[KC130LOADIE]

Bob:
I have been seeing the Mitsubishi drive pop up in lots on the regular. Very intriguing. I pulled my servos and drives (Westamp?). After reading and listening, they just don't seem worth the hassle of getting OLD gear working reliably with new gear. Why have you used so many different drives and servos? Was it a trial and error discovery process?

As for my old stuff, the servos do turn, and the drives are pretty spotless. I am going to photograph and catalog everything that I won't be using and put it up for sale to whoever need to keep their Journeyman running.

[KC130LOADIE]

Hey everyone. So I am waiting on getting my electrical cabinets back from the powder coaters. In the meantime, I have been taking finals, so not much to note besides a couple things.

I finished tearing down the Bijur Oil Lubricator. A new reservoir was $34 and gasket was around $3. A new TM-1 from Bijur runs from $500-$900. I am not sure WHY these things cost so much. Either way, if you do get replacement parts for your oil system, such as a Oil Window for the head, make sure your order everything at the same time. Shipping was almost $20. I paid this once when getting the replacement window, then again when I ordered the Bijur parts. It might just be Fluidline Systems crappy shipping costs. I don't have any complaints about the products or timeliness though. Everything showed up on time as ordered. It just sucks when it costs 2x a much in shipping for a part (the oil window) when the part is the weight of a quarter...maybe two quarters at best.
Attachment 261052Attachment 261054Attachment 261056Attachment 261058

I remember that when dissasembling the gear from the motor shaft, it took ALOT of force to release the set screw. Well, it sure as hell didn't take much force on the way in to strip the brass threads out. After trying to tap the hole large and use a larger set screw to no avail, I spun the gear a 180* and drilled a new hole and tapped that with the original set screw size. Ohh, I also noticed after everything had gone awry that the motor spindle has a flat side. Doh!

I have also been re-laying out the wiring and power cabinet. I mocked up the VFD and original push buttons as remote start, stop, and reverse. It took some 5-6 re-readings of the manual, but it works like a champ. I also tested out one of the 220 to 110 transformers and the Bijur pump works. Another note for someone new to the Bijur lubrication system: The motor on my system is rated to run on 115v AC power. There are only 2 wires. 1 Hot, 1 Neutral (Ground). After applying power to the unit, I initially thought it was broken. Nothing was happening. It wasn't until I put my ear on the motor did I realize it was running. The Bijur motor moves at a SUPER reduced ratio. I had to stare at the gear in the oil for about 15 minutes straight to realized that it was moving.

Attachment 261060Attachment 261062Attachment 261064

As soon as the cabinets get back, I'll be making chips. Manually making chips, but making chips none the less.

[Alaska Bob]

Bob:
I have been seeing the Mitsubishi drive pop up in lots on the regular. Very intriguing. I pulled my servos and drives (Westamp?). After reading and listening, they just don't seem worth the hassle of getting OLD gear working reliably with new gear. Why have you used so many different drives and servos? Was it a trial and error discovery process?

As for my old stuff, the servos do turn, and the drives are pretty spotless. I am going to photograph and catalog everything that I won't be using and put it up for sale to whoever need to keep their Journeyman running.

Kit,
Why so many drives? Well I do have a hard time passing up a good deal ! I use the really good deals as a cheap education. I have no problem dropping 40bucks on something if I think I can learn something. I cut my teeth on servo drives with the old emerson FX-208 series and learned alot. The emerson product line has many models that operate with the same software (free to download from emerson) and drive the same motors. The EN, EB, EI drives are to a large extent interchangeable. The EI and EB are swapable without even changing out connectors. I really like being able to program other brand servos to work. You can also find Exlar motors often that are setup to work on the drives.

I keep thinking about putting up the old drives for sale, and thats as far as i get. :-) The DCservos I want to keep as I can just hook up a battery and have one heck of a motor for some project some day.

The Mitsubishis were too good of a deal to pass up. I like the autotuning feauture and high encoder count. They seem a bit more restrictive about which motor will work with which drive. I think they are at a different level then the emerson. But it is straight forward to interface with and works well.

Good luck with finals.
Bob

[KC130LOADIE]

Ahh...I am very similar in that respect. I also have a natural tendancy to hoard "useful" items such as electronic components, computer gear, tools, etc. If there is a steal of a deal, I am also very hard pressed not to take the bait. Of course, like always, whenever I do have a purge of my goodies, I end up needed one of them 2 days later. Ohh well.

The Mitsubishis do look like they are a solid product. I havn't been able to find anything negative about them compared to some of the more "consumer level" stuff.

