colby
Aluminum
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2010
- Location
- San Francisco, CA
I'm sure some people here will think I'm crazy, but I'm looking into what it might take to update my older machine to a newer control system and display. The machine is working fine as-is but we would like be able to see more info on-screen at the same time like the current GUI, as well as have some GUI base probing options for less experienced users.
From what I can tell, if you go all the way to the newest controller boards (e.g. 93-32-4300E), it looks like the main, mocon, and video are all integrated on to one board. So then the only other board of significance would be the I/O PCB (93-0619F) that I would need to get in case mine is not compatible. Looking around, I can get the both of them used outside the US for $1800. The LCD retrofit would be cheap as I should be able to find something that matches the size of the current CRT opening and has the native resolution of the Haas 15" LCD.
The biggest unknown there for me is whether the newer software understands the older hardware in my machine (e.g. does it support the servos, encoders, spindle, tool changer, limit switch configuration from a 2001 machine). I don't have any knowledge about what parts have changed over the years and how much backwards compatibility there is in the HW/SW. I'm assuming that the firmware is mostly parametric, and so it would be possible to put in all of the right settings including the servo loop gains, encoder resolutions, etc.
Has anyone done this? I talked to someone at Haas and they said they had done it internally, but that they were not going to market or promote such retrofits.
From what I can tell, if you go all the way to the newest controller boards (e.g. 93-32-4300E), it looks like the main, mocon, and video are all integrated on to one board. So then the only other board of significance would be the I/O PCB (93-0619F) that I would need to get in case mine is not compatible. Looking around, I can get the both of them used outside the US for $1800. The LCD retrofit would be cheap as I should be able to find something that matches the size of the current CRT opening and has the native resolution of the Haas 15" LCD.
The biggest unknown there for me is whether the newer software understands the older hardware in my machine (e.g. does it support the servos, encoders, spindle, tool changer, limit switch configuration from a 2001 machine). I don't have any knowledge about what parts have changed over the years and how much backwards compatibility there is in the HW/SW. I'm assuming that the firmware is mostly parametric, and so it would be possible to put in all of the right settings including the servo loop gains, encoder resolutions, etc.
Has anyone done this? I talked to someone at Haas and they said they had done it internally, but that they were not going to market or promote such retrofits.
