[Strange179]

There's a local machine shop that I've become familiar with and they have an old Hurco CNC-MB-1 that they're not doing anything with. They tell me that no one in the shop knows anything about the machine's operation. The machine is all wired up to 440/480 and it has air supplied to it. The controller is an MB-1.

What I'd like to do for them is be able to tell them what can be done with the machine and if it's still usable. The controller has a micro-cassette drive on it but no one knows anything about what needs to be done with it to make it run programs. Can this machine be hooked up to an RS232 port for transferring data to/from a PC? What the heck is the tape drive used for and what tapes does it take? (the one that's in there is pretty hashed) Does this machine know how to interpret "standard" g-code or is it a Hurco specific language only? Where can I find user/operating manuals for this machine? (preferably free) I'm sure I'll have more questions as time progresses but that's what I've got for now.

Thanks in advance,
Justin

[Sticky Racing]

Hey Justin,
The old Hurco's can do alot. My partner and I picked up an SM1, which is the same control as yours, about a year ago. We have made several things with it, see the pic for an example.

OK, the tape cassette thingy is how the Hurco stores program files. Programs are written directly to the machine with an easy to learn (seriously easy) conversational code. The problem is, no one makes the tapes anymore. Well, maybe they can be found, but not easily. Most people switch over to a "tape emulator" which lets you store files on a computer instead of the tapes.
The Hurco will also do G-code, through the round rs232 ports on the back of the machine. The 9-pin serial port is for the tape emulator and cannot be used for G-code. We just picked up cable and connectors we need to do this on our machine. I have been learning how to use CAM software also, because although the Hurco conversational programming is easy, it is a real pain for anything slightly complicated. Not to mention very time consuming compared to the CAD/CAM/G-code route.
There are a couple of people that I know of that have the manuals in electronic format. If you go to www.practicalmachinist.com and search for "Hurco" in the cnc section, you will find more info and the posts that helped me, as well as the names of those with the manuals.
Also, here are a couple of websites that you will become intimate with if you pursue the Hurco to any extent:
www.cmcsystems.com
www.amtsinc.com
Hope this helps and post up if anything I said isn't clear or you have more questions. I was in the same boat when we first got our machine. I might not be a whole lot of help with g-code stuff yet, but soon I should be runnin with it.

-Ed

[Strange179]

Ed,
Thanks for your quick and informative reply. It's about 3am right now so I'll edit this and type more when I've got a bit more time but I wanted to at least say thanks.

Justin

[140jodel]

Hi Justin,
The tape drive was there to load the master file for the machine. If you want to load this Via the RS232 round plug on the machine via a pc then this is no problem. Contact Shane Martin ( www.martincnc.com) and ask him to supply you with an Eprom for this machine and also the master file for download.
You may not be able to use g code as I suspect this is a 001" machine and not BX control 0001".
I live in the UK and have had superb free advice from Shane ( EX CMC) to the extent of carrying out all our own repairs. Look at his website for contact tel no.
Enjoy the machine. best regards. Louis

[Strange179]

Most people switch over to a "tape emulator" which lets you store files on a computer instead of the tapes.
The Hurco will also do G-code, through the round rs232 ports on the back of the machine. The 9-pin serial port is for the tape emulator and cannot be used for G-code.

The tape drive was there to load the master file for the machine. If you want to load this Via the RS232 round plug on the machine via a pc then this is no problem.

You may not be able to use g code as I suspect this is a 001" machine and not BX control 0001".

I haven't had a ton of time to really get all over this machine as I'd like to but in the couple minutes I spent looking I couldn't find any ports that looked like you guys have described. There's certainly nothing on the controller box for ports. Where on the machine does one usually find these round serial ports? I have yet to contact Shane Martin about the machine mostly because I don't want to bother him if I can't afford to pay him for his services.

Also, How do I tell if I've got the .001" or .0001" BX type? The machine looks ancient. A couple of the guys in the shop thought it was from the 40's or 50's but the computer tech (as rudimentary as it looks) wasn't around then and from my research I believe it's from the early 80's.

It definitely looks like I've got a bunch of research to do before I'll be able to accomplish much towards getting this machine running. I'll have to check out the links that you guys have provided and see what else I can dig up as well.

Keep the thoughts coming and thanks
Justin

[Sticky Racing]

Justin,

Can you take some pics of the machine with a digital camera and post them up here? The ports should be pretty obvious. Especially the RS232, they are pretty big. So big that you might not think they are actually a port, and they also could have covers on them. My machine had only one of the covers still on it, but they are metal, and not something I would have thought would hook up to a computer if I didn't know.

