CMS Lathe - Fagor 8025 to Centroid Acorn

[Nathan]

I have a CMS GT16, which is small gang lathe made in 1998. It was originally made for production. It came with a Fagor 8025 controller. It’s way outdated. I only use it as a hobbyist, not for production of any kind, so I don’t see why I would need a closed loop controller. I haven’t dug into it too much, but from what I can see, it’s all analog. Since I only do one-off parts, I wanted to move to something more modern and simple to program.

Is the Acorn controller a good fit for this application or am I getting into something that’s going to be a nightmare to get up and running. From what I can tell, Acorn is advertised to work with most of the old drives from that time period. Thanks.

[CentroidFrog]

Hello Nathan,
Welcome to the forums!
I know you might be just looking for some quick info on whether Acorn will work for your build or not, but it's not usually that cut and dry.
The short answer is likely Yes.
The Acorn is one of the best hobbyist friendly cnc controllers you can get.
However, for us to provide better support I suggest using this thread as a "build thread".
Here is how: viewtopic.php?f=60&t=6928

[cnckeith]

Acorn will most likely NOT work with servo drives from 1998, the good news is you can get new drives and motors for cheap that will work well if you are on a budget. lots of good options nowadays, Leadshine, Stepper Online, Clearpath all great choices and easy to hook up and get running well and fast.