Milltronics ML17: critical info for newbies?

Hello. We've just purchased an inexpensive used Milltronics ML17/40 with Centurian 6 controls which was in service with its owner. Note: Please... if you are going to chastise us for this purchase, save your time and mine, ok?

We have a lot of big manual machines in our shop which would cost a LOT to replace or retrofit with CNC. We mostly do simple short-run or repair work with modest tolerances. We wanted something simple, low cost, and basic so our people could get their feet wet with a CNC machine. None of them have much (if any) experience with CNC or computers. If it doesn't work out, we will simply sell the machine.

I anticipate the conversational programming will be our main focus, although I've pondered the modest investment in Kipware T as it might allow a consistent conversational programming interface to a variety of future machines. Lathe work is probably our primary focus for now as it's our biggest volume. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who's tried that approach!

The seller has offered to visit and give us some startup pointers, as he's only a few hours away. But I suspect a lot of out startup will be learning by trial and error.

I *think* the machine includes the full programming manuals. If not, we will surely buy them from Milltronics, but I understand they are not the greatest and we are starting from scratch with no knowledge of CNC setup (I did work for Centroid years ago and am an EE, so it's not like we are total idiots... this just isn't our area of experience).

I was wondering if any Milltronics users would briefly share their list of "most important" things we should know: Top Ten List of Dos/Don'ts? Common problems with the machine controls? Proven set-up procedure/tips for jobs? Example programs with drawings? Anything that could help me up the learning curve would be appreciated.

Thank you for your HELPFUL suggestions.

Never ran a Milltronics lathe but I have two of their mills and have been running Milltronics since the mid 90's
Once you grasp the conversational control it will be pretty easy and the learning curve is not to bad. I use pretty much all g-code though but can muddle my way through the conversational part. Just remember to get the operations in order, the sample manual has them screwed up, at least, the one I have does

Dave

G code

I don't have any qualms about trying G code, having spent years programming microprocessors in assembly language! But I think it's going to cause our machinists' eyes to glaze over quickly

I have to say I like Kipware's approach to conversational programming. It seems to encourage the programmer to think about and break down machining problems into a set of straightforward subtasks. The one big limitation I see to conversational directly on the machine (based on Milltronics and Centroid demo software) is that it's hard to see the big picture and "where you are" in a project. It appears to me that Kipware makes that a little easier.

Thanks for your comments. So far my conversations with Milltronics have been good. I hope that will continue!

I had a ML20 for a few years, it was an excellent machine and was a great first foray into CNC turning for us. We gave up early on the conversational so I can't help you much with that. We already had CAM so there wasn't much reason to use the conversational here. There is a desktop PC control emulator available from Milltronics so you can learn it and program it offline if you want to.

Emulator

Yes, I've been playing with the Milltronics demo (not sure if that's the same as the desktop programming software?) but haven't gotten too far without a programming manual.

I was really surprised that Milltronics couldn't offer a tutorial or walk through... hmm!

Just curious where you are located? I think there was someone I saw with Milltronics stuff in Lancaster county, but I've lost track of them.

We are not far from Altoona, if you know where that is.

That might have been me, I'm in Lancaster.

The programming software looks like the demo, but you can save full programs.

eeinpa said:

Yes, I've been playing with the Milltronics demo (not sure if that's the same as the desktop programming software?) but haven't gotten too far without a programming manual.

I was really surprised that Milltronics couldn't offer a tutorial or walk through... hmm!

Just curious where you are located? I think there was someone I saw with Milltronics stuff in Lancaster county, but I've lost track of them.

We are not far from Altoona, if you know where that is.

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Hey, ee - where are you? I live in Hollidaysburg!

I recently acquired a Milltronics mill about 4 or 5 months back now.... can't help much on the lathe aspect, but the control I have (Centurion V, one behind yours) is pretty simple to use. I grew up on Fanuc, Allen-Bradley and Fadal in the late 70's to late 80's, so am more comfortable with g-code than conversational.

I have muddled my way through conversational programs on the mill though, they are pretty self explanatory, although as Dave says, order is important, and it's not exactly intuitive (or at least it wasn't for me) as to what "event" has to come when. I did find a mill manual and it has a flow chart and complete explanation of the conversational side, that helps keep me in order.

