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IndustryArena Forum > MetalWorking Machines > Knee Vertical Mills > Yochi's Garage - Kondia K-76 CNC Renovation
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  1. #1

    Yochi's Garage - Kondia K-76 CNC Renovation

    Hello everyone,

    For the past 3 years or so, we are building our own hobby machine shop.
    It happened after (too) many years of watching this forum from the sidelines, dreaming of our own CNC machines, waiting for the right opportunity.

    In that process, we've renovated a Spanish made Kondia K-76 CNC powermill.
    Kondia CNC knee mills are quite a rare breed these days, so we thought its worth sharing here.

    We wanted a machine that could cut carbon steel and stainless with decent speed and accuracy.
    It meant that we had to find a tough, robust, heavy cast iron machine.
    After looking for a long time we were lucky enough to get our hands on this Kondia, she looked and felt like she had a relatively easy life, so we bought it on the spot, no questions asked.
    This machine is an early 80' model (not sure which year), and as far as we know she was used only for prototyping and small scale manufacturing in 2 small shops over the years, and never for series production.
    Due to that fact ,the motion components are in pretty good shape, with no major play or wear in the ways/screws/spindle that is observable to the
    naked eye (and basic indicator testing, we shall see the accurate numbers in the future).
    For a 40 year old machine, that’s quite rare.
    At least on paper, she's a perfect candidate for such a renovation/restoration.
    Also, she's got all the right specs for our needs :

    Specs:
    Dimensions – 1610X1378 mm, Height: 2010mm.
    X Travel: 600mm
    Y Travel: 300mm
    Z Travel: 125mm
    Knee Travel: 395mm (with motor).
    Weight : a lot.
    X-Y Ballscrews : 32 mm, double nut (factory).
    X-Y ways : Square.
    Spindle power : 2.2Kw, 3 phase 400V. pneumatic brake.
    Spindle speed : Motor controlled variable speed gearbox,
    Low Range : 60-500, High Range: 500-4000.
    Tool Holder: BT30, with Power Drawbar.


    The key steps that were taken so far, in a nutshell :

    1. Motors : originally the mill had DC steppers (Slo-Syn ,200 step per rev) and an ancient control system that was installed locally, which we've gotten rid of as soon as we've found out that its super hard to find replacement parts for it, or even find the steeper drives that it requires (a whooping 30A DC drive).

    The replacements were 1.8kw ST110 Chinese servos.
    2500 PPR encoder, 3000 RPM.
    Which weren’t a direct fit and had to be machined into place.

    2. Control : the control board/software of choice is the all popular Mach 3.

    3. Electrical System : We rewired the entire machine from scratch, which was quite a challenge since it was an odd duck to begin with, a 110V system in a 230V mains country (Israel).
    the end result is a hybrid 12dc/110/230/400V system.

    4. Pneumatics: renewed the entire system.
    5. Auto lubricating system :5. Auto lubricating system : flushed, cleaned and serviced the pump, regulator and metering devices (the ones that were accessible without a major disassembly).
    6. Changed all the oils/grease.
    7. Coolant pump : rebuilt the pump.
    8. Bought a second k76 machine for replacement parts.
    9. Software : we bought the license for all the softwares needed.
    we were already proficient in CAD, so we invested a lot of time learning CAM and configurating Mach 3.
    10. Machine Computer: sourced one with the required parallel port, since we decided to use a Mach 3 card with that connection (had good results with it in the past, more on this later).
    11. Cutting /Clamping/Measuring tools: Bought most of the required tools for the basic operations.
    That alone took months to source, garage sale after another, and of course Amazon/Ali/Ebay.


    We will detail all those steps in later posts on this build thread, as well as future improvements.

    But for now, since the mill is already in working condition, I think we should let the pics and videos do the talking, and continue this discussion later.





    Until next time…
    Yam

  2. #2

    Re: Yochi's Garage - Kondia K-76 CNC Renovation

    Another video (more on the channel):




    Side view:
    Attachment 486382

    First attempts: (more on the thumbnails)

    Attachment 486384

  3. #3

    Re: Yochi's Garage - Kondia K-76 CNC Renovation

    The main thing that makes our lives difficult in this project is the lack of information on kondia mill's, there's just not a lot of it online.
    Although the K-76's "little sister" ,the FV-1 , is quite a popular "Bridgeport clone", with lots of info out there, it seems that the k76 model wasn't very wide spread, and not a lot of people are well familiar with it.
    Actually I wasn’t been able to find an estimate of how much K76 were sold worldwide (???),
    in our country we were able to track only 4 of them.

