Deckel FP4A with Hurco control on CL

mTeryk · Jan 21, 2018

So in my web wanderings I came across this:

DECKEL CNC MILLING MACHINE FP4A - tools - by owner - sale

Came out of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. Didn't know that such a thing existed. We run some Hurco's at work and I kind of like the control. Looks like they have been discussed here a few times with the scarcity of replacement parts for the control being the major shortcoming. I don't have the space or time for it but find it intriguing.

Teryk

Danny VanVoorn · Jan 21, 2018

I don't know the difference between controls but the seller saying the 480 Volt not being compatible with his phase converter baffles me. Might be missing something but I would think anyone working with NC machinery would understand things like step up/step down transformers?
Dan

mTeryk · Jan 21, 2018

Danny VanVoorn said:
I don't know the difference between controls but the seller saying the 480 Volt not being compatible with his phase converter baffles me. Might be missing something but I would think anyone working with NC machinery would understand things like step up/step down transformers?
Dan

My guess is that he bought it and then realized what a rare bird it is and that parts availability made it problematic to own. Saying so in the ad, however, wouldn't really help with the sale so he used voltage incompatibility as the motivation for the sale. Could be wrong and I wouldn't call that dishonest if he did. The information is out there for anyone to find.

Teryk

Milacron · Jan 21, 2018

Nothing wrong with a Hurco control on a Hurco mill, but on a Deckel mill the servos and drives are so unique I wouldn't take that mill if you gave it to me for free and paid the shipping.

Colt45 · Jan 21, 2018

That machine looks fairly clean.
Have a friend with several Hurco-Deckels, he likes the control better than Dialog and they make very good, tight tolerance spec parts.
He has a few extra machines for spares and a guy on staff who knows how to keep them running and rebuild the boards as necessary.
Believe the Hurco-Deckels are relatively rare, maybe 100 or so known to exist in the USA.

DeckelDoctor worked for Deckel around the timeframe these were made and might have some insights to add.

sneebot · Jan 21, 2018

I had a FP2NC with a Dynapath Delta 20. It was a great simple control-- and had no problem with DNC, a big plus for machines with limited memory.

Andy St · Jan 21, 2018

What other controls were available? I know the the 3M is listed in the brochure for the FPNC mills. I seemed to remember reading that the 3M control was like a 10 thousand dollar option. What made that control more expensive drip feed, more memory more advanced CNC moves? Why was the Grundig the only one with hand controls?

Mud · Jan 21, 2018

That was my post that the 3M was a ~$13K option, I posted a 1984 price list somewhere here. I'm curious what the option cost to have a Dynapath or Hurco control installed - that would give an idea whether the big cost of a 3M was due to the control cost or just because it was a nonstandard deal

Andy St · Jan 21, 2018

Just looked at the add. What is the second screen for? can you program on one as the machines current program shows on the other one?
What are the differences in the NC and the A? NC more expensive and hand wheels but what else.

Milacron · Jan 21, 2018

Colt45 said:
That machine looks fairly clean.
Have a friend with several Hurco-Deckels, he likes the control better than Dialog and they make very good, tight tolerance spec parts.
He has a few extra machines for spares and a guy on staff who knows how to keep them running and rebuild the boards as necessary.
Believe the Hurco-Deckels are relatively rare, maybe 100 or so known to exist in the USA.

DeckelDoctor worked for Deckel around the timeframe these were made and might have some insights to add.

That's the deal with Dialog 11 controls as well...never ever own just one of them...you must have at least two D11 machines as it makes night and day difference for troubleshooting.

Andy St · Jan 21, 2018

Mud said:
That was my post that the 3M was a ~$13K option, I posted a 1984 price list somewhere here. I'm curious what the option cost to have a Dynapath or Hurco control installed - that would give an idea whether the big cost of a 3M was due to the control cost or just because it was a nonstandard deal

yes I guess i could see where a big company that already had X control on other machines would spend the extra money for no real gain. Just so all there machines could be run without added training.

mTeryk · Jan 21, 2018

Andy St said:
What made that control more expensive drip feed, more memory more advanced CNC moves? Why was the Grundig the only one with hand controls?

I know a guy who has the dialog 20 control on an FP2NC. Looking through the manual it has a bunch of 3D surfacing routines that can be programmed conversationally. In these days with good CAM software available, I can't say that I would be using any of them but back then I'm sure it was a different story. I would assume, though, that the control is a bit more powerful to support those routines as compared to my machine, for example, that cannot to helical moves.

SeaMoss · Jan 21, 2018

Milacron said:
Nothing wrong with a Hurco control on a Hurco mill, but on a Deckel mill the servos and drives are so unique I wouldn't take that mill if you gave it to me for free and paid the shipping.

Did you look at the photos ? Three grand for that ? I'd be on it like stink on poop ! People pay more than that for crappy like Toys-R-Us things. Looks very clean !

sneebot · Jan 21, 2018

I did both thread milling and surfacing on the FP2NC I owned. If I remember correctly the Dynapath Delta 20 has a faster processor than the Dialog controls.

Mud · Jan 21, 2018

FWIW the domestic Delta 20 came with 6 Mhz or 12 Mhz processors, max of 120K memory.

I think the 3M was touted to be faster than the Dialog, thus better for moldmaking, I thought it could have more memory, but DD said no.

Milacron · Jan 21, 2018

SeaMoss said:
Did you look at the photos ? Three grand for that ? I'd be on it like stink on poop ! People pay more than that for crappy like Toys-R-Us things. Looks very clean !

Yes...no matter how good it looks, it's market value is so close to zero I would not bother to own it.

SeaMoss · Jan 21, 2018

Milacron said:
Yes...no matter how good it looks, it's market value is so close to zero I would not bother to own it.

I believe you about market value. And yet they sell those crappy little home cnc's for twice that. And I do remember the ads for these, with the dual Hurco screen ... it's not a retrofit and Hurco is still around.

The situation makes me shake my head ... garage business, 40 for a Haas or 3 for this. Or people are happy to pay $4500 for a decent Bridgeport, but scared of this.

Strange

Dan from Oakland · Jan 22, 2018

Ya gotta be carefull with the early Ultimax controls, the 1st gen ones had some issues- AFAIK, Midwest CNC still supports these- the control- not the machine.

Milacron · Jan 23, 2018

SeaMoss said:
I believe you about market value. And yet they sell those crappy little home cnc's for twice that. And I do remember the ads for these, with the dual Hurco screen ... it's not a retrofit and Hurco is still around.

The situation makes me shake my head ... garage business, 40 for a Haas or 3 for this. Or people are happy to pay $4500 for a decent Bridgeport, but scared of this.

Strange

the main problem on Deckels with Hurco controls is the servos and drives..very odd stuff

Milacron · Jan 24, 2018

SeaMoss said:
I believe you about market value. And yet they sell those crappy little home cnc's for twice that. And I do remember the ads for these, with the dual Hurco screen ... it's not a retrofit and Hurco is still around.

The situation makes me shake my head ... garage business, 40 for a Haas or 3 for this. Or people are happy to pay $4500 for a decent Bridgeport, but scared of this.

Strange

i guarante you there is something wrong with the machine... the voltage issue is just his excuse to say he never ran it when one gets it all hooked up and finds out the drive or whatever is shot. Interesting he got the spindle tooling size completely wrong also.

Deckel FP4A with Hurco control on CL

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