Calling other Anderson/Omintech CNC owners

[Paul Grothouse]

OK, I have a Techno Router it was mid range iron and was good to cut my teeth on with CNC. So I had the opportunity to upgrade to some heavy iron and purchased a 2007 Anderson Stratus Pro.

Has Anderson upgraded the Fanuc interface since 2007? (they want me to pay $1500/yr for support, that I don't really need, so I'm not getting phone support) The interface in comparision to the Techno interface is not even a fair fight. The Techno software backplots, is easy to update offsets and everything else, it's all GUI interface. With the Anderson I feel like I am programming an old IBM x86 with Fortran punch cards with a ching-lish manual. You have to number the programs and type in the number to pull up a file, you can't even arrow over them, let alone click on them.

We have an Anderson at the Voc tech school locally, now I understand why they barely ever use it. Their completely intimidated.

Don't get me wrong the machine is rock solid and has a lot of features, but the software interface is a joke.
Is it just me?

[Steve Ryan]

I had my battles with Anderson, and it took me over a year but I won. I have an Exxact Plus 5X12 with 10 tools and a drill head, and rotating C axis. Anderson likes to call their machines Big Iron, but they are almost all heavy steel weldments hand smoothed over with bondo to look like cast iron. Nothing wrong but somewhat misleading. I do all programming with Mastercam and it took Anderson over a year to get a fully functional interface file to write programs for the machine. I was able to do what I needed to do but made final payment when it was fully functional, and made them start the warranty at that date. Good thing too because the machine started to lock up once in a while. They sent Fanuc out to fix the problem. Fanuc tech spent about an hour with the machine and called Anderson to have them send a tech out to connect ground wires that were not even connected. These were the culprits and an occaisional data bit would get lost or corrupted locking the machine up, had to do a cold boot to get it back running. Fanuc interface is just one step up from a raw G code interface, if that. I opted for the new PC front end when I had mine built. Big deal. All that did was give me a keyboard and mouse, and a screen that looked like the non PC control panel. Also had the pulley on the drill head come loose when I started using that feature a lot. Bit of lock tite fixed that. Machine has been a solid performer once bugs were worked out. Cut serverl lifts of 1" phenolic without skipping a beat.
I have 4 Mazaks and the machine interface comparison is like a race horse to a turtle. Tool time life? Yup. Running a new program and you can tell by sound that something with speed or feed needs changing? Over ride it on the front panel right at the machine until it sounds right, faster or slower. Hit the key on the control and it writes the new feed/speed back to the program.

[Paul Grothouse]

Steve,

My machine seems very sound and came out of shop running it on AlphaCAM. They were very sucessful with the machine. It seems to operate very well and compared to my Techno is super strong and steady. I'll check those grounds.

Sounds like your technical situation is very similiar to mine. The interface is arcane. I am learning the machine. Seems like I am able to load files and move the machine and load tools, I am having trouble setting tool offsets and the drill bank setup.

I use MasterCam as well. Seems to be OK, except for the tool posting due to the dual spindles. Any hope you might share your post or machine configuration with me? So I can compare?

I posted this question woodweb, a lot of response.

- PG

[Steve Ryan]

Late reply
My post is for my machine and prob would not work on yours. I have some small programs loaded in the machines memory, and can edit that G code at the machine. All of my larger programs are drip fed from the PC hard drive, or USB chip, and can only be edited with MS note pad, or re done back in Mastercam. I use Mastercams features to control tool diameters and have a plunger type tool setter to set the Z length on the machine. Just a few key strokes of G code and tools are automatically measured.
All parts start out in Autocad. Once done I place the part onto an Autocad template of the machine table. This drawing is on a locked layer and has all features of the table drawn on it. Vac grid, suction holes, bolt holes, and pop up locating pins too. This is the .dwg that I open with Mastercam. My Mastercam post automatically sets the part thickness as 4" and I need to change that by editing the posted file. I guess they did this to keep noobs from driving their spindles into the table. When I am doing some very picky stuff on the machine I set up my laptop right there edit or tweek the new programs.