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Magnaturn 612

slowride

Plastic
Joined
Feb 9, 2007
Location
Bristol, TN
Any one know where I coud find a control for a Southbend Magnaturn 612? I bought it at an auction real cheap and would like to see her run.
 
What exactly are you looking for? The MagnaTurn 612 was not a machine that was produced in great quantity. There is a guy that lives in South Bend that knows the machine very well and, I believe, has spare parts. Fundamentally, however, I believe the "control" is a PC. There is definitely a fairly simple ISA-based interface card that one installs in a PC.

My comments are based on my looking at a 612 owned by a gentleman I know. He has all of the parts, etc, that go to the machine and I was going to help him get it up and running. That was awhile ago and (note to self) I need to call him and finish that task up.

If you don't have the board and cannot buy it from the gentleman in South Bend, you will need to retrofit the machine with something like Mach2. IIRC, it has stepper motors on it so it should not be that much of a challenge to get it running. The machine I looked at was pretty nice. I think the problem South Bend had is that they wanted a huge chunk of change for the lathe, so much so that customers elected to just buy a larger lathe.

Alan

P.S. Try calling South Bend... They may give you this mythical guy's name. If you cannot get it from them, I can probably follow up with my contact. As I said, I need to follow up with him anyhow! You are free to email me at: emco (then a '.' character) cnc (then an '@' character) gmail (then another '.' character) com
 
I have the complete lathe with all the internal boards but no external interface, no minitor or keyboard. From what little I have been able to find out so far it is a PC based control.
The only cable hook up I can find on the outside is a co-axial 1/4 turn twist lock, no serial ports or familiar looking ports of any other kind.I have contacted Southbend but they were of little help.
 
I don't recall exactly what the cables look like, etc, but I think you may have misunderstood me... The board I was referring to is one that goes into a PC (ISA is an older style bus found in the XT generation of IBM PC). So it sounds like you are missing that... This is no great wonder. The guys that setup auctions are notoriously poor at keeping tooling with machines or computers that *should* be dedicated to a specific machine *with* that machine. Instead it seems like they disconnect everything that looks like it is a computer and put it in a pile with all other computers! GRRRR

So, you need the board that plugs into the PC (which has a connector to which you connect the Magnaturn) and also software to load onto the PC. This all might be a bit of a challenge... Give me a little while and I'll see what I can drum up. Most likely you'll have to contact me after the 1st of July though. I am going to be incommunicado for awhile up in the country north of us. :D

Alan
 
Thanks, I appreciate any help I can get on this. I will send you an e-mail and then you can contact me that way with any info.
THANKS AGAIN!
 
I have one these lathes. (Alan - I would be greatly interested in knowing your contact name for parts)

As Alan said, you need the proprietary Southbend I/O board that goes in the PC.
That's what your coax plugs into. The PC controls the lathe.

The lathe OS is DOS based and is written for EGA graphics, so you need to step back in time a bit. I can send copies of my files. (books are still available from Leblond)
Takes standard G-code.

These lathes are kinda slow (approx 50 IPM rapids).
But they are neat:

Constant surface speed
Threading (if the spindle encoder still works)
8 pos. tool turret
External coolant control
Air chuck (optional)
1.5 hp spindle

Look in the back, there are very few Asian sourced components.

Bob
 
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I have a spare interface board. (Thanks Alan for the email. I've been busy, havn't forgotten your offer.) Regarding the board, contact me, I also have the boot software but need Alan's help to sort it out.
 
Thanks guys for the info!

Any help with this project is greatly appreciated. Another source advised me to check with Mach 3 software to control my little lathe and I am looking into that.

Bob,
Any files you could copy and send would be great, also do you have a website or contact info for the books?

I will PM you both with my contact info.

Thanks again,
Randy
 
Good Luck, I had a pair of 1218 Magnaturns I sent to the scrap yard 4 years ago.
They didn't have ball screws or stepper motors, they positioned everything using hydraulics.
They were a complete nightmare, the longest any one of them ran was a few weeks in a row,
I hope the 612's are different.
 
