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DMU 50T Upgradeable ?????

UCRmachine

Plastic
Joined
Dec 12, 2016
Hello Friends, I have inherited a DMU 50T 1998 it is Millplus and the iron appears very nice.
It was apparently at NIST before we got it. The CRT is Kaput from what we know. I have had it here 2 1/2 years and have done nothing with it. Have not even powered it up. I spoke to Heidenhain and was told yes it could be brought up to newer spec's and that they try to support Universities..... I was told it would be around the mid $40's to do this. This would kill my budget for the next 3 years.... But if it were to be a nice machine I would do it..... I am an old guy who is in his 60's and have not seen refurbished machines work out very well. But would this be something that might be a nice usable machine if done by someone that knows their stuff. Am I crazy ? I really try to not waste money for taxpayers and for research, I may be able to get the money to refurbish this from a grant as I am being asked for more and more 5 axis work and how much a new 5axis would cost. How fast a machine cuts is not as important to us as is the precision and ability to get the parts machined, I like the size of this machine and would rather spend $50K than $200K on a machine. Thank you for any wisdom you may have. -matt
 
The Millplus control can be upgraded through DMG. I received a quote to upgrade my Millplus V400 DMU50v to V420 for $4500 back in 2016. User installable card and software. If its a VME millplus, you can replace the monitor with a 12" VGA 800 by 600 color LCD. To start, just plug a vga monitor into the EPC8 card VGA port in the back cabinet to see if it even boots. If it gives you a "press F1 or F2 error" and wont boot the OS, the BR2335 bios battery on the EPC8 card is gone and possibly some of the constants. Millplus control is a good control. If its not totally destroyed Id keep it.
 
Thank you, I was looking around at some Documentation I found in the machine, It seems it is a MillPlus CNC PILOT 1290 V330. And could be a 1996 model.
So I guess I've found a new hobby...... learning to hand program code again. I learned in 86 on a Ikegai lathe and a Cincom, I didn't like it too much so I went back to Building progressive Dies. I was looking at the condition of the machine, the paint is perfect except where the poor guy who was programming wore it away where his hands rested on the control. Thanks again every one, any help is very much appreciated. -mateo
 
If you do get a cam package in the future, check to see if theres a Maho 432 post in the library. Most any post for the Maho Philips 432 or 532 will work ok for at least 4 axis work. You will need to do some editing of the output.(The Millplus control is an evolution of that control).
 
Fusion 360 has both post processors, but the PP for 432 doesn't support more than 3 axis, I don't know about the 532 PP.
I think this is the PP for his machine (but I'm not 100% sure) : Post for MillPlus
 
Hi Matt, sorry I'm late to the party.

Your machine has manual cranks for 4th and 5th right?

Easy to modify your post depending on your CAM to do M00 with the angular positions to set your tilt and rotary displayed so you can run 3+2 more efficiently. You have to be your own servos but it is much better than not having the tilt rotary functionality at all. I think although the servos aren't present the two axis are still glass scales so you can get really high accuracy as long as you take great care when calibrating the machine.

If your machine does have manual cranks for 4th and 5th... I would not upgrade the software on this machine, that would be almost completely pointless. For 3 axis motion with everything setup properly this machine can do 300 ipm no problem. There are features with the look ahead to speed the machine up when roughing at the expense of accuracy. Although you have the old v330 software on this machine it isn't nearly as big of an issue as it would have been if you had The DMU50V (the first of the eVolution style machines), which rotates the XY plane whenever the B axis rotates. This has the tilt rotary axis perpendicular which will make most jobs not nearly as big of a deal to program, especially with CAM and a good post.

Let us know how you make out,

Dave @ Nerv
 








 
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