Wanted, Southbend Magnaturn 612

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rcfreak177

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Hi,
I Am chasing after a little South bend Magnaturn 612 cnc lathe. Working or not is ok as I plan on retrofitting it if I can track one down. I recently missed out on one to a higher bidder on fee bay. If anybody out there knows of the whereabouts of one please PM me.

Regards Barry.
 
Hello Berry,
I have a non working MagnaTurn 612 in my garage I never got up and running.
It came with no controller software so it will be sold as is if you are still interested. LMK before it goes on Craigslist and eBay,

Thank,
Jesse
 
Hi,
I Am chasing after a little South bend Magnaturn 612 cnc lathe. Working or not is ok as I plan on retrofitting it if I can track one down. I recently missed out on one to a higher bidder on fee bay. If anybody out there knows of the whereabouts of one please PM me.

Regards Barry.

Barry,
On the off chance you stll have the Magnaturn, I would be interested. Could you PM me please?
Thanks
Marty
 
I have a nice magnaturn 612. just missing the interface card
 
I know this is a old thread but if someone is interested in one I just came across 6 Magnaturn 612's
 
Location is Brunswick Ohio, Not sure on the price yet trying to see which ones run
 
Any more of the Magnaturn 612s available?

Thanks,

Iron-Man
 
Hello Berry,
I have a non working MagnaTurn 612 in my garage I never got up and running.
It came with no controller software so it will be sold as is if you are still interested. LMK before it goes on Craigslist and eBay,

Thank,
Jesse

Hello Jesse

Do you still have the lathe?

Thanks,

Iron-Man
 
That is, ah, pretty beaten up... especially for the money they are asking.

SBL didn't make a whole lot of those machines. Documentation is probably a little sketchy but it is likely academic anyhow. The machines were not self contained; they required a PC. That means a traditional IDE slot (I don't think modern motherboards even have those anymore!) and, worse yet, the software that runs on the PC. 95% of the time when something requires a PC, the computer is "lost". And if it isn't, the thing is so pathetically out of date that you will bang your head against a wall with how slow it is.... Or you don't have the password.... Or it is Windows 3.1 and the drivers died but nobody has supported that in 15 years. You get the idea. Oh, and SBL stopped making those years ago so I don't think there is any support for them at all. About 10 years ago, there was one guy who apparently was very familiar with the machines, but I think he (and maybe SBL itself) is long gone. I wouldn't count on any parts, but there are some great foundry topics here on HMEM!

The long and the short of it is that you should probably look at something like the 612 as a retrofit project right from the get-go. Manuals would be of interest only at the most cursory level (you might be able to take advantage of some amp wiring, the mechanical assembly information, etc). Anything related to CNC operation would be effectively useless.

I may have some manuals (or access to) for the 612. I'm not sure. I've always thought it was kind of a cute machine, although I think the Emco Maier EmcoTurn120 and/or Compact 6 (same machine, different names) is probably a better base machine... but has some retrofit complications that make it *much* more difficult).

Retrofit wise, there is Mach, LinuxCNC and BeagleBone (I know almost nothing about the last). There is a plethora of "all in one" stuff being sold out of China now which is interesting to me. I'm tempted to get one sometime because they are ridiculously cheap.... But, therein lies the problem. Most stuff I've looked at from China like this is plagued with problems and has absolutely zero support. The scant (and I do mean s-c-a-n-t) manuals are so full of unintelligible Chinglish that they are effectively useless. And even the UI suffers from the same problems. They crash, some buttons are in English, some in Chinese, those in English leave you wondering what the intent was, etc. I honestly don't know why the Chinese manufacturer's don't pay some native English speaker some money to review/edit/write some stuff that is useful. But don't get me started on that.... The point remains, that you can try one of those cheap all-in-one controls and you *may* have good luck... or you may not.

