Refurbish a Deckel DMU50 T ?????

[matt m]

Hey The Navy dropped off a DMU50 T.... I think it is a 1998 ? Has a Mill plus control. Looks very clean, allegedly from NIST as some paperwork seems to say they had it at one time.  The CRT is smoked. I am not sure what to do with it. We can do anything we want, but the Navy owns it.

We can keep it forever, they just own it (I don't know how this works but it is what it is). People here want to see if it can be brought up to 2018 specs or close. I think it a 3+2 machine and the Professors want to make it a full 5 Axis I am not sure that could be done . I can get a $40k grant to refurb this if that 's what it costs. Just don't want to throw away money and don't want a pig in the poke so to speak. Also do you know a good person to call about this dilemma . thanks for any help.... 

Also if you could, What control would you replace the original with ????

[Sticky]

They are a long ways off from being a nice machine so I would invest any real money into it. Replacing a CRT, or even converting it to LCD isn't going to cost much if that is all you need to do to make it operational. Turning into a full 5 axis is a waste of money. If you can make it work for cheap I would do that and just run it until you can't get parts for it anymore.

[Newbeeee™]

Not sure it applies to this control version....but back in the day, I believe all Heidenhains were upgradeable.

I'm talking 145 era (by memory) - the control "box" could be swapped out relatively easily (plug and play).

[jlw™]

I've never seen one of those but I looked them up.  I don't know why it couldn't be a very sweet ride with a control retrofit.  The last 5ax retrofit I saw received an 840D upgrade and was in the neighborhood of $60k but that was on a gigantic bridge mill.  I'm sure the cost of motors and drives would be much less in this size of machine.

I'd love to have it, even for 3+2 as is.  I'd fix the monitor and run it.

[Sticky]

8 minutes ago, jlw™ said:

I've never seen one of those but I looked them up.  I don't know why it couldn't be a very sweet ride with a control retrofit.  The last 5ax retrofit I saw received an 840D upgrade and was in the neighborhood of $60k but that was on a gigantic bridge mill.  I'm sure the cost of motors and drives would be much less in this size of machine.

I'd love to have it, even for 3+2 as is.  I'd fix the monitor and run it.

They are light duty machines - everything from spindle, to ball screws to casting. They aren't worthless, they just aren't worth spending 50k+ on. If the machine can run with just a monitor replacement it will be a great cheap/freeish machine, until something really goes wrong.

[matt m]

Thank you all..... We would not do any production type work... just R&D stuff. Aluminum, Some stainless 304, Plastics. And Students will run it so that is why I haven't gotten it running yet. This is a really old control and it would take hours of my time that I don't have for me to get it going well enough to earn it's floor space. But if a newer control could be added and maybe better encoders it would be a nice R&D machine.... maybe. Any other Ideas please let me know. thanks ….

[Newbeeee™]

Matt - ask Heidenhain as I don't think you need encoders or anything if they all work good.

It literally was (and maybe) a controller swapout?