Info on manuals from my invoice dated 12/07:

p/n SBCNC612 - parts schematics - $41.00

www.leblondusa.com

ph. 513-943-0099


My little 612 has ballscrews and odd 5 phase steppers with encoder feedback.
Actually a pretty good running little machine.
Just can't take much more than .030" in anything but plastic.
I read somewhere that it was SBL's first product designed after becoming the first U.S. based, employee-owned company.

Bob
 
The 612 is a completely different beast from the 1218. So the problems you had, Dualkit, are fortunately not translated to the 612.

slow... Mach is definitely an option you can go to, but you will probably need to do a fair amount of rework on the machine, as in removing/replacing circuit boards. I say this generically and without specific knowledge of the 612. The basis for the comment is how I assume the machine works, however.... My guess is that to say the PC controls the machine is probably only halfway true. It probably controls the sequencing of commands, etc, but I'd be willing to be that it then sends a generic (almost G-code -ish) command to the control. PCs of the generation that were available at the time the machine was produced were just not that powerful. Hmmm, as I'm saying this I am thinking, however, that the PCs were *not* running Windows and that affects a lot of things... Nonetheless, I'm willing to bet that the PC sends a command to the machine and the machine executes the command... So, if you want to convert to Mach3, you would need to remove that interpreter portion. Mach3 does all of that; it wants/needs to talk directly to the motor drivers, limit switches, etc.

A conversion is definitely possible and may even be desireable. But I think it is premature to say it should be done right now.

So, now I have a request..... Can you please post some pictures of your machine? I'm a techno-geek and I like seeing what people have! :D

Alan
 
Bob... 5 phase steppers are actually not all that uncommon. I know of a few other lines that also used them. Although you will find unipolar or bipolar four phase motors more often, I think, the five phase are definitely olut there.

Alan
 
I have one , I pitched the old controls, and steppers ,
and put a 3 phase motor, vfd on the spindle and put servos on it, and run mach 3 .

A lot of work for a little machine.

this a picture of an identical machine that was on ebay, i have too much junk infront of mine to get a clear picture.
mine looks a bit differant now with larger servos, ect on it.
i do have the old manual somewhere .

i need to do something about the "magnaturn label, it is a little too gay.....
southbendcnc.jpg
 
We had a MagnaTurn many years ago. Don't remember the model. Didn't have it long. 25 SFM was the maximum for threading. Imagine threading a 1/4-20 UNC-2A at S500. Probably why we didn't have it long. Plus it was the odd man out as far as the control was concerned.

It did hold size fine though. Like everything else, the control had its good and bad points.
 
Looks like a cool little machine, I hope the devil doesn't lurk inside! Seeing those rainbow colors on it will probably give me nightmares, mine had the same color scheme. I PAID $660 to have my 2 1218s hauled away, My original reason for joining PM was trying to find someone to take them for free!
This thread has brought back memories!
 
All vestiges of circa 1985 electrickery have been excorcised,the 612 is a ballscrew machine, as opposed to hydraulic.

the only problem i can forsee is that the ballscrews will prove to be undersized under the increased abuse from more power full sevos.
 
That rainbow is only matched by the purple Maho mills that were produced in the same timeframe! What were they thinking!?!?!?

Slow... That looks like a nice machine you got there, and it sounds like you got it for a song. Congratulations.... I'm surprised that it has the 'serviced by BPort' tag on it. I don't know exactly when BPort took over, but I thought that the 612 had long died before that happened. Or perhaps I am getting confused by when Hardinge Bros. took over BPort... :(

As for pitching the motors... I see no specific reason why one would do that. Although you cannot use Gecko drives, there are plenty of other stepper drivers that will work with 5 phase motors. Vexta and/or Oriental Electric make them, for instance. I think I'd opt for that route before dumping the motors. But that is just me. Mach2 should be able to handle either (I think).
 








 
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