So I'm contemplating dipping my toes into the CNC world for the first
time:

I found a late 80's Shizuoka STN mill with a Bandit2 controller. looks
to be very well kept, and clean, low hours, and I was able to see it
running. the current owner used it as a toll makers/prototyping mill for
several years at his work, and then bought it from his old company and
has had it in his garage doing light duty for the last 5-6 years. has
power drawbar, cooling built in (flood and mist), and was a conversion
done by a professional company ,not someone just adding it all on
without having done it before. about 20 cat40 holders are included, as
well as a computer with Bobcad17 already loaded and ready to go.

The guy wants me to come up with a fair offer on it (nice negotiating
ploy) and let him know. So... What's a reasonable value on something
like this? once I have a ballpark, I'll see if that's in the range of
what I can afford and then work on negotiating with him.

Thanks!
--Joel

So I'm contemplating dipping my toes into the CNC world for the first
time:

I found a late 80's Shizuoka STN mill with a Bandit2 controller. looks
to be very well kept, and clean, low hours, and I was able to see it


I've spent a bit of time watching eBay for one of these. They've generally
went around 1500-2000 with a bandit. I seen Reliable tools, well known eBay
vendor, get $5K on one.

This is one fine piece of iron, box ways, 4 hp head. I'm assuming you have
the tool changer.

The bandit is an obsolete control, holding value way down. I'd only buy if
you're willing to change out the control in the not too distant future.

On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 00:15:20 -0700, joel
wrote:

So I'm contemplating dipping my toes into the CNC world for the first
time:

I found a late 80's Shizuoka STN mill with a Bandit2 controller. looks
to be very well kept, and clean, low hours, and I was able to see it
running. the current owner used it as a toll makers/prototyping mill for
several years at his work, and then bought it from his old company and
has had it in his garage doing light duty for the last 5-6 years. has
power drawbar, cooling built in (flood and mist), and was a conversion
done by a professional company ,not someone just adding it all on
without having done it before. about 20 cat40 holders are included, as
well as a computer with Bobcad17 already loaded and ready to go.

The guy wants me to come up with a fair offer on it (nice negotiating
ploy) and let him know. So... What's a reasonable value on something
like this? once I have a ballpark, I'll see if that's in the range of
what I can afford and then work on negotiating with him.

Thanks!
--Joel

$500-2500

Tooling gets it to the higher figure.

Gunner

In article s.com,
"Karl Townsend" wrote:

So I'm contemplating dipping my toes into the CNC world for the first
time:

I found a late 80's Shizuoka STN mill with a Bandit2 controller. looks
to be very well kept, and clean, low hours, and I was able to see it


I've spent a bit of time watching eBay for one of these. They've generally
went around 1500-2000 with a bandit. I seen Reliable tools, well known eBay
vendor, get $5K on one.

This is one fine piece of iron, box ways, 4 hp head. I'm assuming you have
the tool changer.

The bandit is an obsolete control, holding value way down. I'd only buy if
you're willing to change out the control in the not too distant future.


thanks for the feedback! If the controller goes bad, what would I
replace it with? from the research i've done, It looks like the bandit
is both a motor driver and a logic/code controller combined. is this
standard practice, or is this now broken out into discreet components?
I've seen a PC based system that they call a controller (mach 3), but i
cant imagine that there's a multi-amp draw motor driver on a card inside
the PC...

yes, I'm a complete noob at this,so forgive my simplistic questions, but
I've gotta start somewhere. CNCs ease of repeatability and ability to do
complex profiles fascinates me and i want to get there in the smartest
way possible.

--Joel

According to joel :
In article s.com,
"Karl Townsend" wrote:

[ ... ]

The bandit is an obsolete control, holding value way down. I'd only buy if
you're willing to change out the control in the not too distant future.

thanks for the feedback! If the controller goes bad, what would I
replace it with? from the research i've done, It looks like the bandit
is both a motor driver and a logic/code controller combined. is this
standard practice, or is this now broken out into discreet components?
I've seen a PC based system that they call a controller (mach 3), but i
cant imagine that there's a multi-amp draw motor driver on a card inside
the PC...

O.K. I don't know the Bandit specifically, and I don't know the
machine in question either -- but what I would *expect* is real servo
motors, not the steppers which things like Mach-3 drive), which have
servo amplifiers, tach feedback (at least for DC servo motors -- I'm not
sure about AC servo motors), and the computer will have D-A (Digital to
Analog) converters to generate a speed and direction command to each
servo amplifier. The amplifiers are typically separate modules, which
are scaled to handle the power needed for the specific servo motors
involved, and the D-A converters produce things like 5-0-(-5) volts
output range or 10-0-(-10) volts output range (with negative voltages
running the servo motors backwards).

Typically -- the computer is in one area, and the power
circuitry (the servo amplifiers) in another -- perhaps mechanically
joined but with separation panels, or perhaps separated. The Anilam
controller which I had at work before I retired was a box containing the
computer on an arm above the table and to the right of the head, and
another box at the base of the mill's casting containing the power
circuitry to drive the servo motors.

I believe that the Mach-3 setup has low level step and direction
outputs, which require a driver module to boost that to the voltage and
current needed -- but unless the Mach-3 has analog voltage outputs to
talk to the servo amplifiers, you would have to change the motors as
well.

an old enough one (like my old Bridgeport BOSS-3) will actually
have high-power stepper motors, resulting in a limit to the maximum
speed when just moving the cutter to where you want to start cutting,
and that would probably accept the output from the Mach-3. (I'm
converting the Bridgeport to servo motors as are used in the later
models, and the controller will be a PC running a real-time version of
linux with the free EMC package (from the NIST (used to be NBS)) driving
a Servo-To-Go board to produce the analog voltage outputs.

yes, I'm a complete noob at this,so forgive my simplistic questions, but
I've gotta start somewhere. CNCs ease of repeatability and ability to do
complex profiles fascinates me and i want to get there in the smartest
way possible.

Well ... you have what I can give you -- quite a bit of
guesswork, since I don't know either the machine or the Bandit
controller -- but I do know some other systems.

Enjoy,
DoN.

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