[fremder23]

I, too, have recently acquired a used Emcoturn 320. The previous owner said that the X-axis seals and bearings need to be replaced. I haven't even begun to address that issue at this point. I'm still in the process of cleaning the machine up.

I have come across one thing that puzzles me. While I was cleaning out the spindle motor cabinet, I noticed that there is an empty threaded hole in the top of the spindle motor. The threads in there are still shiny, so I think that hole was recently occupied by something -- perhaps whatever was in there rattled out while I was hauling the machine home?

Anyway, if any fellow owners of Emcoturn 320's could have a look at my pictures and let me know what is supposed to go in that hole, I would greatly appreciate it.

[fremder23]

Some progress on this Emcoturn 320 rehabilitation. I've got it mostly cleaned up. Now that I can see all the fasteners and such, it is time to start addressing the functional problems.

I got the machine hooked up to power tonight. The control booted up and seemed happy, so it looks like I'm spared the trouble of re-commissioning the control. In fact, most everything seemed to work just fine; even the oiler is doing its thing (and so far it seems that all the oil distribution meters are clear and working).

The X-axis is giving faults on most movements, which is expected as the previous owner said the X would need to be rebuilt.
The Z-axis moves fine, so I'm looking good there.

I am quite short of documentation on this machine. Anyone have links to a maintenance manual? It would be nice to have some sort of documented procedure for tearing down the x-axis.

In the same vein -- does anyone have a pointer to a good beginner's guide to the Fanuc O-T control?

[spumco]

I can't help you with the motor - mine is buried.

I bought a 325-II a few months ago and am just now getting it sorted out. Dead control, but mechanically and electrically pristine.

You'll find that documentation is sparse, and what there is in terrible Germenglish.

I believe there are manuals uploaded to cncmanuals.com with a 0T training guide available. Emco's site has the 0T guide as well.

[fremder23]

I've made a bit more headway on the Emco lathe. Things have very much been 'two steps forward, one step back.'

After a lot of googling, I discovered the correct 'cold start' procedure. That allowed me to activate more of the bits and bobs. Spindle control seems fine, and the spindle bearings sound OK to me.

Unfortunately, I discovered that both the collet mechanism and the tail-stock were stuck. Initially, I thought the collet mechanism was OK, because I could hear the solenoids go when I pressed the open/close button. When I put an actual collet in there, I realised that it wasn't clamping.

I have since brought it back to life. Turns out there were two problems. First, the connection tube was seized with old coolant, chips, and rust. I managed to free it up, though not without beating the hell out of the little ears that you use to loosen it. The pneumatic cylinder that does all the moving was also stuck. There was junk wedged in the (very close tolerance) gap between the moving piston and the cylinder cap. It took a lot of pressure to push the cylinder cap off -- luckily there are threaded holes in the cap that one can use with a pair of jack screws to drive the thing apart. Whatever that junk was, it was tough to clean off the piston shaft and the seal surface in the cylinder cap. It did eventually yield to kerosene and a scotch brite pad. Unfortunately there is some remaining pitting, especially on the piston shaft. And, I re-used the o-ring in there even though it looked a bit rough. Hopefully, I'll get a few years out of it before it fails again.

I'll attach a couple of photos of the front end of the collet actuating cylinder/piston in case anyone is curious about what's in there.

Next up, tearing down the tailstock -- which I assume is also jammed with old coolant and rust.

[fremder23]

My suspicions about the tailstock proved to be true. It was quite stuck but judicious application of the arbor press sorted that out in relatively short order. I didn't have time to clean it up or reassemble it yet. However, since I managed to get it all apart without breaking anything I'm confident it will work fine when it is all back together.

The document I have mentions that the live center is mounted eccentrically in the tailstock cylinder. It was neat to get it apart and see it with my own eyes. Nice bit of fabrication, that. Also, who knew that the live center would just unscrew from the front of the cylinder like that? I never did figure out how to get the plastic piston off the central shaft -- the fastener that holds it on there does not have wrench flats and won't accept a hex key. I scratched my head over it for a bit and then decided to work around it.

With the tailstock off, it looks to be much easier to detach the tool turret, which I need to do in order to finish tearing down the x-axis.

Photos of the disassembled tailstock are attached for the curious.

[crclark]

You are a God send! I have 2 Emcoturn 320's. One with a Fanuc and one with a Siemens controller. I've written off the 320 with the Siemens controller because the config is lost and on paper tape!
I have no alarms but cannot for the life of me get any MDI to run, I would love to see the spindle turn, the part tray open and close. I have the collet open/close working. I've upgraded the CRT to a LCD and have added a Micro DNC which works great.
If you need any photos/info please let me know. I do have several documents (PDF) if you need them. I just need help actually getting the spindle to turn under MDI, no alarms but have never seen the spindle spin. I'm willing to pay for help.

