Just got a lathe to retrofit

[Hood]

Brian
not sure the budget will stretch to them, I am kind of skint at the moment and shouldnt really have purchased the lathe but at  £300 I thought it too good a deal to pass on. I dont know the prices of Servos in the UK but I would guess they are probably twice what I paid for the lathe.

Hood

[fdos]

Brian

I wanted to do that on the last couple of retrofits too.   But over here in the UK there's no such thing as an affordable Brushless drive/motor !

When I last priced them up we were looking at something like $3000-$4000 for 3 motors/drives.   Not sure what the automation direct packages cost for you though.

Wayne....

[fdos]

But then again as Hood has just demonstrated, we tend to get the machines a lot cheaper ;-)  Especially if you know a few machinery dealers!   

£300 eh hood, you stole it!   I expect it's worth more than that as scrap.

I paid 750 for my Leadwell VMC, and 1200 for the Hardinge.   The latter has swallowed a whole load of cash since though!   Just now waiting for a quote for the new 5 port valves.

Wayne....

[Hood]

I think it weighs around 3 tonne and scrap is probably about £80 a tonne. I am not getting the drives and the control panel but everything else including the hydraulic power pack (see below) is included Also have attached a pic of the Z motor, to give an idea of scale I would guess that the bed is 18inch wide so the motor  is about the same.

Hood

[Hood]

Oh and did I mention it has a six position turret and a four position front toolpost
The front toolpost is about 7 or 8 inch square. BTW thats anti rust coating and not rust itself, its spotless underneath.
Hood

[fdos]

Useful turrets there!   Might take a bit of working out though

I'm sure i have seen this machine somewhere recently, maybe it was on ebay?

So they ripped out the control?   What have they left?    What spindle motor does it have?

The power pack will probably be for the power chuck, and maybe the turrets.

Wayne...

[Hood]

The machine is actually complete at the moment but my friend is taking the HiAk drives and boards and the front panel. All the relays and transformers are staying so I should be able to integrate them
 The spindle motor is two speed 11.5/20KW.
 The power pack is for the chuck, front toolpost, rear turret and also the tailstock. The tailstock is manual positioning but has a hydraulic spindle controlled by a spool valve, see pic . I dont think its going to be too hard to integrate the turret and front toolpost but I will have to wait and see. I have all the electrical drawings but afraid I am not great at reading them but I am making progress

As far as I know its never been on eBay, it just came out of Hull Uni and straight to Budget Machinery, you may have seen it on his site, heres the link http://www.budgetmachinery.co.uk/newsite/data/bm/lathes/churchillcomputurn290.htm

Hood 

[fdos]

Yes Budget machinery is where I saw the machine.

My HXL Hardinge also has a square turret, it's quite a convoluted sequence to get it indexed, and if it's done in the wrong order it needs retiming!   I had to learn how it worked the hard way!   Looks like someone has started taking the square turret off your machine  

It also has a air operated tailstock. but it's only for use with a centre.  In fact a dead centre as there's already a bearing in the tailstocks quill to make it a live one.   The tailstock on my machine goes though a separate air circuit with a flow sensor.   This puts the machine into "feed hold" while the quill is moving.  The same circuit is used for a parts catcher.   So that maybe something you should bear in mind.

[Hood]

Wayne
 The toolpost was removed for the testing procedure in the Uni, they had their own toolpost made up which seemingly was made with a humane stun gun (slaughter house type). From what I understand the tool was fed into the titanium then the gun was fired and this broke off the tip still embedded in the work. Then they were able to remove the broken tip and the attached swarf and do their studies.

The turret and toolpost seem to index via the hydraulics and relays, there is also mention of a rack in the schematics but not sure exactly how they operate.
 The tailstock seems to be independant of the controls from what I have seen so far. I think really all you do is position and lock in place then move the spool valve lever for in or out, not even sure how much travel there is yet. There is a pressure gauge and I presume a blow off valve.
I am away to have another look at the schematics so hopefully I will understand a bit more.

 Found some info on the motors on mine, they are polish made under lisence from peerless, it gives voltages etc but no max current. The continuos stall torque is 20.7NM and the Peak is 187nm. This really means nothing to me but sounds pretty good.
 I have heard that there is a guy that can make a board to convert resolvers to ttl so I will mail him and see if its true, would save me having to try and source encoders as the ones I have found so far are pretty expensive.

 Just been having a look at your hardinge thread, looks like a nice machine.

Hood

[fdos]

The rack mentioned may be part of the square toolposts mechanism.  The one on my machine has a rack, and indexes against an Air Cusioned stop.   I've not been too far into it, other than retiming it severaltimes after getting the sequencing wrong.

I expect your other turret has some form of hydraulic motor.

I'll be watching your thread with some interest too.   Nice to see another lathe being done.  There's far too few of them in the Mach scene!

Wayne...