I find for simpler stuff, but multiple tools, I resort to just typing the program in g-code, more complicated I resort to Sheetcam or something... but I do find the one off type of parts, the conversational comes in real handy... needed to mill off the side of an aluminum block leaving a flange along one edge... call up the pocketing routine, a couple of parameters for width, length, step over, depth of cut and feedrates and it generated a couple hundred lines of code to mill the pocket... could have done it in sheetcam, but the machine does it without all the hassle of drawing the part, exporting a dxf, generating the code and having to download that into the machine.

Granted, I'm just playing around in the home shop nowadays, but I am pretty satisfied with the control and ease of set up, I can see in a low quantity type situation where a guy would want to learn the conversational side real fast.

Hope not to hijack the OP's thread (but I'm at least making it pop back to the top ), but I just bought a 2008 CNC router with Milltronics 7200 control. Anyone know if the 7200 had any major leaps over the previous Centurian model with regards to conversational programming ? Or is it pretty much the same control but with a more modern look to the keyboard and panel ?

back to OP topic -

I've not used the centurion, but with other converstional (and for that matter any other programming) leaning to reliably set up tool lengths and work coordinate spaces is key.

so the first thing you want to get everybody reliably doing is making little programs that run several inches away from the vise or chuck, slowly.
once that program appears to be rational (or least doesn't crash) you can reset the wcs to the right place and cut a part.

so I'd focus on workspace coordinate settings (how many are there, how to you call them up, how do you confirm which and where it's zerod) above all else.

IIRC, when you save a conversational program, it saves both the conversational program and a Gcode program with the same names but different extensions. Because if this, you can modify the gcode and add things that you can't do with strictly conversational, but you get the benefit of the roughing operations and etc in the conversational.

if I remember right the 7200 is just a upgraded 7 with a few more bells and whistles. don't ask me what they are besides the ones you can see from the outside as it was over a year ago that i was at the factory tour and asked. they are realy nice to talk to on the phone.

bryan_machine said:

back to OP topic -

I've not used the centurion, but with other converstional (and for that matter any other programming) leaning to reliably set up tool lengths and work coordinate spaces is key.

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Bryan
Thanks for the comments on this. These details have been the thing that's confused me for a while... I pretty well understand writing a program. My question is how you get the machine homed right, the rough material positioned right, the machine to understand that it's a ROUGH part, the tool offsets measured and stored correctly, etc. This seems like the tricky stuff, that every operator needs to do consistently. But nobody's tutorials really hit on this (although Kipware has an 8-step list of tips, which is useful).

It seems you really need some organization and method to doing this stuff. Hopefully when I get the Milltronics manuals there will be some reasonable explanations. It would just be so nice to have somebody who really knows their shtuff to work through a few examples with! But we will hash it out.

If anybody knows of a tutorial or video (from ANY manufacturer) showing the basics of how this stuff is done, I'd appreciate knowing.

Thanks

The last shop I was in had an ML17. The control is nice to use, but I never did any conversational programming with it. I had a knowledge of G-code already, so I would just write programs by hand. The book will have pages of explanation of each G-code the machine uses, and if you sit down with it you should be able to figure out how to make it go. It really needs someone who knows how to make lathe parts to sit down with the book and figure out how to get the control to do what the machinist wants.
The machine itself will do OK as long as you don't push it too hard. Crash the carriage into the chuck and you may need to look at the z-axis ballscrew hardware to make sure it hasn't been knocked out of whack. I wouldn't plug a network cable into it, either. We did that once, and after about an hour or two the machine suddenly acted possessed, and the only way to stop it was the main power switch on the back. Programs are loaded into that machine with floppy discs.
If need be, send one of your guys to a class at the closest school. A basic understanding of G-code can go a long way with a machine like that. The limiting factor will probably be the amount of imagination the machinist has.

Yikes! I hope the product is better than the demo!

I've been trying to delve a little deeper into the Milltronics lathe simulator while I wait for the ML17 to arrive. I did the same thing with Centroid's simulator last year and at least felt I managed to properly program some simple parts with their software. At least the toolpaths displayed seemed reasonable.