The way to tell if you have a B or Bx control is to get it powered up and get the master program loaded. Once you do that and hit the operate button, you will see the coordinates displayed on the machine. You will either get three digits after the deciaml point, or four. This is in inch mode by the way, not metric. If you only get three, then you have a B, if it's four, then you have a Bx. But I am not sure that 140jodel's info is correct about not being able to run g-code with a B control. I use BobCAD to run g-code to my machine (Bx), but they also have a post processor for the KMB1, so don't give up until you know for sure.

If you can't get pics up I will put a few up for you, so you can see what things should look like. Also, CMC makes anything you would want to upgrade your machine anyway, so no matter what, you can get that thing going. You can get a tape emulator if the machine doesn't have one, that way you dont have to use that tape drive. I will take a pic of my emulator and you can see if your machine has one too, again if it doesn't you can get one.

[Strange179]

Long post warning......you've been warned.

Thanks for the ideas Ed. btw, I used you as a referrer when I signed up on practicalmachinist.com. I was only up until about 3am last night doing research on this machine. The thing just fascinates me.

I got quite lucky on the Hurco today. I talked to the owners a bit and they were able to give me a couple things that I think are very useful. The first thing they gave me was the info that the machine could only be programmed to .001" so that tells me it must be a B model controller. The next thing they gave me just totally amazed me. They dug in a drawer and came up with not one, but two full copies of the operator manual. Both copies have all the chapters. They've owned the machine for 12-13 years and it was operational until not long ago when they moved to a larger facility about a mile from where they were.

One of the owners said he was quite interested in getting the machine operational. The other, who knows more about the machine side of things, said the ways were tight, the motors quiet, and there was little to no backlash in the machine. I was incorrect in my original thinking that no one in the shop knew how to do anything with the machine. The guy who used to run the machine said it used to do just fine but near the end it was having a hard time reliably reading the master from the tape, big surprise.

I searched all over the machine and didn't find any military or other sort of round connectors, covered or otherwise. I don't know if it has them at all. The machine does have a 13-place tool changer. The hour meter reads 40,xxx hours. I'll try and get some pics tomorrow.

I have yet to power up the machine and before I even attempt it I'm going to thoroughly clean the tape drive with alcohol and try to make sure the tape is as good and clean as I can get it.

I read a ton of stuff last night and I don't remember it all. The owner wants the machine to be operational and that will at the least require a tape emulator. I'll check around the various sites people have pointed me to in order to find one. If anyone has a least cost or best recommended way of doing that I'd be pleased to hear it. IIRC the master file only needs to be loaded at boot time and as long as it doesn't get turned off it should just keep running. Best case scenario would be to not need to have a dedicated DOS based PC to load the master. The shop already has serial lines run from their programming room to their other eight CNC capable machines and I'd like to just add another line to the setup. That way I could load the master file to the machine from one of their existing PC's. I'd settle for proof of concept boot from a DOS PC if it was much more expensive to go the other route. That way they could be sure the machine was working well enough to justify the further expense of the setup I described.

I believe the machine would be more useful to the shop if it were able to be programmed to .0001" and might propose that to them as an upgrade after getting it running. What's involved with getting it to do this? I assume it would be a complete controller retrofit/upgrade of some sort and I'm guessing there's probably different options for how to do it. I know, I know...talk to Shane, but I'd rather find out on my own if I can.

Ok, enough babbling,
Justin

[Strange179]

drat....
Just a quick update. I cleaned out the tape drive and tape as best I could yesterday in an attempt to power on the machine and see what it would do. The answer is: darn near nothing. I put air to the machine and switched on the main and nothing happened. I got no CRT and no fans. On further inspection I found that the external 480V step up transformer was humming with life as was the step down transformer on the side of the machine. I opened up the rear cabinet which houses the control card cage and the DC power supply, etc. and found two cards with two red LED's each lit up when power was applied. The manual says that I should check fuses 1, 2, 3, and 5 and the 115v transformer. I'll see if I can find my DVOM and give it a poke around and see what I find.

I did get a bunch of pics taken but they're on a cmera owned by a friend/employee of the co. I'll post them when I can.

Justin

[scott0031]

Hi Justin,

Just to give you the benefit of my experience of the early hurco. I can relate very much to what you are saying and there are some big inherent problems with them at this age of control.

