designed for retrofit market. I'm a fan of sorts, though I have a 15yr old version (and just sold it but not yet out of the building).

I have looked over the Centroid controls before, but they are out of my price range to be honest, probably more then the machine is worth. I'd be interested to see a machine with Centroid on though, thy look a nice retrofit solution.

[drumsticksplint]

Since your in the UK, just across the pond from you is Eding CNC, would also be a good choice.Since its a lathe, if i were you i'd make sure if I bought a controller i'd make sure it supports threading and all that fun stuff.

Thanks for the reply, I have also looked into Eding for a previous project and while I think the product looks to be very good, I'm not looking to use a PC based control, I'd much rather an industrial solution, like the Syntech but can't find any info about distributors etc.

[gfacer2]

Yeah Centroid is cheaper but not cheap. I ended up upgrading my control on the software side only for the same reason, no reason to pump that much $$ in a machine that was old. I think they are worth while on some of the big big old machine. The question though is not whether the price is too high versus the machine but whether the price of the machine with a new controller is less then a comparable machine with a better controller than what you have now.

I also doubt syntec is less than the centroid solutions and I actually shudder to think about trying to set one up with support from Taiwan. They seem geared to the OEM market.