[CNC Viking]

Hi all,

I am winding the clock back a bit, to June 2008, when I bought this used 1996 Feeler FV-800 VMC. A Taiwan made quality machine loaded with Mitsubishi Meldas 520AM control and THK linear guides and ball screws.

It is 4-axis ready, with the 4'th axis in the pipeline. 7,5 kW 6 000 rpm spindle, 18 tool ATC. Movements: X=800mm, Y=450mm, Z=510mm.

Despite quite a sad cosmetic state when I bought it, it was in really good shape mechanically and the electrics cabinet was in mint, untouched OEM condition.

It only has 2000 spindle hours so far.

When I bought it, I knew quite a bit about manual tool room machines, but not much about CNC's.

However, while I was going through the usual cleaning, painting and service-ing process, I slowly learned more and more about it and came up with many upgrading ideas.

So let's start with the machines arrival and installation.


This is how she looked at the sellers warehouse when I bought her.












OK, moving in time. The movers used 12mm plywood sheets + 10mm steel sheets to protect my
driveway from the heavy load of machine 5 000 kg + truck 9 000kg.


I was never worried. These guys are pro's.


Tight slip thruogh the gate. I had to remove the Z-axis servo and tilt the cable carrier prior to
the move.


Welcome home!



15mm steel strips under the machine feet (as an attempt to spread the load) was useless.
Too whimsy to level.


Had to place the machine directly on the floor. No problem, 150-200mm armored concrete
is strong.


Had to modify the roof a little for the cable carrier.



Will continue with cleaning, painting, leveling etc... in next post

[Kool Parts]

Nice writeup
People that have not done this have NO idea all of the "little" things that go into a machine install.
When I ordered my Horizontal I had to do a building expansion to accommodate it and all of the equipment that goes with it. I have taken lots of pictures starting with the excavation all the way to start up. I get tired just going though pictures and text...maybe someday I will do a write up also...
Gary

[SquareJ]

That is too awesome. the fact that it takes up 1/3 of the garage shows you have your prorities straight!

Jason

[CNC Viking]

Thanks Gary & Jason,

You bet, there are a LOT of things to think of beside the machine itself.

The garage room itself is 50 m2 and the machine's footprint is just over 5 m2 but with the control box, computer cart, tool cart and whatnot I would say it takes 1/4 of the space. Still, I have enough space on the other side to do some work on a car, should there be a need for it during cold winter days.

I continue my story with further cleaning, painting etc pics. Not fun while I did it, but I am glad for it now!

After having cleaned the machine roughly and degreased the surfaces, I thought I better level it and have that bit over and done with. I used a pair of borrowed precision 0,02mm/m machine levels and leveled the machine within 1/2 of a mark.




Then I looked at the linear guides beneath the X- and Y- axis and got a little worried to see this. the former owner did not clean it to much, if at all, and must have used compressed air a lot inside the enclosure. I found chips and metal fines all over the place. But it was some kind of synthetic coolant that killed all the linear cart's end scrapers and several of the inner seals as well.


So I made a small ball bearing jack screw so I could loosen and slide out one cart at a time. It was very easy to lift even the Y-saddle with the X-table on top of it. Only a lift of 0,1 mm was needed to free the cart.


They were contaminated with a fair amount of chips inside, but most was aluminum and not jammed between the balls and the race. The balls and the races were almost in mint condition and all carts could be reused after changing seals.


I bought new end scrapers and inner seals and rebuilt all 8 carts. It took 2 hours to remove, clean, measure all the balls, reassemble, grease and reinstall 1 cart.


I also dismantled all the metering valves and made sure that they issued oil.
Some of the plastic oil lines were also replaced.


The end result: High quality, high preload grade THK linear guide carts in "as new" condition.


To be continued.....

[307startup]

subscribing, this is good tech!

[CNC Viking]

Thanks 307startup,

A bit more detailed stuff on moving in the machine:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73312

As for linear guides, I have elaborated the procedures a bit more in these threads:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67361

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68570

[CNC Viking]

Time to post som more pics and story.

God, I hate cleaning, sanding, painting. But it all had to be done and I wanted to have it over and done with.

Most of it sanded and ready for primer and paint.