They are notoriously bad if they have been left standing for any period of time especially if in a cold and damp environment. It was common you would have to power them up several times to get any action out of the machine to get it to load the master. Those machines need to be left powered up 24/7. If they are not, and left to get cold and damp you will have a hand full of problems, which will most likely prove very expensive to put right. (i learnt this the hard way) Even with a tape emulator they are still a hand full of trouble

One main problem is the age of this machine and yes they are from the early 80s. what happens is the components on the boards break down with age and give no end of trouble, as soon as you fix one problem with a very expensive board then no sooner do you have another problem. In the case of England a board was typically £700 a shot and even then they were repaired boards and not new replacements.

The bottom line of this was for me personally it was so expensive to keep running and getting it to boot up. Even if it was left on nearly 9 times out of ten i would go back to the works to find the thing had shut down over the weekend and then all the normal problems of trying to get it to boot again as it had got cold and damp. It was pretty much a very expensive learning curve. In the end due to it being so unreliable i had it retrofitted with an anilam 3000 series control full three axis control. Although anilam have some very weird programing ideas it did the job and made the machine usable again.


Now in the defence of the hurco i will say the reason why i retrofitted the machine as apposed to buying another good second hand machine was the carcase of those models of hurcos are Spanish(and not american) They are very very good machine carcases accurate and well built. Also in its defence the actual control of those models is excellent (when working of course) easy to program line to line is as easy as you can get canned cycles loop and repeats so easy to program and nested many times. This is what i loved about the hurco was it ease to use. which is something i can not say about the retrofit i had done IE the anilam! If i could afford a modern hurco in the current uk manufacturing climate( which is dead) i would not hesitation at all buying one as they are in my view very simply one of the best out there for ease of use with conversational control.

To sum this up the version of hurco it seems you are looking at has this small tool changer on it, with this in mind it is most likely a machine with a speed controlled head also. If this is the case beware! if it goes wrong which it may at that age it will cost you a small fortune to put right. They also did a model with a manualy controlled head, which i have for the reason that if it goes wrong its cheap and easy to repair and you can do it yourself! A big advantage!

If i were you although i totally love the hurcos from that age i would avoid it like the plague. You will have nothing but trouble and a lot of expense! The amount you will end up spending to keep it running will be a lot better spent on a newer machine, where control parts are more readily available and a lot cheaper than the hurcos! In the end hurco uk stopped offering any support for these machine controls. so this totally null and voided the machine as usable machine tool with the original control.

This is just my experience. I hope it helps you make a decision. Please remember this is my experience only and i cant speak for the situation in the USA with spares and prices etc


Kind regards,

Scott

[Strange179]

OK, I had a chance to probe the machine for voltages. I found some interesting readings and eventually, after a few on/off cycles of the step-up transformer it seems to have stopped working. I have 3-phase voltage going in to the transformer at 115v for each leg to ground. I should have about 230 for each leg on the output side of it going into the main disconnect of the Hurco. At first I measured about 300V on one leg, 90v on another and about 230v on the third.

From what I can gather by looking at the system, the very first place the input power goes after the disconnect switch and the main fuses is into a 460V to 230V step-down transformer. Why in the heck would I step up perfectly good 230V, 3-phase power to 460V only to step it immediately down to 230 again? The only reason I can see would be so that there wasn't as much amperage flowing through the main switch and fuses.

Can someone please tell me if I can run this machine off of the 230V 3Ph power coming in and if so how would I best go about this? I'm decent with schematics and I'm not afraid to change the wiring.

I'm not trying to run it on single phase power, which I've seen people do with various phase converters. I just want to get it going and try to boot it.

Thanks in advance,
Justin

[Strange179]

This is just my experience. I hope it helps you make a decision. Please remember this is my experience only and i cant speak for the situation in the USA with spares and prices etc

Thanks for your input Scott. The machine is kind of the pet project of one of the owners of the business and he's asked me to get him a cost on getting it production ready. The guys in the shop who know it say it would be good for some of the one-offs they do a lot of. I'll see how bad it is off and then present the information to him with a recommendation. My thought is that if I can get it powered up it will probably be mostly OK as it sits. It's in a good environment temp wise (heated 24/7) and I hope that will help it.

Justin

[Sticky Racing]

Sorry Justin,
I can't help you at all with the electrical stuff. We are running ours off of a phase converter. We traded an electrician some work for the wiring job, and I wasn't even there when it was wired up. Fortunately for us, we didn't have any issues except for a mechanical issue that was easily found and fixed. Good Luck

[Strange179]

I'm not going to post all my pictures on the board because they're all really big and it's easier for me to just host them on my own server. Here's the link http://jdm.hopto.org/hurco/gallery.html

Voltage issues update:
I think my DVOM is NFG. Or at least it doesn't work for AC measurement. I couldn't get a reliable reading at all yesterday. I did find that the fuses in the disconnect switch for the step-up transformer were bad. I think that at least one of them was bad before and now they're all bad. I'm going to replace them and see what happens at that point. All the fuses I tested inside the Hurco's panels seem to be good.