The Milltronics simulator, however, leaves a LOT to be desired! At least in the Centroid you can hit the [HELP] button and get some graphical depiction of the conversational parameters. In the Milltronics, there is a [HELP] button displayed but you can't REACH that button because it's on the custom Milltronics front panel! You can't click on the function buttons with the mouse (you can in Centroid), and I tried all kinds of CTRL and ALT combos and couldn't activate it. Frustrating!

I'm really astonished that Milltronics would go to the trouble of publishing the simulator, and then offer NO help or tutorial for it. I'm not saying they have to publish their manuals online for free, but surely dumping the software out there with NO support is not doing their cause any good? Eventually the program usually just closes without warning. That's not making me more confident

*sigh* As I say, I hope the real machine is a lot more useful than this simulator. If I were them, I'd just pull the simulator from their site and deny it exists!

Kudos to Joe M at Centroid for at least offering a useful demo with SOME docs

contact

ScottAtHurco said:

Hey, ee - where are you? I live in Hollidaysburg!

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Scott
I tried sending you PMs, but not sure they went through. Please contact me by PM as I'd really like to talk. I prefer not to post contact info.

Thanks!

eeinpa said:

I've been trying to delve a little deeper into the Milltronics lathe simulator while I wait for the ML17 to arrive. I did the same thing with Centroid's simulator last year and at least felt I managed to properly program some simple parts with their software. At least the toolpaths displayed seemed reasonable.

The Milltronics simulator, however, leaves a LOT to be desired! At least in the Centroid you can hit the [HELP] button and get some graphical depiction of the conversational parameters. In the Milltronics, there is a [HELP] button displayed but you can't REACH that button because it's on the custom Milltronics front panel! You can't click on the function buttons with the mouse (you can in Centroid), and I tried all kinds of CTRL and ALT combos and couldn't activate it. Frustrating!

I'm really astonished that Milltronics would go to the trouble of publishing the simulator, and then offer NO help or tutorial for it. I'm not saying they have to publish their manuals online for free, but surely dumping the software out there with NO support is not doing their cause any good? Eventually the program usually just closes without warning. That's not making me more confident

*sigh* As I say, I hope the real machine is a lot more useful than this simulator. If I were them, I'd just pull the simulator from their site and deny it exists!

Kudos to Joe M at Centroid for at least offering a useful demo with SOME docs

Click to expand...

I have a ML 20 lathe, It is my first cnc lathe.....I have ben a manual machinist for 30 years, I have a Centroid control on a mill. I learned to program it in no time, the ML20 has a centurion 5 control. I have a hell of a time with it. I wish the Centroid stuff was not so expensive, that ML20 would have a Centroid on it in a N.Y. minute.

moonlight machine said:

I have a ML 20 lathe, It is my first cnc lathe.....I have ben a manual machinist for 30 years, I have a Centroid control on a mill. I learned to program it in no time, the ML20 has a centurion 5 control. I have a hell of a time with it. I wish the Centroid stuff was not so expensive, that ML20 would have a Centroid on it in a N.Y. minute.

Click to expand...

Hmmm! The Centroid vs. Milltronics battle has been fought many times in these pages and I won't go at it again. I am sure each has its strengths. Having worked briefly for Centroid back in the days when we were sorta lucky to have indoor plumbing, I'm impressed by how far they have come. I had little trouble figuring out their conversational programming on their demo.

I'm hoping Milltronics might take into account some public pressure and put up a simply tutorial or demo to go with their simulator software. It seems crazy to do otherwise. All you are doing is frustrating people... what does that gain you?

If I were retrofitting a machine, I'd be looking seriously at Centroid as a cost effective solution, even if it cost a little more. We deal with a shop who has them on some massive machines and they say they work out fine. Naturally, it's not a massive scale production shop. On the other hand, Milltronics is much more of a "machine manufacturer". Any machine you might buy from Centroid would not have undergone the rework that Milltronics apparently does to the Taiwanese iron.

On an aside, it appears that Centroid was using Linux behind the scenes in their controllers and is now moving to Windoze. I generally despise Microshaft. I find Linux works great for me on my desktop; it's a pretty serious OS. I'm sure they have their reasons, but I am disappointed that Centroid is moving to a proprietary OS. I am sure it will end up screwing their customers in the long run, i.e. more planned obsolescence of HW and SW--just what we all need.