The bed, Saddle and table were all completely repainted with 3 layers.


The column and spindle head were in good shape and were only re-touched.


All set for painting. The Spindle head shroud and glasfiber covers for ATC only needed re-touch.


Paint applied and a big relief, because I hate that stuff and could not wait to get it re-assembled again.
Both interior and exterior were painted with 3 layers.
Some weeks later, when the paint was real hard, I also waxed all painted surfaces, inside and outside.


The ATC was also OK and received only a re-touch, while the carousel needed full coating.


Then it took 2 days to clean and touch up the front sliding doors and the
way covers.

It took 4 months to get to this point.

To be continued....

[CROSSHATCH]

Keep going! Love seeing the pics!


-Jason

[digits]

Looks like you're doing a fantastic job - and thanks for all the pics - it really is fascinating to see a real CNC machine with the covers off.

[multiplex]

nice progress! bookmarking this thread. keep us updated

[CNC Viking]

Waycovers, Y-axis ballscrew cover, side covers, linear covers, you-name-it covers. All are as
new and assembled.




Freshly painted chip bin.


The front roller doors got new 8mm cast acrylic (Plexiglas) windows. New 10mm cast acrylic side
sliding windows. Also installed new aluminum tube handles on all doors and control box.


All components were cleaned, repaired or otherwise brought to as-new condition.


These I think, got even better than OEM. I made all new CAD drawings for the panel layouts
and ordered new engraved laminate panels. Also had to make new 1.5 mm alu backing plates.


The finished panels assembled.






Also made an exact CAD drawing for the FV-800 sticker, but ordered a red one instead of
green to highlight an "upgraded" machine.


It was not much dust inside the control box, but I got it real clean now.


New pressure regulator / oil mist unit, new line connectors and all electro-magnetic valves
were dismantled and checked. At bottom is the one shot oiler for the ways / ballscrews.

[Starleper1]

Its not often you see someone buy a VMC and over hall it back to new condition.

Nice work.

[Kool Parts]

Very impressive :cheers: I would say better than new for sure. Its going to be a shame to fill it with chips..:banana:
Gary

[CNC Viking]

Thanks Guys ,

Updating the thread with some electric modifications I made.

I needed a proper mains breaker for the primary juice.


And when flipping it on, it blew my fuses 50% of the time because of the current rush in the primary coils.
I needed to make a "soft start". Forum member H.O. kindly proposed this solution:



I ended up using the following components:
6A auto-fuse.
Contactor 3 x 400V, 15 kW, 230VAC coil.
3 x power resistors 68 Ohm, 100W.
DIN -rail, 35 cm.
I never really needed the 1sec delay relay for the contactor. The activation time of the bypass
contactor itself gave enough time for the coils to energize and build up their own resistance. The setup
works perfectly and there is no tendency of current rush whatsoever. Not even blinkin' garage lights!



The next thing I really wanted to fix was the terrible sound of the spindle motor's fan.
It started the minute you flipped the mains switch, regardlessly if the spindle was running
or not, and run continuosly. I really wanted it to be on only when the spindle ran and then
some time after the spindle was stopped. But my problem was that I had no output signal
that could be used for this. After some thinking I got a great idea. The signal was there right
in front of me, the SPINDLE CW lamp on the control panel. This lamp is lit every time the
spindle gets an M3 command. I use that signal to activate a small relay that switches
on the fan. Just to be safe that I did not overload the control's output circuit with the added
relay's coil, I changed that panel lamp from a 37mA to a 14mA LED lamp. So now the circuit
only bears the burden from the 14mA LED lamp and the 14mA relay coil.
Altogether lower than the old lamp by itself, and far below Mitsubishi's limit of 66mA for that output.


The new spindle fan relay. 24VDC, 1440 Ohm coil, 14mA. It has a built in protecting diode across
the coil as well.


The 14mA LED lamp.


I use this Velleman VM154 fan timer to keep the fan running for another 7min after the spindle
is stopped. It works with 110-230VAC and can be loaded to max 3A. The timer function can
be set to 15min as an option.



My machine has a "Maintenance Key", an enclosure door interlock bypassing switch for servicing
purposes. No parameters need to be altered, just turn the key and you can open the door while it
is running.

