Well my Hakko FR-301 showed up today, just in time as I'm rebuilding a bunch of Fanuc drives and power supplies for a client. I know I said this earlier but now that I've actually used it I need to say it again:
If you are doing any board work just buy one of these desoldering guns. It is worth every cent I was charged for it and I absolutely love it. I'm looking forward to finishing rebuilding all Maho Sr's boards with this unit. It makes the work a pleasure, really.
Using my large-ish ultrasonic for cleaning IGBT heatsinks on the Fanuc drives also must be the best way to do it, I use "Simple green HD" in the U/S and although it isn't cheap it works amazing on aluminum and I highly recommend it too. Denatured alcohol works awesome too for certain things but also poses a serious fire hazard so I try to keep it's use at a minimum.
I don't have much to show in the way of progress on either the MC800H or the SL-6B as I've been putting out fires for some other shops with broken down machinery. I've pulled all the power supplies from the Mori to go through them, everything in the NC cabinet has more corrosion on it than I've ever seen on a Fanuc... time will tell how much needs to be swapped out.
Once all the electronic/electrical work is done on the Maho all that will be left will be finishing the ATC and APC assembly, getting the lower Z/Y combo telescoping way cover repaired and upgraded as well as getting the X axis way cover parts that are missing remade. I have a few panels that could probably use some new paint too. Maybe I'll actually see it run this year!
In other news while I was ordering tons of electrical components for the Fanuc rebuild I decided to order the connectors I've been missing to be able to use my Siemens 802C control I purchased a little while ago, it looks identical to this:
I've been seriously contemplating putting this control on the Tree lathe (soon) now that I've proven everything else on it works fine. The 'ol Bosch control has some serious limitations that the Siemens would take care of as well as provide me some additional useful capabilities, like thread repair.
I would love to hear from anyone that has worked with the 802C, Siemens is unable to provide me with the necessary PLC software to setup the control due to it's age and they suggested I seek it elsewhere. For what I paid for this control (Brand new in box) you think it would have come with a CD with the necessary software. Besides that I think it will work well for the Tree lathe.
Interestingly the version of the 802C I have doesn't seem to support the additional panel that has feedrate and rapid override via rotary switch, I would also be interested to know if anyone used up some I/O to put them in anyway in a custom panel. The control does have overrides via buttons but I don't know if I would like that all too much. The Grundig/Heidenhain Millplus control has spindle overrides via buttons as does Fagor 8055 and I don't mind, I do prefer the Fanuc Spindle override via rotary switch, even the ancient Bosch CNC Alpha has rotary switches for feedrate and spindle overrides.
More to come as progress continues...