Thanks
Craig

[Diesel_Pilot]

I'll attach a couple of photos of the front end of the collet actuating cylinder/piston in case anyone is curious about what's in there.

If you didn't mark the orientation of the actuator before taking it off, you'll need to rebalance the spindle assembly. Depending on how far you disassembled, you may be able to find the proper orientation by trail and error indexing through the mounting holes. I would have replaced the seals if I had it apart that far. Too much work to be doing it again, and you know it will fail at the worst time. These use a fair amount of air, so any leaks really increase overall consumption.

[crclark]

Thanks spumco and everyone else posting in this thread. I was worried because I didn't see any new posts since around 2010 or so.
I tried and tried and then I had the spindle spin! but now I cant figure out exactly what I did. I also adjusted the sensors for the draw bar so the controls know the status of the collet open/closed.
I messed around a ton and when I did get the spindle to spin it seems i had hit the single block button ?
I'll try and get some pictures up of my machine.
My machine came with a LMS bar feeder but its not connected, I jumpered the bar feeder out on the lathe side connector. Jumper pin 7 to 10 is what the instructions from LMS says to do.
I'm wondering if thats part of my problem. Occasionally I'll get a "end of bar" which may mess me up, Just guessing so I think I'll go into the machine config and disable the bit for the bar feeder. Maybe it will stop that end of bar alarm.
I don't know what the machine uses to determine that though.

Thanks
Craig

[Jim Dawson]

I have come across one thing that puzzles me. While I was cleaning out the spindle motor cabinet, I noticed that there is an empty threaded hole in the top of the spindle motor. The threads in there are still shiny, so I think that hole was recently occupied by something -- perhaps whatever was in there rattled out while I was hauling the machine home?

I have a similar hole in my Fanuc spindle motor. It's where the lifting ring screws in, mine still has the ring screwed in.

[crclark]

I would really appreciate and help with getting my machine to do anything lol, No errors, just dont have a clue about the Fanuc O-T controls. Cant get a simple MDI command to see if the spindle runs. If anyone need parts let me know. I have 2 Emcoturn 320's. I'm just a hobbyist interested in learning.

[spumco]

crclark:

(forgive me if you already know this, but I'll assume you're as new at old-school CNC controls as I was about a month ago)

Assuming you can get to the MDI screen, press PROGRAM hard key to get to the MDI entry screen. Bottom left of the screen is where the commands you are entering show up in a 'temporary' line. Enter S500 M04 (or 03, whatever), then INPUT. That 'enters' the intended code in to the MDI program.

Then press CYCLE START to execute - should turn the spindle.

Turn it off either by SPINDLE STOP hard button on panel, RESET hard button, or MDI - PROGRAM - M05 - INPUT - CYCLE START

Some controls want an "M04" instead of "M4" - my 325-II with Fanuc 21TB is like that.

[Diesel_Pilot]

Some controls want an "M04" instead of "M4" - my 325-II with Fanuc 21TB is like that.

LOL, my 325-II works with M4, but this isn't a real Fanuc control. Have you ever looked at the spindle drive paramaters? Someone turned off braking in mine. I had to guess at the settings as Emco wouldn't tell me anything. Wait it has no control? What are you going to do? I would try everything to bring the old one back to life. I thought mine was bad, fortunately it turned out to be a variety of small gremlins. I never found a suitable DIY solution that included as much C axis functionality. just recently I looked again and found nothing, cheaper than the Concept upgrade.

[spumco]

Sorry to do a slight thread hijack with my 325. It seems as though the 325 is rather different than the 320.

I had to guess at the settings as Emco wouldn't tell me anything. Wait it has no control? What are you going to do? I would try everything to bring the old one back to life. I thought mine was bad, fortunately it turned out to be a variety of small gremlins. I never found a suitable DIY solution that included as much C axis functionality. just recently I looked again and found nothing, cheaper than the Concept upgrade.

My 325-II has no Fanuc parts - just a WinXP PC up front and the ACC in back. My XP PC was dead, so I got a used Dell Thin Client w/Win7 Embedded and loaded the WinNC software from the OEM CD and floppy that came with the machine.

Everything seems to work fine, just having problems with some G-code cycles. The two programming manuals I have (early & late versions) do not appear to match the Fanuc 21TB version I have, so some of the cycles (radial live tools) aren't documented properly.

[fremder23]

I have a similar hole in my Fanuc spindle motor. It's where the lifting ring screws in, mine still has the ring screwed in.

A Ha! Thanks a ton for that bit of information. BTW, we're practically neighbors. I'm in Scappoose.

[fremder23]

While I was ignoring my computer, I made a lot of progress on the EMCO re-hab.

I got the tailstock back together without any hiccups.

Getting the tool turret off was a bit of a pain -- I had to cut down a 5mm allen key to get two of the hex cap screws out.

