Thread: What will a Cincinnati Arrow need to run?

I am looking into a couple of different Arrows. They have both been moved from their original premises. I will not buy until I see them run. What do they need to see in order to run. Electricity obviously. Will they do anything without air? Without a full coolant tank? Without tool holders?

Basically I would want to see them power up, home the axis, rapid the axis, run the spindle up to top speed, and change tools. Seems like that covers the expensive stuff. These machines are supposed to be good, but I don't want to have to discuss that after they have been moved a few thousand miles.

If it is an arrow with an A2100 then electrons and air is all you need to move it around and the basic knowledge of how to run the A2100 control.

While I like the arrow machines with the A2100 I would be hard pressed to buy one. The control is just getting too old and parts are just to much money.

Yeah, A2100.

I am finding that for a recent one (2000 or so) the asking price is near what a similar vintage Haas goes for ($20 - 25K). While I am learning the A2100 control is a better human interface than the Haas, I gather you would opt for the Haas, based on serviceability?

Choices, choices....

Physically, the Arrow is twice the machine as a Haas.
Even my little 20" machine has huge linear bearings, by Haas standards.

2100s are praised as the best control ever made, for operation, but they have hard drive issues. If i bought one the first thing i would do to it would be to back up the drive and convert it to a solid state deal. I remember quite a few threads about the hard drives here.

hardest part will be finding someone smart enough to properly demonstrate it. The 2100 started production in 1995 and in 1998 they were on serial numbers in the 4100's. I would doubt they ever made it over 10,000 controls. there are some differances. They are mostly fanuc like except for tool offset loading ( d's, o's and H's in fanuc/ haas are all mixed up in the 2100). Its very powerful if you have time to learn it, but can be maintenance intensive. I know I work on 2100's 3:1 over my fanucs....but the fanuc's don't access network drives for programs. For contouring they are very nice. If you can generate the program you can run it. Easiest pc based dnc I have encountered.

For an onsite demo you need:
1. 230vac 3 phase minimum 50kva, 100 kva recomended
2. 90 psi shop air, 10 scfm
3. if its an arrow 2( higher rapid speeds ) they say you can slide them across the floor on reversals if not tied down.
4. I have never had issues with the large frame machines at 900 ipm moving when only gravity holds them to the floor

I'm not looking to actually run a program, just run the axis, tool changer, and spindle. Have thumbed through the manual - is it that difficult to get powered up, homed and jogging? I assume the tool changer will not cycle unless I have a couple of holders with pull studs?

I suppose I could find a technician in the area to come give it a run.

The alternative to the Cinny are grim. Really I am looking for that elusive Bridgeport with the HH control, but very few of them are in the US. Then there are the ubiquitous Haas and Fadal machines.

Originally Posted by Mud

2100s are praised as the best control ever made, for operation, but they have hard drive issues. If i bought one the first thing i would do to it would be to back up the drive and convert it to a solid state deal. I remember quite a few threads about the hard drives here.

Also they have a tendency to have corrosion at board connection issues and sometimes need reseating and/or Stabilant application. Great control but you may need to take a book to read or darn some socks, while waiting for it to boot up

Yeah, read about those problems. As you know, I am not a big believer in Stabilant, but this might be the perfect test case!

On an Arrow, I understand that the things like the drives and controls are expensive replacement items. What about things like the linear bearings, thrust bearings, ball screws, spindle bearings? Ordinary stuff, or special gold plated?

The hard parts like bearings and ballscrews are reasonable from MAG. I can get precision bearings from them cheaper than from bearings distributors even with a deep discount. Bought ballscrews for my Cinturn from MAG, I remember the X axis being $1800.

How long does the 2100 take to boot up? I have an 850 and an 850SX and they also take forever to boot, seems to be all the error checking. I push the on button and walk away for a while.

About 2-3 minutes to boot up an A2100.