In reading the schematics I believe I'm right in thinking this MB-1 can somehow be wired directly to the 230V lines. The schematics do indeed show the incoming power going through the disconnect, the fuses and then directly through T3, a voltage reducing transformer that steps down the voltage to 230V. I believe that T3 has been replaced at some point in the machine's life and I'm not sure if the current transformer (a Square D model) will be able to be wired in a way that will allow me to run 230V through it. I may have to bypass it completely.

Justin

[Strange179]

I got the machine a little closer to running today. I did as I figured I could and bypassed the step-up and step-down transformers and supplied the 230V directly to the machine. The Z axis is now working as it should. The CRT still won't display correctly and it seems I've got some sort of tach signal issue. it was spinning and I turned the knob for speed override, it sped up and then said No RPM on the screen. Now it seems that whenever I try to activate the spindle it moves less than a full rotation and gives me the same error. The tool changer also threw errors 64 and eighty something when I tried to change a tool.

I wish I had an oscilloscope and I wish I had a fully working DVOM. I've gotta sort out that CRT issue. Once I get the machine in working order then I can look at upgrading things.

Justin

[Mike Stevenson]

I have experience with the machine you speak of. The control did not have round DIN conectors in the back. WE were able to load the master by means of an rs-232 adapter board that plugged into the card cage behind the service door in the back. The machine will ONLY program using the Hurco conversational method. G-code is not an option. Take my advice and forget about this boat anchor. They are obsolete and more trouble than they are worth.

[thebodger@roger]

I have about 20 years experience as a seviceman on these MB1 machines. They have their positive and negative issues, too many to list. As for as running them on 220 volt single phase, it is possible, EXCEPT the spindle drive, which needs 3 phase. And that 3 phase chopper for the spindle motor is long obsolete, and never really worked well.

[Strange179]

I have about 20 years experience as a seviceman on these MB1 machines. They have their positive and negative issues, too many to list. As for as running them on 220 volt single phase, it is possible, EXCEPT the spindle drive, which needs 3 phase. And that 3 phase chopper for the spindle motor is long obsolete, and never really worked well.

I'm not trying to run the machine on single phase. I have actual 230V, 3 phase power available and now wired to the machine. I bypassed the external step up and side mounted step down transformers and wired it direct to the 230 supply. You do, however, make me wonder if the polarity of the three phases might make a difference. I don't believe they do but I could be wrong as my 3 phase experience isn't as extensive as my single phase experience.

I'm not sure what you mean about a 3 phase chopper. Are you referring to the parajust spindle speed control?

I haven't had much time to work on the machine in the past month or so but the project is still active. Any information is greatly appreciated.

Justin

[thebodger@roger]

Yes I was refering to the parajust spindle control, needing 3 phase 220 volt. As far a polarity is concerned, it would only matter if this mill has a coolant pump, in which case if the polarity was wrong the pump would run backwards. Simply reverse any 2 leads on the incoming 3 phase supply will cause the motor to rotate in the proper direction.

[Strange179]

Yes I was refering to the parajust spindle control, needing 3 phase 220 volt. As far a polarity is concerned, it would only matter if this mill has a coolant pump, in which case if the polarity was wrong the pump would run backwards. Simply reverse any 2 leads on the incoming 3 phase supply will cause the motor to rotate in the proper direction.

Thanks for the quick reply. The 3 phase coolant pump seems to be long gone and has been replaced by a small 120v model.

So, from what you say it seems that I shouldn't be having any problems due to the simple 230v 3 phase hookup. I was concerned about that a little bit.

Do you have any idea what might be causing the spindle problem I seem to have developed? It starts to rotate but moves only a partial rotation and stops with an error on the display. I think the error was "no rotation" but I'm not sure at this point since I'm not in front of the machine.

Thanks,
Justin

[thebodger@roger]

Can you start the spindle manually? To do this press the "enter" button, then "operate" then spindle "on" then "start". Press the "start" button rapidly several times to ensure that all the relays latch. If you still get the "no RPM" error then it can be several things, Usually it's a bad contact in one of the relays in the cabinet where the servo drives are, or there are 2 or 3 small relays at the bottom of the parajust drive. I can't recall off hand what the relay is call for spindle start, I'll need to look it up , and get back to you on that.