I took off all of the X slideway covers, most of the Z slideway covers, and finally removed the ball-screw from the X axis. Stupidly, I forgot to take the 3 small bolts out of the ball nut before I hauled it out of there, so all the balls fell out (luckily they all fell into the cavity in the X slide). I got the bearing stack apart, and discovered that there are not angular contact bearings in there like I had expected. Instead, there are two thrust bearings and one radial ball bearing. It was that radial bearing that was causing all the trouble for me -- it was very dead. My local bearing distributor had a replacement on hand.

Rebuilding the ball-nut was rather painful. 44 tiny balls in 4 separate circuits in there. I managed to get it all back together, but those are several hours of my life that I would love to have done something else with. I don't have a picture of the X axis fully disassembled but I'll attach a photo of it partially re-assembled. The assembly is a bit of a jigsaw puzzle. For the benefit of anyone else attempting a re-build: be sure to place the two hex cap screws under the pulley before pressing the pulley onto the shaft of the ball-screw. The arbor press was key during the reassembly: it was needed both to seat the new radial bearing and to get the pulley back on the ball-screw shaft. As I didn't have any torque specs for the nut on top of the pulley, I just tightened it up until the bearing stack got a bit stiff.

And then, there was a great rush of re-assembly. X-axis in, slideway covers back on, turret back on, tailstock back on. I even replaced the plexiglass windows.

The results are encouraging. No more faults during X axis motion.

Unfortunately, I think I have the tailstock slightly out of parallel with the spindle axis. Any pointers on how to rectify that? Everything I've come up with involves machining contraptions with long arms that will probably introduce more errors.
There is also still the issue with getting the collet actuator re-aligned properly.
The tooling I've ordered for this machine is still largely in the mail, as is the new loc-line. But, another few days and I should be turning real parts.

[crclark]

heres some documentation, hope it helps.

Well the PDF files are to big for this site if you have a dropbox or someting I'll upload them for whoever needs them. These are the Emcoturn 320 / Fanuc user and maint manuals

[fremder23]

Hey, look at that. Here I thought I was just here talking to myself. Then I take a break for a few days and everyone shows up.

@crclark -- It took me a while to get my spindle to turn on, too. This is what I do now: Start up with the magic button combo (N + Can) so that the soft limits don't bite you. Make sure to hit the 'aux on.' Move the mode dial to Jog, jog x down to about the center line of the spindle and z about halfway between the spindle nose and its max travel. Move the mode dial to Ref. Hit X+ jog button (wait for it to get to xref), then hit the Z+ jog button (wait for it to get to zref). Now hit the green CNC 'on' button. (some docs say it wants to see a toggle on the door switch at this point, but I've been skipping that). Now set the mode dial to MDI, hit the 'Prog' key and enter e.g. S 200 (input), M 4 (input), cycle start.
Also, I'd love to have those manuals -- especially the maintenance one. I'll see about re-animating my dropbox account.

@Diesel_Pilot -- I discovered about rebalancing the actuator. I've got it roughly dialed in, but it is not perfect. Any know-how that you might have as to how to get it properly tuned would be appreciated. I really should not have messed with those set screws around the circumference of the actuator.

[Diesel_Pilot]

@Diesel_Pilot -- I discovered about rebalancing the actuator. I've got it roughly dialed in, but it is not perfect. Any know-how that you might have as to how to get it properly tuned would be appreciated. I really should not have messed with those set screws around the circumference of the actuator.

If you've already played with the setscrews, you're out of luck. The spindle requires proper dual plane balancing. If you can find someone to come out and do it for a reasonable price, that would be the solution. Rebuild that actuator prior.

[fremder23]

If you've already played with the setscrews, you're out of luck. The spindle requires proper dual plane balancing. If you can find someone to come out and do it for a reasonable price, that would be the solution. Rebuild that actuator prior.

Well, now I know about dual plane balancing. Are the two planes in question the end-cap of the actuator and the ring of set-screws about 3/4 of the way down the body of the cylinder?

[Diesel_Pilot]

Well, now I know about dual plane balancing. Are the two planes in question the end-cap of the actuator and the ring of set-screws about 3/4 of the way down the body of the cylinder?

It looks like the actuator only has one ring of set screws. I'm not sure if anything else is used to balance that spindle. Mine has two rows of set screws. Without sensors to measure vibration and spindle position, chances of getting it right by trial and error are virtually zero. You also indicate the actuator to minimize runout before you balance.

Any coolant you like will be fine, you should learn about coolant maintenance if you aren't familiar.

If the machine takes metric tooling, just buy metric tooling. Modifying tooling gets old. What you need will all depend on what you make.

The jaw chucks are hard to find, so great to have.

I cut the air when I power down. The actuator leaks quite a bit at the union, but it may be time for a rebuild.

Emco USA does stock many parts. Have part numbers when you contact them. They are just thin stainless sheet.