Bootup sequence:
1. main power on
2. air on
3. check oil mist spindle lube level if equipped, back of column
4. press green rectangular button over the top of the estop on the touchscreen rotating panel
5. screen should show signs of life, general windows NT bootup stuff
6. after the momentary blue screen ( normal for NT ), you should see a banner of either Vickers or Siemens, then some other stuff, then along the bottom of the screen loading xx of xx
7. after it gets done loading, press the green button again( if an axis takes off you have to mess with encoder settings and try again). To get the machine off an overtravel you have to hold the power on and jog the axis with the pendent
once powered up its all in the pendent.
8. Press the white align button.
9. you may have to hit the sideways arrows on the soft keys to see axes align, press and hold the axes align sioft key, z goes up, y back, x right. in that order
10. spindle aligns after all the axes, and you have to tell it what tool holder poscket its at by aligning the mechanism.
after that you are under power and soft limits, you can move the table all around, do mdi moves, etc.
11. if you expect a dealer to have the right retention knob you are asking alot..... if its the shop that ran it they should have some holders for a toolchange.
12. g0, g1,g2,g3 are all standard. work offsets are H's instead of g54,g55 etc.
D's and o's are backwards to fanuc

Not hard to power up and run, if you have the operators manual it tells you how to do this stuff, the programming manual is where the intircacies of the differences in programming are, but thats a boatload fo reading to see a machine you have not bought yet.

Originally Posted by WILLEO6709

Not hard to power up and run, if you have the operators manual it tells you how to do this stuff, the programming manual is where the intircacies of the differences in programming are, but thats a boatload fo reading to see a machine you have not bought yet.

Wille,
Thanks for all that! Since the machine is in the dealer's warehouse, I doubt there are going to be any tool holders handy with the right pull studs. If no tools in the carousel, and I do an MDI or manual tool change, will anything happen? Maybe it tries to grab a tool and then errors? At least I could see and hear the changer run. Or does it not detect an empty spindle?

Believe it or not, I found an Arrow A2100 rev 3 manual on line and read it (maybe not studied it...) as well as the Haas manual, the Anilam 6000 manual, and the Fadal manual. I read all the Fanuc manuals available on line (zero...). From this, I came to the conclusion (a personal point of view, I admit) that Heidenhain from about 1990 might just be ahead of where these folks are now. But the A2100 isn't bad, and does seem to have some unique capabilities. The machine I am most interested in was updated a few years ago to Rev 3 and NT4.0 SP6. Supposedly this means cloning drives can be done from Windows XP. Also can be updated to Rev 4, which can be optioned to simulate cutting in 3D solid, a feature I kind of like.

Yes, if you do a toolchange without a tool being present an alarm will be generated. There is a proximity sensor on the top of the drawbar to sense when it is in the partially up position (as in a tool is present) as well as in the full up position (no tool present).

You can still manually move the toolchanger around, drive it under the spindle and turn the carousel to make sure it functions. If that all works, then it should be okay - and if not it's not a big deal to fix anything that might go wrong with the it.

Honestly, the toolchanger and any minor problems there are the least of your worries! Make sure you pull back the way covers, look at the X and Y axis motors closely (they corrode! they aren't anodized on some machines!), if it has glass scales make sure all is well there! Also take a close look at the I/O board, I've seen many of them burn a trace on the board (I've ran a jumper on 2 traces on my Arrow). Etc., etc., etc.......

They are maintenance intensive!

Hmm... high maintenance in a wife or a mill is not generally good.

Are the way covers just spring loaded so you can pull them back, or are tools involved? I think all these machines have linear glass scales X and Y? Seems like one of the advantages of the machine. Are they Heidenhain or someone else? The axis motors - who made 'em?

I'm doubting a dealer will let me pull the boards and look. Are there schematics available for the machine specific boards anywhere?

don't clone the drives with anything newer than NT 4.0, preferably an older dos based version of Norton ghost. you can mess up the master if you clone it in xp

Originally Posted by WILLEO6709

don't clone the drives with anything newer than NT 4.0, preferably an older dos based version of Norton ghost. you can mess up the master if you clone it in xp

Well I would probably try to take your advice out of fear. However the tech note from Seimens says:

If an A2100 hard drive loaded with NT3.51 or NT4.0 (SP3 or earlier) is connected to a WinXP or Win2000 system for backup purposes, the down- level Windows NT version will be updated. When the drive is re-installed in the control, a ‘blue screen’ displaying a stop code with 'inaccessible boot device’ in the screen text will result.
Drives loaded with NT4.0 Service Pack 4 or later are not affected.

Not sure I would want to be the one to test it, but that seems like a good reason to want SP 4 or later.

If I go look at this machine, what do I need to take to get the way covers pulled back? Hopefully something that can be carried aboard....

do what you want on cloning, but ghost works....

to get the way covers back it will either be a set of metric allen wrenches or 10mm end wrench required. the bolt sizes are different depending on machine size and cover. Most of the x's are the 10mm hex head 6mm x 1.0 bolt, the y's depends on the machine size and cover type.