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Wotan Rapid 1 HBM mill - moving

D

deerefanatic

Aluminum
Joined
May 17, 2011
Location
Colon, MI
Hi all, I'm in the process of aquiring a Wotan Rapid 1 CNC Horizontal Boring Mill for my shop. Long story short, it's free for the moving, needs a new CNC control computer as the one that was on it (DynaPath) got fried from a roof leak. Machine itself didn't get wet, no rust. Electrical cabinet also stayed dry.

I'm trying to plan the take down and moving of it. Does anyone out there have any rigging info on these machines, where they come apart, etc? There doesn't seem to be much info on these mills here in the US.
 
Are you planning to put a new Dynapath back on it?

Those are a very nice milling control, and hopefully the ladder is still retrievable?

Well, that, and they are located in Michigan as well.


-----------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
Im not 100% sure what it had. It has a DynaPath control panel hanging on the machine, but the previous owner said something about it being retro'd to utilize a PC based control or something, and that is what got nuked by the water leaks. As far as I know, that PC is gone.

I'm planning on converting it to LinuxCNC. I'll probably build a new panel for it with an LCD monitor, keyboard, mouse, and utilize the Dynapath remote jog pendant.

I've also heard that Centroid is really common for retrofits and it seems lots have been done on HBM's.
 
Moving dates have been finalized as the first two saturdays in February. I'll be removing all the wiring and the smaller electrical cabinets, etc on the 6th, and moving the main mill on the 13th.
 
The dynapath IS PC based, and was a common retrofit control in the 90s. I have one on a Lucas HBM that I'm happy with. There is still quite a bit of support available for them.

I would very much try to save the control you have, rather than convert to Linux. Just depends on how much of a basket case it is, but I think a lot of guys new to CNC default to the scorched earth approach, when what they have is probably easily salvageable. Not saying that is you - just a bit of a trend.

There are a few members here that can do board level repairs for you if you find the fried component.

You can also ping member ewlsey, he came down for a few days and got my Lucas going a couple yrs ago. I bought it in a similar condition to your machine. If you don't know exactly what you are looking at in the control panel, it's money well spent. Not sure if he is still traveling much these days, but worth a shot.
 
I can't tell much from those photos either. My Dynapath uses the original Lucas servo drives, so I dont really see anything that is a deal breaker in there.

It runs on a 386/486 processor. As opposed to Fanuc / Mitts / Yaskawa.

I would do my best to take photos, and label every wire you unhook. Will help you tremendously even if you do end up converting. Tracing wires is a real bear.
 
Looks like the control hangs there to me....

Programming the Dynapath is SO much easier than others.
Like when you punch "G" you git a drop down menu of all your choices.
And one of the nice things is that any drill cycle is still going to be a G81 (or G8, or whatever the code is) and peck, dwell, clearance plane, etc is just all the forty-leven different fields to fill in as needed. (all of them defined in the menu)

One feature that I used frequently on mine was that I cut flat cams for the Brown and Sharpe, and it would cut a cam rise in one short block.
I don't know if any other control to this day does that?
They really are a very nice mill control - especially for one-off "at the machine" type programming - like you would be wanting to doo on a boring mill.

I sold mine 20 years ago tho.


-----------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
That's quite interesting.

The control itself is not what you see hanging on the swing arm. That's just the CRT and panel. There's a cabinet hanging on the side of the electrical cabinet that housed the CPU/motherboard etc.

I talked to the current owner and he said he's going to see if the repair facility still has the PC or if it's been pitched.
 
re- PC:

Looking at the pic - that does look like a "Delta" front panel.
The Delta's and newer are PC based, but the "System" controls are old skewl.


I had a 1985 System 10 (and I still have a cpl System 5's as parts for sale) and those are both old skewl board type circuits in blue cabinets.

I replaced the Sys 10 with a Delta 40 and that was PC based and in the brownish cabinet I think. (Like shown)
I'm guess that they went PC with the name change to Delta, but I don't know that for sure.


-------------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
I believe it does say "Delta" on the front panel of the control pod.

Here's hoping it's easily retrievable.

The owner did say he has 2 CRATES of Ring binder manuals for this thing... So that's a good sign if I have to retrofit.
 
Our Cincinnati HBM has been retrofitted with a Dynapath and I don't mind it. I don't know the costs but if it was even money I would go with the Centroid I like that better.
 
Good Luck with you Wotan, I ran 3 differnt ones
around the Motor City.
I also agree with Ox on the Delta or Dyna Path,
Hard to beat, a little quirky here and there,but what control isnt. I have one on a Lagoon knee mil.
Gw
 
Actually, Dynapath does support 5x, so you might want to call them and ask what it would take to add the 5th axis to this control.


-------------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
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