I know starting a new project should wait until I finish the current
projects, so when I went out to look at a huge machine with tool
changers and a table the size of a small country yesterday I decided,
"NO!" Heck, its peak current consumption would cause me to have to
shut down everything else in my shop and office. LOL. Its actually a
good project for the price, but all the controls are gone. Given the
time its taken me to get the Hurco going with everything to look at as
I retrofit, I suspect the Bayer machine would take me several years to
get going. I actually considered picking it up as a salvage project
instead. There are a small fortune in tool holders that come with
it. Strip the saleable parts, and then scrap it.

Now on to the topic.

So... the guy then proceeded to try and sell me a Birdgeport Interact
1 with Heidenhain controls. At first I wasn't much impressed with
it. Nothing wrong with it and its no bigger than the Hurco I am
working on. Its actually a bit smaller. What got me is that it seems
to be 100% functional. We powered it up and ran it through some basic
manual operations. The guy who has it doesn't know how to run it
really other than making it do a few things on the joystick and the
keypad. In fact he had to call somebody to get it started up. My son
was telling him basic commands to start and stop the spindle etc.
(Yeah Rob! LOL.)

Anyway, its kind of nagging me if I want the machine or not. It
appears that I could just run it with no work other than to properly
clean and lube the machine, and the price tag does not seem
particularly onerous. The joysticks work for manual control, as does
the jog wheel. It takes basic commands, but we didn't actually run
any code, and I am not sure how you would transfer code to it. Maybe
with some form of "drip" feed. There is a DB25 connector on one side
of the monitor head.

It also uses a less common tool holder. An Emerson 30? He has a few
of these but has an idea that the tool holders have some individual
piece value, so I'ld probably have to negotiate with him on a per
holder price.
I guess ultimately it will probably boil down to, "I don't really need
another machine in this size range."