On 2010-11-10, Ignoramus16525 wrote:
On 2010-11-10, RogerN wrote:

"Ignoramus32694" wrote in message
...
A friend of mine is eyeing a Lagun FTV-2S mill with Anilam Crusader II

[ ... ]

I wanted to know what you think about those machines.

http://igor.chudov.com/tmp/Lagun-FTV-2S.jpg

Thanks, guys!

i

I have a Bridgeport with an Anilam Crusader II control. I replaced the
servo motor drives with new AMC drives. They are set up pretty much like
your mill IIRC. The servos have tachometer feedback going to the drives and
the control sends +/- 10V to the drives for velocity command. The DRO
scales feed back the actual position of the table, not the position of the
motor. I have used my with the Crusader II control and that works fine for
most purposes, I do hope to do an EMC2 upgrade in the future though.

This is noce (the scales), as it lets me to also use the mill with the
manual handles.

Even if you are using encoders on the motors you would get the
same behavior, since the motors are not disengaged from the leadscrews
during manual mode. They are powered down, of course, but that is a
different matter. You *need* those motors on there to resist the
cutting forces feeding the ball screws.

The primary difference is that the linear scales have an index
output so your machine can be designed to home on power up without
needing to pay attention to mechanical switches (other than to stop it
if you are already past the index point, of course. :-)

The Crusader II control is pretty capable for manual programming, mine has
features to make the most of manual programming. There is something like a
1000 move limit that isn't bad for manual programming but if you use a
CAD/CAM system to generate 3d molds it could be a mess, having to break up
the program into smaller chunks and loading a partial program at a time.

Yes, that sucks.

I *think* that there may have been memory upgrades, as I
remember our "real machinist" (TM) producing a program with something
more than that to generate a very smooth complex curve -- generated from a
formula and printed out by computer.

Some parts I used to make were both left and right hand. I wrote the
routine to make a single part, using nested loops and axis offsetting I
could make a matrix (3X7) of 21 parts in a single piece of material. I
added a code to mirror an axis and made the left hand parts.

Yes -- even the old Bridgeport BOSS-3 (which is what my Series-I
started life as) had switches to reverse the axes.

I would say bottom line is that if the control works good, that's fine. If
not, it's an easy retrofit, encoders in, analog signals to drives, you've

This is nice to know.

One more question related to his mill, how much would it cost to pay
someone to do a "professional retrofit"? 13k?

No guess there. If the price is reasonable, it should take into
account the presence of the ball screws, the servo motors, and the
scales, so it *should* cost less than a from-the-ground-up conversion.

Enjoy,
DoN.

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