I thought you would find this interesting. I was trolling around eBay and say this:
Tree Machine Tool Company Vertical Milling Machine Model 2UVRC | eBay

Poor machine looks pretty destroyed by the elements...the picture even shows water pooled up in the table! I don't see him getting $1,000 when for $200-$500 more you can get running machines. It's in L.A., I might go up and make a super low offer, or a tad more if some folks are looking for parts. I wouldn't mind getting the powerfeeds for my machine. Maybe scavenge all the good stuff off it? I could see it being worth a trip to L.A. for $350 IF I could get access to a friends drop-deck and IF the casting would net $150-$200 as scrap. Seeing machines in this state (especially a Tree) really breaks my heart.

-Kit

[RCaffin]

Interesting.
I had the devil's own trouble getting a toothed belt pulley off the spindle shaft one time. Turned out that it was really quite easy to do provided that:
You undid the cap head grub screw hidden under the toothed belt in the pulley!
This released the Woodruff key between the shaft and the pulley ....
A bit hard when it is all hidden away down a dark hole.

Cheers

[KC130LOADIE]

Not much work on the mill...still waiting on cabinets for the electrics. In the meanwhile, I have picked up some goodies for (I think - could be wrong) a pretty good price. I was able to nab some items from a liquidation auction up the coast in Santa Barbara. I'm in San Diego, so it wasn't a bad drive...except LA...man I hate LA.
So I got:
Attachment 261864Attachment 261866

These are the pictures I saw from the online auction site. I figured it was a semi used but in decent shape import vise. $60. It sat in the back of my truck which has a shell. It rained...my shell leaked, and the vise turned into a giant iron carrot. So I setup a home electrolysis contraption and starting converting rust.
Attachment 261868Attachment 261870Attachment 261872

I left it in for 36 hours. Well, after some wiping off carbon, I discovered that I had bought a Kurt! An "old" D60. There wasn't a tag on the side, and there might have been an engraving on the moveable jaw at one time, but I couldn't tell. What I love about the little science experiment was that I had to scrub NOTHING, just a wipe down with a towel. No material was removed to make the rust go away...and man, there was lots of it.
Attachment 261874Attachment 261876Attachment 261878

After a while spent masking things off, I gave it a treatment of "new" Ford Blue Engine Block paint, then cured it on my bbq. I looked at getting "Kurt Blue," or using brake caliper paint, but the Ford Blue looked the closest to me, and was readily available.
Attachment 261880Attachment 261882Attachment 261884Attachment 261886Attachment 261888

Flatness checked out great (AFAIK) using a DTI and comparing both sides. There is a couple of tool marks on top of the fixed jaws, and it looks like the right way got pounded on a bit with some raised (barley) surface. It indicated about a 1-2 thou. I'm thinking about getting the vise resurfaced as an excuse to use my school's surface grinder.


My next treasure find was a Mitutoyo 192-116 dial height guage, 3 magnetic indicator bases, an OLD dial indicator that works, for $50. I was really just going after the height gauge, and the others were just extras. The mag base on the right is cool; the magnet is a series of thin parallels that conform to uneven surfaces.
Attachment 261890

The last find I nabbed was 2 granite surface plates. One is 4" thick and about 18x20 by Metroplate and a 6" thick 24x36 plate by Strandige.
Attachment 261898Attachment 261900Attachment 261902Attachment 261904
They came on a sturdy steel cart on casters. Also included was a couple granite v-blocks and a pretty large "granite L-Plate?" that has threaded holes on one side, and a large metalic disc in one side, and a series of smaller metal discs on the other. While bidding, I got so transfixed on getting the plates, I didn't realize the true prize sitting on top of the rocks. It was a Mitutoyo 515-319 Height Master.
Attachment 261906
I've leafed through the manual for the height master, but don't really know how to use it. I was pretty shocked when I looked on eBay and these are going from $350 to $1800. Retail new they are $4,000!

I got the surface plates and assorted granite, and the Height Master for $150. I think I cleaned up- pretty good. The two rocks are stupid heavy though, it was pretty comical watching my father and myself moving the big surface plate into the truck bed.

[KC130LOADIE]

My electrical cabinets are finally back from the powder coater. They did a pretty damn good job too. The color isn't 100% match, but then again, their ain't 100% of the original paint on the machine either.
Attachment 262700Attachment 262702Attachment 262704

Once I got the cabinets hung, it was off to mount the electrical backplane. Well, I am pretty OCD when it comes to wiring, and component placement. I pretty much just stared at the electrical for hours until I decided to go along with my original layout. I was torn between where to locate the VFD. The right cabinet has holes already cut into it for ventilation, but I wanted the VFD and computer components to be seperated. Instead, I reused one of the old AC fans and bracket and set it up to blow directly onto the VFD and its' heatsink. I thought that I would have to add additional holes, fans, and filters to the "power cabinet" that houses the VFD, but after running the mill for over 2 hours constantly, it never got warmer than the ambient air temp.
Attachment 262706Attachment 262704

