Reccomendations for a company to rewire a cnc pressbrake

[s410man]

So about 12 months ago i bought a new to me edwards pressbrake 150ton x3.6m

Fitted with a old cybelec cnc controller

Has never worked properly from day 1 and after spending considerable money i think the only way is going to be a complete gut and rewire with a more modern system probably touchscreen

Have sent the screen back to the uk service agent for cybelec twice and still isn't right

Any reccomendations? A bit more to it than some pressbrakes as the 2 rams and both individually controlled off the readings given of 2 scales either end of the machine. I know its not going to be a cheap project but the pressbrake was the right money to start so hopefully a full rewire should see it sorted for a long time and will be easier to use the cnc side if needed in the future

If it was a simpler design i would probably get it changed to a fully manual setup as the cnc part isnt any real benefit to me at the moment as virtually every bend is different we're mainly making repair parts etc rather than new production runs in which case the cnc part would be very useful

 

[minimutly]

I believe @sako243 may have some experience with these...

 

[sako243]

Not a cyberlec but I designed a new CNC controller for a Kingsland 4m 6mm shear to replace the dying Robosoft controller.

Bearing in mind I don't "know" pressbrakes but I know electronics inside out so most of my time is spent reverse engineering the system and figuring out what needs driving when etc. You would get a completely custom setup to do exactly what you want do adding features such as repeat builds you can call up etc., is trivial once the control side of things is done.

The caveat I'd add is that if it's just something about the existing controller misbehaving it might be cheaper to get someone in who knows the system as they'd know what they're looking for to fix it.

More than happy to come up and have a look / chat as you're not a million miles away. If you've got the manuals and electrical diagrams for it that would be a massive help.

 

[sako243]

For reference the Kingsland controller cost about the same as getting Haco to install a new Robosoft unit but they got exactly what they wanted in terms of controller and better support for it as I was just up the road from them.

 

[Screwdriver]

Chap I follow on YouTube - Snowball Engineering, uses a giant press brake. He's a farmers lad, does excellent videos (plasma/oxy CNC, bendin, fabrication) and seems very approachable.

It's a long shot but you might try reaching out to him before his channel gets too popular (it is growing exponentially).

 

[Theblackbox]

Evolution machinery would be who I’d recommend depending on distance etc he knows hurco control inside and out but has experience with edward Pearson pressbrakes and other machines.

 

[Milkybars]

@Screwdriver glad i am not the only one who has picked up on his video's ..good content

 

[Hitch]

I know an ex Edwards Pearson guy who does service/repairs, but he'd based in the South West, although he does cover other areas.

Or another guy I know, again South West, very knowledgeable guy. Downside is technically he's retired.
He retro fitted a whole new controller to the EP press we have at work.

Happy to pass on details...

 

[s410man]

Been a few very clever people look at it who really know electronics inside out and stumped them a bit really

I think theres some sort of corruption in the memory somewhere but it seems to behave perfectly every time its put on a test rig

If i could find another identical model would be interesting to swap a few bits over but I'd almost like a more user friendly interface aswell anyway

In fairness the machine was probably a one operator machine in a factory when new and the complicated control system wouldn't of been a issue atall

@Screwdriver glad i am not the only one who has picked up on his video's ..good content

I watch his videos aswell quite relatable to the type of work we do

I know an ex Edwards Pearson guy who does service/repairs, but he'd based in the South West, although he does cover other areas.

Or another guy I know, again South West, very knowledgeable guy. Downside is technically he's retired.
He retro fitted a whole new controller to the EP press we have at work.

Happy to pass on details...

Will send you a pm now

Evolution machinery would be who I’d recommend depending on distance etc he knows hurco control inside and out but has experience with edward Pearson pressbrakes and other machines.

Will ring in the morning and see what they're about

 

[sako243]

I think theres some sort of corruption in the memory somewhere but it seems to behave perfectly every time its put on a test rig

If i could find another identical model would be interesting to swap a few bits over but I'd almost like a more user friendly interface aswell anyway

Chances are if it's like the Robosoft controller that was on the hydraulic shear then it has a battery backed up RAM to store settings and possibly programming files.

The one I designed a new one for had the battery was failing meaning it intermittently and more often started losing it's references. Then it died completely and it lost the on board FPGA programming file which meant it forgot it was a guillotine and did nothing at all.

Fortunately / unfortunately in that instance one of the owners had the personal number of one of the ex service people. I phoned him and he confirmed my diagnosis and said that when he worked for Haco, 10 years prior, there was one laptop in the country that had the bit files for that FPGA and they didn't know where it was when he worked there so sod all chance of getting it back up and running. Hence the complete strip out and redesign.