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Okuma, Dad/Son in used market. How to use newer CAM? drip/DNC b4 we buy.

countryguy

Hot Rolled
Joined
Jul 29, 2014
Location
Mich, USA
Hi there Okuma'nites,
Son and I are really trying to put an Okuma CNC lathe into the home shop. Req's: turret. 2 axis, 8" chuck min. simple/bare bones. would like IGF... but hard to find w/ that on as well we're finding.

I was really looking into a LNC-8 and basically sold on this unit...But yesterday, I hit some reading and posts about struggles connecting up from modern CAM packages to these old units. Figured this is the place to ask. Wondering how difficult it is to load up these old 80's early 90's lathes from newer CAM systems? Or how you DNC code to the LNC8 or CADET lines specifically. Hearing that many okuma's did not come w/ this DNC-B feature to allow drop-feed. Do they still even sell it? Are there any other ways? 3rd party or add on's? btw/ We use F360 and Solidwords HSMWorlk for now.

We're open to other models that may have something which solved this.

TIA,
 
Fusion 360 doesn’t have a really good post for Okuma Lathe yet. They have one, just not really good yet. Not sure on HSMworks.

DNC4u works great to drip feed or transfer programs to control via RS232 cable from laptop. You can buy a cable for that machine on eBay all day.

Or spend $500 for Calmotion USB to cnc addon. Then you can drip feed/load programs from that usb and not have to deal with RS232 cables.

My LNC-8 has IGF but I haven’t learned it yet. I program at the control for everything so far. I will use cadcam to give me complex geometry and I’ll type only the lines I need into a cycle on the control to give me what I want.
 
We have owned a 94 LNC 8 since new, and have never had a need to drip feed.

Small memory is a constraint to work around, for sure. Our machine has the LAP cycle option ( might not be actual full description ). These are basically canned cycles. Programming with lap cycles will reduce the size of your programs.

We don't have any problems loading programs via rs232 port, and SDNC, a communication product included in surfcam. Although, we have never tried drip feed.

Two of our other machines do have IGF. We honestly have never used it.


Sent from my SM-G900R4 using Tapatalk
 
Hey Country,

I have used some old Okuma’s (OSP 5020L)... they are rock solid machines. Give the folks down at ShopFloor Automation a call and they can get you hooked up with a wired or WiFi system.
I uploaded and downloaded files using CIMCO Edit.
For two axis lathe stuff. I usually programmed and verified in CIMCO Edit, then sent off to the machine. Make use of the LAP cycles as mentioned earlier.
If you want to talk CAM systems, PM me.

Chazsani


Sent using CIMCO Edit DNC
 








 
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