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help with Harrison CNC lathe

Andy St

Stainless
Joined
Oct 9, 2005
Location
Pittsburgh, PA


I picked up a used Harrison Alpha 330T CNC / manual lathe recently. This machine is the Alpha only control not the dual control of the better models. I knew about this controls limitations but thought the condition, tooling, price, location and history outweighed any negatives. I have been searching for a machine of this type for some time.

The lathe has been disconnected from power for approximately 4 month's. I hooked it up temporarily to power last Friday to see if it would fire up and it did. At that time I left it powered up for a few hours but didn't do much else with it. I had some time this week and hooked it back up again to power (still don't have a permanent location). I made a few test cuts to familiarize myself with the manual mode. I have not tried to program it or run it in CNC mode yet.

I notice a few problems in manual mode that I would like some help with.

1 and most important

I do a cut and measure tool offset for the X say .6502. Then dial it in to .6402 and take the cut. When I measure it after the cut it reads .6302. It seems like it might be some radius / diameter setting?

2 Moving the chuck by hand (to position the chuck key or other) when not spinning produces a " ! "error and you have to shut the machine off and turn it all back on to reset?

3 Power meter bar graph is not working. Can this be switched off and on or is there a problem?

So far I have not fond any help in the manual but it is mostly about operating the lathe.

Seems like it will be a nice machine

Andy
 


I picked up a used Harrison Alpha 330T CNC / manual lathe recently. This machine is the Alpha only control not the dual control of the better models. I knew about this controls limitations but thought the condition, tooling, price, location and history outweighed any negatives. I have been searching for a machine of this type for some time.

The lathe has been disconnected from power for approximately 4 month's. I hooked it up temporarily to power last Friday to see if it would fire up and it did. At that time I left it powered up for a few hours but didn't do much else with it. I had some time this week and hooked it back up again to power (still don't have a permanent location). I made a few test cuts to familiarize myself with the manual mode. I have not tried to program it or run it in CNC mode yet.

I notice a few problems in manual mode that I would like some help with.

1 and most important

I do a cut and measure tool offset for the X say .6502. Then dial it in to .6402 and take the cut. When I measure it after the cut it reads .6302. It seems like it might be some radius / diameter setting?

2 Moving the chuck by hand (to position the chuck key or other) when not spinning produces a " ! "error and you have to shut the machine off and turn it all back on to reset?

3 Power meter bar graph is not working. Can this be switched off and on or is there a problem?

So far I have not fond any help in the manual but it is mostly about operating the lathe.

Seems like it will be a nice machine

Andy
Hi,
you need to open the chuck guard before rotating the chuck, then it won't produce an error
yes, the tip nose rad needs to be taken into account when setting tool offsets
All the best
 








 
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