Next was to pull wire from the control pendant, through the "CNC Controller / Computer Cabinet" and over to the "Power Cabinet." I reused some of the original 14ga. wiring as it was still good and it had tiny spade connectors that fit the original Allen Bradley push buttons perfectly. Tree had used pretty much only 3 different color wiring when the built the mill. Red, Black, a little Blue (for control stuff, 24v I think) and some white. Lots and lots of Red though. If it wasn't for the number label tags on most of the wiring, it would truly suck to troubleshoot the old machine guts. I reused the red connect the remote buttons to the VFD. I lucked out and was able to reuse the wires with labels on them, which correspond to the numbering scheme in the Power Cabinet Isolation block.
Attachment 262708Attachment 262710Attachment 262712

This is the only place where I have reused old wiring, and of the same color. The rest of the machine follows what I think is a standard, more modern wiring scheme. All grounded wires are green, all power that is 110vAC is Red, 24vDC is White, etc. I have a large centralized ground center set up and am reusing much of the old isolation bus bar with some jumpers made for distributing 110vAC. I hope to have a good COLOR wiring diagram drawn up soon, so I can go back and fix things if need be.

To sum things up for now, Phase 3 - A Working Manual Machine is pretty much complete. I still need to:
1. Fab / install the saddle lock
2. Wire in the Bijur oiler,the old power cord was toast
3. Fab up an extension for the right side of the machine so I can have a hand crank with a dial indicator on that side.
4. I purchased a MachTach online and will be integrating the tach into the old control pendant. Some electronics work will be a nice change of pace for a bit. I still haven't decided on how I want to detect spindle speed yet, and if I want to place the sensor inside the head.
5. I am looking REAL hard at an OpenDRO kit from Shumatech. While I don't want any Chinese gear on this machine, I just don't understand why the name brand DRO systems are so damn expensive. Maybe this will bite me later on, but since the control pendant has already been customized, I thought it would be fitting for a build-it-yourself tachometer to sit next to a D.Y.I DRO system. I am going to try to keep the pendant as stock looking as possible.
6. Add CNC capability back to the machine. I have an entire cabinet with nothing in it as of now. I decided to ditch the older drives and servos for new gear. The turnkey solutions are looking pretty attractive, but that will have to wait.
7. Get more tooling.


I did get to put the Tree through a little job tonight though. I had a piece of 7075 Al laying around that had been cut crappily (by me) on a bandsaw and could use squaring. I only had a 3/8" 3-flute endmill as my largest cutter on hand; but the machine worked SOOOO GOOD! While this is in no way a definitive test, the stock was squared to 5" long x 2" high x .80" thick. I was pretty haphazard when it came to depth of cut and feeds, and it still came out within a thou of each corner on all sides. I'm pretty happy.
Attachment 262714Attachment 262716

[KC130LOADIE]

So today I managed to get my horizontal gib stuck. The end of it had closest to the front of the machien been broken off by a previous owner. Well, since the cap head adjustment screw only had one surface to retain it, the gib got "sucked" against the back of the gib holder and fixed gib. I put too much muscle into turning it, then heard a "pop." Now my Saddle Gib Holder is in 2 pieces.



I have to see if ZPS even has these. I know it won't be cheap. This truly sucks, and I am more mad at myself for not getting a replacement gib to begin with, then giving it the incredible hulk treatment rather than studying the situation.

Enjoy the carnage.

Anyone have any good ideas on how to go about a replacement, fabricating a new one? The piece is cast iron that is then machined.

Kit

[IMG][/IMG]

[RCaffin]

Have a very close look at the fracture surfaces. If they are shiny bright and clean, then you dunnit. But I find it very hard to imagine that you did it all by yourself.

Instead, I suspect that you will find that much of the fracture surfaces are dull or dirty. In other words, that break started a long time ago, and you just finished it off. It was going to happen. In fact,. evil thought, I wonder whether the vendor knew it was cracked (excess force on the gib?) and so sold it quickly? Likely, imho.

Now, repair. Oh dear.
I have heard claims that you can weld cast iron - but even the experts were very doubtful.

I have seen a fractured lathe bed repaired once, after it broke in a big fire. It was quite a large lathe too. But that was done mechanically by putting a steel band around the whole thing, heating the entire band to several hundred degrees C (about 6 guys with oxy torches!), and then very quickly arc-welding the band closed. As the steel band cooled you could see WD40 seeping out of the shrinking crack. (It had been doused in WD40 after the fire.) The lathe still runs very well - a friend has it at home.

You could try reassembling the dovetail carefully, and drilling for a number of thru-bolts. IF successful, the grain boundaries between the two halves should maintain the alignment. IF... You could add some slow Loctite or epoxy maybe as well. But would you trust it? Um ... maybe. Lots of testing needed.

But than, for a few bolts and some G-cramps, what have you to lose?