If the weather cooperates, we should have our ML17 on Monday. I'm itching to start learning!

Tips to Myself

Ok, I've been battling with the ML17 all week and learned a few things I will share, since nobody ever really gave me their top 10 tips for newbies!

Software is Centurian 5 (I may have said 6 before) on a 2 year old motherboard.

1) Don't panic when the screen goes blank. The computer may not have died. Press any key on the keyboard and see if it comes back on. Ours was originally a CRT and is set up to screen blank although it's probably not needed on the LCD.

2) If your machine is used, it may come to you with the Z axis to the right of Machine Home position. Ours was sitting on the limit switch on the tailstock. You apparently cannot Reset the drives and/or Home the machine in that situation. The simple solution is turn off the power and manually turn the ballscrew to put the carriage near the chuck. It's slow and painful but simple.

The other option is to go to menu MAIN/PARAMS/SETUP/LEVEL and enter validation code PROTO3. Supposedly that code is in the manual, but I couldn't find it! Escape back up to the Main menu, enter F1-Home menu and you should now see an F10-Here function. That allows homing at the current location of the machine. On some software versions, this function may not require entering the protected menus. Be very careful while you are in the protected menus, as you could probably make serious setting changes.

3) Try to always shut down the machine with the carriage to the left of the home switch (i.e. near the headstock end). On our machine, Machine Home is about X +20 Z +12. The bed should probably have been marked with this point from the factory, right?

4) Holy carp are the control panel menus cryptic and disorganized! Sigh.

5) Be very careful what program is "Active". You can load and edit a program, then go to the Run menu and think you are going to run that program. But you are actually going to run a previously loaded program which you were not just editing! I've made a rule to always specifically load the program by number, just in case.

6) Most of Milltronics staff has been very helpful. I have tried not to bother them excessively. One person, however, lectured me about how much it costs them to support people, and how "they didn't make any money" off us buying a used machine. I'll let you ponder the logic of that one! In the meantime, I invite that person to apply for a job as a greeter at Squalor-Mart if they don't like being in the machine tool business

7) Some of the settings in conversational mode are poorly defined, if you can imagine. For example, the turning and facing screens have a 1st X depth and 1st Z depth. To me, these are not depths at all. They are the starting X and Z coordinates; to me, "depth" implies they are an increment, not an absolute value. I found it confusing.

8) I expected there would be some help available on-line. WRONG! When you are trying to recall what the parameters for a screen mean you will have to pull out the paper manuals. There isn't even a simple diagram available on the machine.

9) The paper manuals...? OMG do they stink. The organization is poor. There are no tutorials. The manual attempts to be both a reference and a tutorial all in one, which rarely works well. They are typeset in a lovely Pica font like a 1950s typewriter, making it tough to "get" the organization of info. The disagreeable factory guy said I needed to come to factory training. That's fine, but 'cheap' factory training is not an excuse for poor written documentation!

10) I'm not disappointed in the machine. For what we paid, it's a lot of machine and we are getting the hang of it. I am listing these gripes because I think buyers should be aware of what they are getting. All too often with machine tools it is very hard to know the quality of the software, manuals, or support in advance of purchase, especially if you are a small operator who can't afford to travel for inspection, training, trade shows, etc.

Hopefully Milltronics has made considerable improvements in documentation and software, but if I were buying a new machine from them, I would be asking them tough questions about those topics.

If my written tutorial turns out well, perhaps I will share it with others

And a few more things!

Also...

11) Power for our machine is 230Vac ONLY. I am used to old machinery which was all 230/460 with wiring changes. Since this lathe uses a VFD, it can ONLY run on one voltage. Luckily I have both, because I had not thought to check the spec on the machine and was planning on 480. Doh.

12) If you happen to have grounded delta power, the high leg needs to go on L2. The manual says high leg to ground should be 190Vac. Ours always runs more like 208. As long as phase-phase is 240Vac or less, you should be ok, but you may want to check with the factory. We run lots of 200 volt class VFDs on cranes with this power supply and have never lost one... yet.