hardinge hnc weight?

[danielwilcox]

I just bought a hardinge HNC cnc with a ge 550 controller for a song locally. It all works, and came with the optional cutoff slide. It's REALLY clean and looks like it wasnt used much at all. I make and sell my own product, so this is perfect for what i need to do. Can anyone tell me anything about this machine? It has all the books with it, but doesnt say much about uploading programs from an external source. Looks like it has an rs232 port on it, so i was hoping to upload my programs from mastercam. Is the cutoff slide an/or part chute worth anything if i were to sell them? I cant see myself ever using it, especially for my parts. Also, what does this thing weigh? I'm taking the controller seperately, so all i really need to know is the actual machine weight. I couldnt find it via search or in my books.
attached is a few pictures, sorry they're so small.
Thanks,
Dan

[danielwilcox]

well i did some digging and it looks like she weighs 2500lbs, but i dont know if that's with the controller or not. seems kinda light.
what do you guys think? I'm curious if a lift gate can handle it on a penske truck.

[sean9c]

Hi
I wouldn't think the lathe would be more than 3000# without the control.
I never had much luck with the part chute or part off. As I remember the retract speed on the part chute wasn't adjustable, it seemed often times it'd retract so fast it'd pull out from under the part.The part off is air over oil. I never thought it was very strong and the cutting pressure seemed to vary. I was happier after I removed both from the machines. Removing them also made visibility better and there were fewer things for chips to catch on.
I'd be curious if you can load programs from Mastercam. Doesn't it have to post process to whatever code format the control uses? If so i wonder if it'd have such an old format it its database. I had my machines so long ago we were still using paper tape. Though we did have whatever that brain box is on the front of your control that provided memory. That way you only ran the tape one time to store it in the memory and you could also edit. Wow, that was a big leap forward from having to run tape loops that ran for every part and no editing ability besides covering and repunching holes in the tape.
Good luck

[danielwilcox]

thanks! got it home and in one piece. i'm going to be setting it up today.

[danielwilcox]

my lathe seems to be an oddball. it has the standard 4 degree tapered spindle nose, when it's supposed to be the 2 3/16-10 thread for all hnc chuckers. Anyone know if it was an option to get the tapered spindle?
Also, i've been looking a ton and i cant find many cheap solutions or really any solutions for a chuck, faceplate, or preferably a step chuck closer with that taper. I dont want to go with a 5c mounted chuck, i want one to fit on the nose. Any ideas? Most search results i did turned up dead ebay links and i didnt see much on there. is there a technical name for the hardinge taper that might yield more search results?