I wonder whether you could salvage another dovetail off another (identical) machine? To replace the repaired one?

Cheers

[KC130LOADIE]

One thing I am kicking my self was about 3 weeks ago, an identical machine (which was left out in the elements and looked beat to hell) was for sale in Los Angeles (just up the stree from me) on eBay. The guy wanted a thousand for it....I gave him some very lowball offers which he declined. If I had picked it up, I'd be back in business. I should have tried harder to get it. It had all of the powerfeeds on it as well.

As for breaking it, it was all me. I guess I just dont know my own strength.

[RCaffin]

You mean the entire fracture surface on both sides is bright and shiny?
If so, wow!

Cheers

[fahrphrompuken]

Was this the one you were talking about?

Tree Heavy Duty Vertical Mill Milling Machine with Vice Collets | eBay

Looks like possibly a J200, although all of the axis motors had been removed.

[KC130LOADIE]

No, even though that is my exact same machine. It had been on eBay a few months ago, but still had the cabinets and pendant on it. Looks like they took that stuff off. The machine before was a straight up manual 2UVRC. It had the knee motor along with powerfeed for both x & y. The handles were missing, and looked pretty beat up. It went for a best offer...not sure how much, but it didn't look to be in running condition.

[Alaska Bob]

Kit,
Really sorry to hear about the break. I know you can use special fasteners to stitch up cracks in cast iron but not sure if those techniques would be applicable to this issue. Maybe do a search for cast iron stitching and call one of them up for some ideas.
Bob

[KC130LOADIE]

Hey Bob,

I am pretty sure that I will either need a new part or make one myself. The way the part broke, it just isn't clean. It's more like the San Andreas fault. I'm looking into sourcing Dura-Bar lockally (no luck yet) or maybe even some plate steel that I could machine at school. It definitely would be a good project, and I have yet to machine anything other than aluminum so far. I am trying to be very Zen about this and just look at it as a learning experience rather than want to kick the machine or myself. I tried kicking the machine, and the 3,500 pounds of cast iron won that fight.

Monica over at ZPS is helping me out big time (again) so hopefully maybe I can get back in business before school starts.

-Kit

[Alaska Bob]

Yeah, i feel your pain. Like you say, take it as a learning experience. And it does look like a nice part to machine up.
Stay zen!

[RCaffin]

Hi Kit

A REAL test, which would be very hard, would be to bolt the broken bed together (many bolts, very tight), and then to figure out how to machine a replacement bed using your own mill. Not easy, I agree.

Obviously, the bed is longer than the travel, so you would need some very good straight edges to keep the new bed aligned when you move it along. Not easy at all. Just trying would be extremely educational, even if you don't succeed well enough.

Possible? Yes - someone built the first mill that size from scratch, a very long time ago. Problem: could be a long process!

Cheers
Roger

[Alaska Bob]

Kit,
I think Roger has a good idea. As this is your y axis gib, you should have enough travel along the x to handle the entire piece in one go. I am not sure how different our machines are, but on mine it looks like the bottom side of that plate has clearance to put a full doubler plate on. The only obstruction is around where the leadscrew drive nut mounting is.

I would be inclined to drill and tap the gib plate and bolt on a 1/2 , 3/4 or even 1inch steel plate covering as much of it as possible. Clamp it up while tightening the bolts. I know the break is rough, but does it mate right up together tight yes? I would probably go with 1/4" bolts so you get some stretch into them rather than a larger fastener.
Bob

[KC130LOADIE]

I like where you guys are going with this. I could see getting the machine to only operate in the X-Axis. I would have to figure a non instrusive / destructive way to make sure the saddle doesnt want to hop / vibrate up & down since the gib holder took out both the left-right lateral slop of the saddle on the knee, AND the vertical slop of the knee and the saddle. I'm guessing that as long as I dont take large DOC, I might get away with it. It's too bad I don't have a saddle lock; the left side of my saddle where the "flat gib" is never had a saddle lock since the machine was NC originally. I have the parts to install one, but I need some dimensions on where to put the hole so-to-speak. Maybe ZPS can hook me up with the drawings for it.

The only reason I think the saddle lock would be handy would be to help keep the saddle from moving. I do have a large piece of 1.75" 6061 aluminum plate. Do you think that could work as a temporary saddle / gib / lock / retainer while I machine out a steel or cast iron piece? I have to take some measurements, but I think I could slot cut all of the keyway and the horizontal gib slot with little to no Y-axis movement. The vertical gib would be a different story since it is about .990 wide, then gets grinded to .985. Thanks for the great ideas fellas. Definitely has got the gears in my head turning!

[Eldon_Joh]

You can glue that part back together, you will need to compress the joint to a thousand psi or whatever to squeeze out every bit of unneeded epoxy, and then bolt it through wherever you can, then make a new one.