Ab Cnc 8600 Gp

Dear Sir,
where can i find info about AB CNC 8600 GP.
We have a machine from Springfield machinary. It came with AB 8600 GP Now it doesnot work and when we contacted our machine supplier their answer was 8600 GP is no more. Its a huge machine and we realy donot understand why they donot support. They are not willing to change the control or provide an alternative. Now we are left to do the replacement our self. The drives/motors are from Indramat.

Should we replace it with the new 9 series version or altogether change it to fanur or semiens. I think AB does not do much on CNC and also donot support product as they support PLC. we hardly find a AB engineer for motion controller.

Any suggestion would be highly help full.

There *are* still some A-B field service engineers who work on the 8600, but they're few and far between. One of the only ones left in the Western USA works just down the hall from me.

The 8600 GP has been obsolete since.. gosh, probably the late 1980's.

Since the drives and motors are Indramat, that's the direction I'd go for a replacement CNC. You might want to contract with A-B to get your existing controller running again and collect enough information about how it works for you to hire somebody to retrofit a modern CNC controller to it.

Thanks Mr.Ken Roach for your reply.

As per your mail we would like to bring the Field service engineer to our plant and would like to proceed as per his recommendation.
Either to repair or replace it with a new one.

Whom should i contact. Can you please give his email / tel no.


Also can you please reply to my other posting for 1746-HS module. I realy donot find anyinfo about this module in Knowledgebase. ALso there is no manual for this in ab manuals on line website.

http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.phps=6d45a896621a63c9e4a3f5878bf0c754&threadid=3541

thread posted on 20th may.(Topic : 1746-HS IMC 110)

Many thanks