Denford Software & Machines

Hi, I have been thinking of purchasing a Denford Mirac but there seems to be some problems with the power supply to the PC. Are these machines still supported by Denford?

Have you got the Serial No and year of manufacture?

I can't see why you couldn't ditch the Euro-card PC and run the DOS software on a seperate PC.
As far as I know, the step+direction controller card has a 9-way D type RS232 port on the front which you could connect to an external PC.

None of the old rack cards - drives or PC's are supported or available now - last quote for a 386 PC card was about £1500 !

Failing that, Denfords could probably retrofit a new card which would give USB connection and up to date Windows control software.

Thanks for the replies... I have had the serial number twice and lost it twice before I got home!

IIRC it is an older model not much newer than my Orac.
What sort of price should I be looking to pay for one of these machines (I have been told that the power supply is now working) and can I expect better cutting performance than my Orac?
The programming side of the machine looks like it will be much easier than the Orac as it seems to be Fanuc according to the manual.

Cheers

Oracs seem to go for between £500-£1000 on ebay.

The Mirac is a much more capable machine - and the electrics are still pretty current (as opposed to the 80's stuff inside the Oracs).
The same machine (casting) was available with a Fanuc 0T control and was a 'proper' machine tool.

I's pay more than an ORAC, but bear in mind you may still have to spend money on it to get it working reliably

bradders wrote:Have you got the Serial No and year of manufacture?

Serial No: M05040D And IIRC it's a 1992 machine.

The machine has stood for over a year without power so has lost all of the software. There are discs to re-instal it but nobody knows how to do this where I'm buying it from and I can't take the manuals away to study?
Can anybody point me in the right direction please

Thanks,

Mark

shakey j wrote:

bradders wrote:Have you got the Serial No and year of manufacture?

Serial No: M05040D And IIRC it's a 1992 machine.

The machine has stood for over a year without power so has lost all of the software. There are discs to re-instal it but nobody knows how to do this where I'm buying it from and I can't take the manuals away to study?
Can anybody point me in the right direction please

Thanks,

Mark

bradders?

This is one for Mr Magoo to answer

If its the DOS software disks, then you can get them free from our website www.denford.co.uk - tech support page -
I'm guessing that this machine would boot up off a 3.5 inch floppy drive somewhere in the side of the electrical cabinnet

On another thread, Mr Magoo said the built in PC stored its BIOS in Eprom, so even if the battery went, all should still work.

Sorry can't help much more but the DOS machines are before my time and I'm only vaguely aware of how they worked

Mr Orange wrote:This is one for Mr Magoo to answer

If its the DOS software disks, then you can get them free from our website www.denford.co.uk - tech support page -
I'm guessing that this machine would boot up off a 3.5 inch floppy drive somewhere in the side of the electrical cabinnet

On another thread, Mr Magoo said the built in PC stored its BIOS in Eprom, so even if the battery went, all should still work.

Sorry can't help much more but the DOS machines are before my time and I'm only vaguely aware of how they worked

Yes it looks like it's just lost the operating system but I couldn't get the 3.5" floppys to load in the limited time I had with the machine.

I will try Mr Magoo

Thanks for your help.

For Mr Oranges info...

Only machines fitted with a DSP rack Mounted PC had their BIOS settings stored in EPROM. These included the Harrison Trainer, TU150E, TU150U and the ASRS

Machines fitted with a regular PC (including Mirac) had regular battery-backed BIOS settings