Hardinge Lathe CNC Retrofit/Conversion

**Chaz** · 07-02-2021

Originally Posted by Colin Barron

You may be lucky, i sent an email to Mike and received this reply:
Sorry for late replay because we are on Holiday this term as Chinese New Year(6th,February,2021-18th,February,2021).Happy Chinese New Year to you and your family!!! We will feedback to you soon after holiday! Thank you very much for your understand!

Then later he replied, work that one out.

Ah yes, in which case nothing will be happening. Forgot about that.

**JAZZCNC** · 07-02-2021

Originally Posted by Chaz

Ah yes, in which case nothing will be happening. Forgot about that.

You'd probably want to wait anyway because shipping is through the roof at the minute.

**Chaz** · 07-02-2021

Originally Posted by JAZZCNC

You'd probably want to wait anyway because shipping is through the roof at the minute.

Thanks. Is that due to people trying to get stuff before the holidays?

**JAZZCNC** · 07-02-2021

Originally Posted by Chaz

Thanks. Is that due to people trying to get stuff before the holidays?

IMO it's mostly because of the greedy profiteering freight company's. But the official line I keep getting is that for Airfreight it's covid and difficulty at terminals. For Sea freight, it's a lack of ships due to them being delayed in EU and various parts of the world again blaming Covid. Container prices have gone up by 500% and 600% depending on were coming from. Typical container prices were $2000 now it's $10 -$12,000 with delays anywhere up to 4-6wks and that's on top of usual 8-10wks shipping times.!

No one is sending anything by sea freight at the moment because of the price, so all major shippers are sitting on the fence waiting for prices to drop after the Chinese new year, which will then cause a shortage of available space on the boats, which then, in turn, will keep the prices high IMO.!!

It's a nightmare getting parts at the moment.!

**Chaz** · 07-02-2021

Argh, not ideal. Suppose I can spend time getting the axis sorted and then hopefully get the turret stuff working.

**m_c** · 07-02-2021

Air freight capacity is greatly reduced due to a lack of passenger flights. There are passenger planes flying solely for freight, and even Airbus designed a system for securing cargo in passenger seat.

Sea freight has experienced a bit of a perfect storm. People looking to replace air freight due to the increased prices there, increase in orders due to everybody being stuck at home, UK businesses trying to stockpile before Brexit kicked in, backlogs at ports, and just general delays has driven demand well above capacity, along with prices.

I'm guessing it's going to be at least another couple months before things return to more normal.

**Colin Barron** · 08-02-2021

Originally Posted by m_c

Air freight capacity is greatly reduced due to a lack of passenger flights. There are passenger planes flying solely for freight, and even Airbus designed a system for securing cargo in passenger seat.

Sea freight has experienced a bit of a perfect storm. People looking to replace air freight due to the increased prices there, increase in orders due to everybody being stuck at home, UK businesses trying to stockpile before Brexit kicked in, backlogs at ports, and just general delays has driven demand well above capacity, along with prices.

I'm guessing it's going to be at least another couple months before things return to more normal.

On the upside (slightly) we are getting $1.37 to the pound, it was $1.30 at the start of November.

**Chaz** · 08-02-2021

One thing I might try is to use the old DC motor. I think its mean to be OK, there is a drive that I have which might belong to it (got 2 machines at the same time) but might try and power from an invertor and see, at worst I damage the drive which I wasnt going to use anyways. If it works, then it might be worth using and I can change it one day when I have 3 phase or a 220V Single Phase system.

**Chaz** · 04-10-2021

So getting back to this. I now have movement in both axis and now onto the Tool Turret logic.

Does anyone have a copy of the 'U Disk' application that is used for talking to and from the controller? I cant find the original USB stick and whilst I have followed the instructions, I cant seem to get access to the PLC files that need to be edited (or Im doing it wrong). The only root folder available to me us /nc. I cant go any higher through the normal screen and Ive entered the user password.

Thanks

**JAZZCNC** · 04-10-2021

Originally Posted by Chaz

So getting back to this. I now have movement in both axis and now onto the Tool Turret logic.

Does anyone have a copy of the 'U Disk' application that is used for talking to and from the controller? I cant find the original USB stick and whilst I have followed the instructions, I cant seem to get access to the PLC files that need to be edited (or Im doing it wrong). The only root folder available to me us /nc. I cant go any higher through the normal screen and Ive entered the user password.

Thanks

try 666666