The trouble was that when in the "Off" (safe) position, it brought the spindle speed down to 50 rpm
but all axis' feed remained at full programmed rate which must be more than a handfull for the tool
to handle!:drowning: I had to fix that. The door switches now activate a relay that sends the signal to
the FEED HOLD switch and also activates timer relay set to 1 sec. The delayed signal brings
the spindle down to 50 rpm. So now I have a much better door interlock system. Open the
doors and all feeds are stopped immediately. 1 second later the spindle revs down to 50rpm.


My new Maintenance keys. I added one for the electric cabinet's door switches. You simply must
be able to enter there with power on from time to time. In the safe position, the door switches cuts all
power at the incoming mains switch.


I know that the door interlock issue is a very loaded one. Keep in mind, I only use the service (unsafe)
positions when absolutely needed and my alterations have just made the enclosure's door interlock
safer for the machine. Note! Changing other machines will most probably not work, nor be legal in most
countries nowadays.

Please don't start a big safety discussion about door interlocks here. there are plenty ongoing
threads covering that already.


The added relays for the above mentioned functions and Velleman fan timer on the floor.

[CROSSHATCH]

What a set-up!

[digits]

I was wondering whether that huge box was a transformer. Does it change the voltage at all, or is it just for isolation?

My tiny DIY PSU was 1.6kVA and the unlimited inrush would dim lights and make a very odd noise as the torroidal transformers energised. I'm glad to hear the relay delay works for transformers 10x as large too!

It might be a stupid question, but how hot does it get in your garage with that thing running hard? 15kVA is one hell of an electric heater!

[roger_e]

cool!!

[CNC Viking]

digits,

Yes it is my 15 kVA 3 x 400 to 3 x 240V transformer, sorry I forgot to write that. It is a heavy transformer, 140kg. When powered, it makes that familiar humming noise that many traditional transformers do, but no worries, it drowns behind fan noise and spindle noise. I have not run it hard yet, quite a lot test runs cutting air and the transformer don't get very hot 40*C or so. Will se what happens when cutting some serious chips later on.

OK, some more about my upgrading:

There was only one 120mm cooling fan in the electrics cabinet, blowing across the top of the axis drivers towards the CPU etc. There was no air inlet, no air outlet! I bought 2 more fans, an air outlet, a thermostat + relay and rearranged the whole set-up.


I placed a 250mm filtered fan in the lower part of the door and a filtered outlet in the top part. The 120mm fan on the floor blows upwards between the CPU unit and the axis drivers.


Another 120mm fan now blows across the top of the CPU unit towards the air outlet.


This is how it works: At startup, the cooling is handled only by the integrated CPU and axis driver fans. The thermostat in the cabinets ceiling is set to activate a contactor to power all 3 cabinet fans when it reaches 30*C. The fans then cools all the way down to 23*C and stops. The fans are powered independently from the machine, so if there is a temperature rise inside the cabinet after machine shutdown, and it reaches 30*C the fans will start cooling the cabinet. I was testing many times last summer, and very rarely did the temperature inside the cabinet trigger the fan setup.

The other thing next to the thermostat in the cabinets ceiling is a thermometer probe. I want to keep an eye on what is going on inside the cabinet, so I installed an external thermometer with this internal probe.


LCD thermometer with sensing probe.


Installed on the outside of the electrics cabinet.


On the spindle head I found a hole, suitable for temperature sensing, since it lead straight to the spindle cartridge's outer wall. So I installed a probe for another thermometer. The probe's tip was coated with a temperature conductive paste ( same as we use for a PC's processor) prior to assembly.


I had to make a sealed plexiglas front cover so the unit can survive the cooland spray.


Installed and showing the spindle cartridge's temperature. Nice to see what happens when you run a warm-up-program or do some heavy machining.


To be continued.....

[DareBee]

Dear Mr Viking
Your attention to detail is remarkable.
Your shop is way to clean and fancy.
Keep up the good work.
I hope you pay yourself well.
Cheers

[CNCAddict]

Hope this isn't considered spam, but I have a similar machine for sale if anyone is interested. Uses a Fanuc control, but the other parts are very similar

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...%3DI%26otn%3D2