[krismcneil]

Anyone have experience with the automatic wheel balancing and acoustic emission systems that can come equipped on grinding machines? we are running several cantilevered spindle grinders and im experiencing some bad surface finish and chatter once in a while. im thinking we caould get some of these systems to help more precise wheel dressing and balancing of the wheels to help with this problem. what do you think?

[cb1]

grinding chatter could be caused by so many things, wrong wheel grit,
wrong speeds, parts moving, spindle runout, wheel runout, just to name a few.
find the problem before buying. you should be dressing the wheel on the machine to iliminate the balancing problem, if chatter is happening only once in a while i would look at: material being ground, wheel being used, amount of material per pass, wheel speed and feeds, part clamping.
hope this helps, it could be 1 thing or a bunch things.

[krismcneil]

Yea it helps. i was aware of the other reasons for chatter. i have spoke to other engineers about the problem and i am going to do a complete evaluation before looking into the systems that could basically upgrade the machine (wheel balancing, etc.) i have also talked allot with other guys in other plants that said they did purchase these systems and it helped extend the life of the machine by eliminating bearing wear, extending spindle life, and better surface finish. i have heard by using the acoustic emission sensing on these machines to dress the wheel is much more accurate and precise then the conventional way. i think this could help eliminate the chatter.