I have used many OKUMA machines and I think that they made great iron. Most had OSP5000 or OSP5020 although some were OSP7000 or the newer U100 or some such control.
I see them for sale surplus every so often but I shudder and pass by - why? Because its a closed hardware software system. All the details of how that system works are proprietary to OKUMA and there is no real way to find out anything other than buy a junker and try to reverse engineer how it works. Also parts for the OSP5xxx are un-obtainium now. If a spindle drive goes south or a servo amp - you can pull it out ( or have your nearest OKUMA service person pull it ) and ship it back to the NC plant where they will attempt repairs. They do not re-stock any of these parts anymore. If your OSP5xxx CRT dies they do have a LCD with bezel kit, but it looks like a Z80 version of Galaxia or worse. In 2004 I was told the repair time for sending back a spindle drive was 90 days - I don't even know if they will still take units in for repair. Another thing is OKUMA is very keen on using hydraulics for all sorts of functions which means lots of PLC type classic ladder programming if you want to convert one. My Uncle bought the first of its kind, a 1990 OKUMA MC4-VAE-HS, A 32tool chain type magazine ATC, 12,000RPM CAT40 Spindle, Extended Axis travel and fully enclosed ( Normal MC4-VA only had table shields ) It came with the OSP5020M and full (16) color graphics. 540 IPM rapids! and a 9 second chip to chip tool change. This machine also uses those Absolute position encoders, there is no such function of "homing" the machine. When it powers up - it always knows where it is - like its reading a vernier scale. BTW the Spindle head uses a hydraulic cylinder verses the old counter weight and chain method. HAAS and some others have gone to a nitrogen gas spring as a counter weight - makes for lots of service time. To new operators - it can be a bit of a shock. X/Y Zero is the dead center of the table. Z zero is with the spindle all the way down on the soft limit. OKUMA didn't really break the rules, they just made up there own set. I enjoy running the Okuma machines, I slightly dislike running Mazaks, but I will readily admit Mazak iron would be easier to retrofit to LCNC. BTW - My Uncle's MC4-VAE-HS is still running good and making parts as needed* - but when it dies - it will become an instant boat anchor. *He has some newer Zooom Zoom Go Fast Mori Seiki's which now run most jobs, but there are many jobs that are very intensive that have custom fixturing dedicated for the Okuma and It would be too cost prohibitive to try and migrate these jobs to the Mori's. If it becomes possible to drive the existing servos with OSP encoders I would love to convert an LB-15. You KNOW its heavy duty when even the coolant tank is cast iron. Oh - final though, the LB-15's I used to work with had an absolute position encode on the Spindle "C" axis which was used for threading and/or index operations if the machine had live tooling. Unlike the other axis this had to be a limitless type that reset after 360.00 degree. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by Windows: Build for Windows Store. http://p.sf.net/sfu/windows-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
