Denford Software & Machines

I sorry to trouble you I have recently purchased a 1983 orac lathe and was wondering if you could help me when I turn the machine off it losses its position on both x and z is there a battery back up that has run flat or something thanks.

Also do you have any electrical manuals or PDF drawings that I can purchase etc?

Are you aware of this post:

viewtopic.php?t=400

/Torleif.

Hi Torleif,

I just posted a customers request for him while he registered on the forum. Hopefully he will be able to do his own searching in future.

Thanks anyway

I must admit that I was wondering why you of all people would ask that question.

/Torleif.

"no it was me" he he

I have downloaded all the available info from this site but have not found the answer it may just be the way the machine is but need to know before I move onto the next problem,
What basically happens is after a power down all memory is lost that is acceptable but the machine also loses its positioning info x and z sow six hundred and something with the e stop still depressed if you press the movement buttons the read out goes down to zero but instead of then going minus one minus two etc it starts to count down again from six hundred

Ahhh. Do remember your machine is 25 years old - and also back in those days it was intended as an educational machine, not a production machine!
No battery backup and it doesn't remember machine co-ordinates when it is switchd off.

This means that every time you turn the machine back on you've got to re-teach the X and Z workpiece zeros. Once you've done this it should read plus & minus as you jog the axes. I can't remember how you teach the workpiece zeros (possibly with a G92 in MDI mode) but hope this gives you some pointers.

Hi thanks for that I would like to wire in a back up system but need a good wiring diagram and find out which board needs the power back up ( but for the moment I have a system to re zero don’t think it’s the right way but for the moment its working)
Thanks for your help

Got the orac working to a fashion like I said before don’t know if the way I’m zeroing is the right way but its working for now my next question is when you screw cut you input a spindle speed but if the speed that you input is slightly out of sink with the spindle will this cause the program to stop and jump into manual mode I have attempted the screw cut several times now using the sample programs in the manual but when it comes to the screw cut page the spindle slows down to the speed but than the program stops and it jumps into manual mode I have put a RPM clock on the spindle and it was running about 2 RPM over but surely the spindle would slow down when the cut goes on it would be impossible to keep the spindle speed constant
Thanks

The actual spindle speed isn't that important - it only needs to know the phase (so it can start cutting in the same place on each cut).

My guess would be that one of the opto sensors on the spindle is duff. It has one which reads 100 or so little holes to measure the speed plus another one which picks up a big slot (one per revolution) which is used to detect the spindle position.

If the one reading the slot is not working - it will do everything but screw-cut.

An easy way to tell is to use a video camera, digital camera, mobile phone camera and point at the photo emitters in the spindle index. The camera can see the infra-red LED's (they just show up white when on). You'll be able to see if one is not working immediately.

This is how I diagnosed why my tool-changer was not working. Two of the three LED's were duff.

Si

i just found that the main contactor is duff maybe its the cause of all my problems fingers crossed thanks for the respounce

hi me again is thare a max screw cutting speed thanks