Hydro-Line Machine Upgrades:

It's a simple question, really. Would you prefer to buy a brand new CNC drilling or milling machine for hundreds of thousands of dollars, or to retrofit an old machine for a fraction of the price? To make the answer a little simpler, consider this: According to Jeff Colson, applications engineer at Hydro-Line, Inc., Rockford, IL, the machines he retrofits are actually better than comparable than new machines that would cost the company four times as much. Hydro-Line Inc. is a manufacturer of hydraulic and pneumatic power cylinders for machine tools and farm equipment, with plants in Rockford, Reno, NV, Charlotte, NC, and Italy.

Colson has retrofitted four milling and drilling machines to date for the Rockford facility, and one each for Charlotte and Reno. Three more machines are currently in the process of being completed, with another one planned. "The idea is to get a better-than-new machine for a quarter of the price of a new one," he says. "When we do the analysis on upgrading our machines, the big question is always feasibility. What will the savings be? Will increased productivity or reliability justify the cost? Is the current machine so old that its becoming unreliable and needs to be replaced? It's a lot easier to justify a $50,000 expenditure than a $300,000 expenditure."

He continues, "I look for a used machine that is dead control-wise and that I can get for a good price. The machines can be more than 30 years old, but they are still solid. A co-worker handles the mechanical rebuild, and I do the applications engineering, adding new servos and new controls. It costs me between $60 and $70 thousand to do it." Note that Colson said "better than new." What's that about? "Let me give you an example," he says. "We had a machine that died last summer. There was no fixing the spindle drive. We use it to make a family of parts with size parameters that change, and we wanted our operators to be able to make the changes.

"We upgraded it with the MeldasMagic 64/50 Series PC-Based CNC from Mitsubishi Electric Automation, Inc.

We made full use of itšs variable commands and user macro capabilities. The controls allow you to program in hundreds of variables. They are complicated but understandable, even if you aren't a rocket scientist.

"The initial programming is not easy, but once it's done, it works forever. You provide input by answering a series of straightforward questions. The software does the programming based on your input. You can get in and change existing screens to improve them later, or create new ones of your own.

"Now, when we're changing jobs, we get it done with very little loss of operating time. The operator can run the new job simply by answering a series of questions presented to him on the computer screen." Reliability is another key factor in the feasibility analysis. "The retrofit approach works because I know I'm getting a state-of-the-art, highly reliable machine that can do anything a new machine could do," Colson says. "The six machines we've completed to date are every bit as reliable as a new one that might cost between $250 and $300 thousand. We are running them every day, for two or three shifts, depending on the work load."

He continues, "The Mitsubishi controls themselves are incredibly reliable. They just don't break. Just as important, they allow for quick, on-the-spot trouble shooting. I used to be out working on machine problems all the time. With the retrofits, I get maybe two or three calls a year, and I can usually handle it over the phone. The Mitsubishi PC-Based CNC has an open architecture which allows for customization of control operation and screen appearance as well as the capability of data acquisition, using Mitsubishišs custom API library. In addition, high performance Mitsubishi digital AC servos and spindles are bus linked to the CNC card to make for a completely integrated system. When a drive faults, a message goes to the operator's screen that pinpoints the problem. We no longer need an applications engineer to fix it. Our technicians can handle the trouble. They can see what the machine is telling them and go to the diagnostic screens and trouble-shoot the problem from there." Hydro-Line knows they are on to a good thing with their retrofit program. "As long as business is good, we expect to continue the retrofit program," Colson says. "The benefits justify the expense." And that's a good thing for Colson as well. "I enjoy it," he concludes. "I get a big kick out of taking a machine from dead to better than it ever was."