    Adding to the complexity are the facts that:

    1. Kondia no longer exists.
    The company went bankrupt in 2015, and was bought by Clausing/600 group, for a small fee, probably mostly for the spare parts stock.
    As far as I know they didn’t really merge Kondia into Clausing and the company practically ceased to exist (if someone can shed some light on it, that would be great).
    So, there is not even a website or dealerships to consult.
    The brand was literally erased from the internet, you almost can't find anything official on Kondia these days.

    2. Kondia was a Spanish company, and they speak…well…..Spanish.
    so searching the info in English won't find some portion of the results.

    3. It’s a 40 +- years old machine.

    4. There is more than one version of the K76, with noticeable changes. But no record of the exact difference between the versions (3 versions that I know of).
    and it matters when it comes to the details.

    Together those things makes it very hard to obtain quality info on parts and repairs for that specific model.

    Over time we got our hands on the original manuals, even for other similar kondia models (in the thumbnails), but the data in all of them is limited, and often leads nowhere, like part numbers that won't return even 1 google search result.
    Or cases where the service instructions are referring to part numbers that are missing from the drawings we have.

    By sharing this build thread we were hoping to find fellow - Kondia Owners / Former Technicians / Kondia Employees - here to share and exchange info with.
    I was hoping the American users might have some good info for us ,since I've found that back in the day Hurco was Selling a modified version of the k76 in the states,
    under the name Hurco KM3P.
    And maybe they even sold it under "Clausing-Kondia" in some years/states.


    A practical example from recent days :
    We want to replace the gearbox's V belt (slipping at high speeds) and the Low Range belt.
    But there are no useful part numbers in the manuals.
    On the machine itself we have only one of them, the V belt size and model from the existing belt, which is : Contitech Variflex Z, 37/10/880

    The other belt has a "166DS" marking on it , which won't return useful result online and our vendor cant find any part by that code.

    Another thing to consider is that it's better to try and find the correct manufacturer recommendation and not only rely on existing parts.
    Experience taught us that its best to verify the part before we replace it solely based on the former part, since some parts were mounted on the machine as a temp/compromise /"just get her working" type of fix and are not the original parts.

    Any help in that specific matter, or with info on the K76 in general will be highly appreciated.

    Pic of how my kitchen table can look like when im trying to figure things out from all the different manuals (my GF still coaporates with me using the kitchen table like that for hours, but you got to help me ,because it wont last forever :nono: )

    Attachment 486404

    Regards
    Yam

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Posts
    5728

    Re: Yochi's Garage - Kondia K-76 CNC Renovation

    I doubt the V-belts were custom made for that machine. Usually you can find a match by measuring the length of the belt, plus the width and height of the cross-section and looking it up on a chart. Being Spanish, it's doubtless going to be metric. Here's the Contitech site; if you tell them the measurements of your belt they can probably come up with a match: https://www.continental-industry.com...-belts/v-belts
    Andrew Werby
    Website

  5. #5

    Re: Yochi's Garage - Kondia K-76 CNC Renovation

    Hey,
    Thanks, I'm trying to get the part number without removing the belt since the machine is already in working condition and we use it daily.
    I'll try Clausing, maybe they can help.

  6. #6

    Re: Yochi's Garage - Kondia K-76 CNC Renovation

    Wow, your work is amazing. I am trying to fix a Kondia K-76, just like the one in the bottom-right in green. As you said it is quite difficult to find information, even for a spanish (like I). Where did you found that manual??
    This machine was used in a company but modified by some old operator, and now it is almost dead.

  7. #7

    Re: Yochi's Garage - Kondia K-76 CNC Renovation

    Hey, i got it printed with the machine.
    I can take pics of it for you.

    We took the variator apart and got the right belt sizes (seems like its the bridgeport sizes after all).
    pics attached.

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