[Celtic1888]

Hi All, First post:

Thank you to all who have already contributed to this forum. I have only recently discovered it and have found it far more valuable than the Milltronics user's manual.

Anyway, I am getting to grips with recently acquired 1997 Milltronics VKM4 with a Centurion 1 controller. Most of my programs have been small enough to run with the tiny memory on this old machine but I now have cause to run a more complex contoured part. I initially started off down the RS232 road but my research on this forum (as a guest) pointed me in the direction of DNC from the floppy emulator which is adequate for my program at 300kb. The problem is that the feed rate is very slow and erratic in this mode.
I am programming in Autodesk Inventor HSM which calculates my run time at just over 18mins. Actual run time on the mill is 32mins. The sluggishness involves the feeds stopping momentarily leaving witness marks on the part.

I know that this is down to the processing power, or lack of, because I am seeing it in verify mode as well.


So my question is this: Do I need to resign myself to this as being the limitations of the Centurion 1, or can I optimise any of the controller settings to improve the situation?

Thanks in advance.

[ZZZZ]

Try loading your program into the RAM drive, and DNC it from there. Use DNC Fast if you have that option.

[Celtic1888]

ZZZZ, thank you for the reply. It will be tomorrow morning before I am back in front of my machine but I do not think I will be able to load my program (300+kb) on to the RAM. I had a couple of tiny programs in the memory when I took the screen shot below. Memory Avail : 143kb, Parts Storage: 197kb.

I do have the 'Fast' option on my controller and used it from the floppy emulator with no luck. I still got that erratic feed rate and feed stops.

I may have to attempt the flash memory upgrades that I have read about elsewhere on the forum but want to get the most out of the system as built before I commit to that. In the past I have just about managed to throw a couple of PCs together. But I would really need to think hard about going into the guts of a machine that I earn a crust from. Definitely not my area of expertise especially when working with an old PC based system with solid state virtual drives.

Curious thing though, I see from this screen that I may have a Centurion 6 controller instead of the Centurion 1 specified by the badge on top of my LCD screen bezel (badge is out of shot).

[sportybob]

Hi Celtic, loading the program to "RAM" is a different way to load programs. It used the "RAM drive" portion of the mother board RAM", Not the "program parts "storage. The program would be loaded to this RAM drive, and then you can DNC from the ram.
DNC from a floppy / floppy emulator has the limitations of the floppy read write time. " SLOW" that is why you get the "dwell" marks. And that is why Milltronics came up with the RAM drive to DNC from.



Sportybob

[Celtic1888]

Bob, thanks for the additional info. I will spend some time tomorrow working with that function. I know that you and ZZZZ have a great deal of experience with Centurion controllers, can you tell me how much space there is in the RAM?

[Celtic1888]

Success.
Loading to the RAM and running in Fast DNC worked great.

Thanks to ZZZZ and sportybob for their advice. Much appreciated.