From my perspective, Mach appears to have fallen out of favor. I've read a lot of people griping about Mach3 crashes and poor support from the entity that took over ownership of the product. There seems to have been a push towards Mach4, but it has a completely different pricing structure and appears to have its own stability problems... It is all a little strange because it seems like Mach adoption has changed trajectory (but, this is just my view... not sure what others would say).

LinuxCNC is an excellent package but it isn't for the feint of heart. Converting a machine like an SBL612, however, shouldn't be horribly difficult.

OK, I've blathered and blithered on far more than may possibly have been asked for or desired. So, I guess it is time to stop. If you want to talk more about this stuff, however, just ask. I'm happy to discuss it. FWIW, I own a stock EmcoMaier ET120 lathe, and a Hurco KMB1 mill that is going through a fitfull conversion to LinuxCNC using servos (not steppers). The latter, when done, will support 5 axis but I'm aiming at just 3 for now.
 
Thanks Mr Metric

I refitted a Denford NovaTurn to AC servos, +-10V torque mode, running PathPilot, completely closed loop. I was hoping to refit a SBL 612. I just missed out on a unit a few days ago. The unit on HGR appears to be different, maybe a auto chuck?, not sure. Any way, you can see some of my work at CNCZONE or the Denford website. Just look for Iron-Man's posts.


Thanks,

Iron-Man
 
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Thanks
MrMetric

I converted a Denford NovaTurn to all AC servos, +-10V torque mode running PathPilot. I was looking at a complete refit. I just missed out on a 612 a few days ago.
It appears different from the one posted on HGR. The HGR unit may have a auto chuck?, not sure.

If anyone is interested just check out my work on CNCZONE or the Denford web site, look for Iron-Man's posts.

Thanks,

Iron-Man
 
Well, Iron-Man, it sounds like you know your way around CNC stuff then, which is good. You are probably in good shape for taking on an SBL conversion. If I remember correctly, it is a stepper based machine, if you wanted to keep the original motors. If it has pneumatic chuck, that isn't difficult. It is just an additional I/O.

PathPilot.... I thought that was a Tormach only thing. Do they sell the software by itself? For that matter though, isn't PathPilot just a custom skinned LinuxCNC?
 
Yes, PathPilot is LinuxCNC with a nice UI. There are some internal differences.
I also have PathPilot running on A GizmoSphere II.
Yes, you can purchase PathPilot. My current set-up: Mesa 7i77 + 6i25 and a custom PCIe board I designed for the AMD GizmoSphere I SBC.
Denford site: http://www.denfordata.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=4789
CNCZONE: https://www.cnczone.com/forums/benchtop-machines/261754-cnc.html
I am also refitting a Infimatic NC200 control to PathPilot with new computer and custom interfaces.
Also converting a Emco Turret to PathPilot.
https://www.cnczone.com/forums/tormach-pathpilot-/352788-freedom-nc200-pathpilot-refit.html
https://www.cnczone.com/forums/benchtop-machines/359408-cnc.html

Linuxcnc: https://forum.linuxcnc.org/pathpilot/30012-pathpilot-on-amd-gizmosphere-1?start=0


Iron-Man
 
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Fe-Homosapien (couldn't resist).... I haven't gone down the nitty gritty of all this because it is easier to ask you. :) . PP is built on LinuxCNC. OK. LinuxCNC is open source, as we know. Did you buy PP or did you download it from someplace (ostensibly legally because it is built on open source). If so, from where? Second, PP machines are all stepper based, as I recall. You are using a 7i77, which is the same Mesa board I'm using, and it is a servo I/F. So, clearly PP then supports servos too, or you cobbled together something.

I'm asking all this because I"m not a huge fan of the LinuxCNC UI, so if PathPilot is available without a ton of work (and legally), then I'd be interested in that.

Aaaannnnnddddd, this is how you hijack a thread. Sorry all! You can respond to me with a simply link (or privately).
 
I purchased both versions directly from Tormach, all legal. It was actually fairly easy to get PathPilot running with the 7i77. Therein lies the power of Linuxcnc.

Iron-Man
 

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