Matchmaker Revival

[mc]

First off, I'm blaming Hood for this. If it wasn't for him pointing me in the direction of this mill, I would of been happily on my way to building a nice desktop sized router!

Anyway, after Hood's help, a few months ago I became the owner of a Matchmaker mill. The actual knee mill is a Shizouka ST-N, with a Summit aka One Arm Bandit tool changer.


Shizouka ST-N by mc_mtb, on Flickr

After removing the head, and with some questionable use of a forklift and some skates, it made it into the workshop.

In Position by mc_mtb, on Flickr

I'm not in a great rush to get this machine up and running as I've got various other projects/jobs that have priority, but inbetween swapping bits in my lathe, I've been tracing wires, doing some cleaning, and getting the autolube up and running. After cleaning out the autolube unit, I filled it up and left it running overnight to see if any oil appeared on the ways. And despite managing to pump half a litre out the resevoir, nothing appeared anywhere it should, or even on the floor. The oil was finally located sitting in a recess under the table, which had a blocked drain hole, and was getting there because of a burst alloy pipe.
While having the ballscrew support of the end of the table, I stripped and cleaned the distribution block, and found two of the Bijur metering units are blocked, so I stripped the other distribution blocks, and found one more blocked on the knee, along with the main quill one. Buying some new metering blocks is on this weeks list of jobs.

Here's the distribution block refitted with a new copper pipe -

Autolube Distribution by mc_mtb, on Flickr

As it stands, my plan is to use a Kflop with Kanalog running through Mach for the main control, with high voltage steppers and drivers for the axis running closed loop through the Kflop.
I'd like servos, but I can't justify the cost at the moment. 3 steppers and drivers are roughly the same cost as a servo for a single axis, so I'll live with the slowness of steppers for now, however by using the Kflop upgrading to servos later will be a pretty straightforward job.

[Hood]

These metering jets are a PITA if they have been sitting a long time.
Hopefully the pipe burst on its way to Marks or your place, if it did then it has never run since so it will be fine, do the ways look ok?
Hood

BTW saw some 1KW AC servos and drives the last day for £960 delivered for 3 of, second hand of course.

[mc]

Some carberetor cleaner worked wonders on the metering units, as it's pretty good at disolving the remains of oil/varnish. The ones that couldn't be unblocked were all full of black solidified oil, which given the size of orifices, would be pretty much impossible to unblock without dismantling them. Boiling them up in some detergent might work, but they're not that expensive to replace, plus the only way to get to the quill one is with the head off, and I ain't risking having to take it back of for the sake of trying to save a few pounds!

I filled the auto lube up with ATF last night and left it running, and there's a coating of red in most places where oil should be, although there's at least one pipe leaking. I noticed it was pretty badly pitted when I connected everything back up, but had hoped it wasn't that bad. I just hope I can get the other end off and back on without having to remove the table.

The main pipe was pretty badly corroded, I'm guessing caused by the drain hole being blocked, so it's probably been sitting under coolant/water for a while. I think the final nail was the ballscrew spring cover hasn't been sitting in it's housing right so when I moved the table to full travel it's been pushed down and caught the pipe. The ways aren't exactly in pristine condition, but they seem clean enough, and only obvious damage are a few scrapes most likely from bits of swarf that have been caught over the years.

Those servos are tempting, but I'm skint until the end of the month!

[Hood]

Yes I tried all these methods with the BP when I first got it, got some clean but others just no way.

Hood

[mc]

The autolube is now back together, and working with the exception of 1 partially blocked metering unit, but it's one of two on the same slide, so it can wait for now.
Just need to get a new bearing for the X-axis motor support/extension block so I can get all the X-axis mounts back on.

I've pretty much made a decision on the axis motors, but am currently trying to decide what to do about the spindle motor.
It's a 2.2kw (3hp) 440V only motor, and the only three phase I have is via a rotary converter, which I'd like to avoid using.

[mc]

Progress has been slow due to the usual 'too many jobs/projects, not enough hours in the day' syndrome, but I have managed to get a few bits cleaned and back on. There were a couple bearings in the head, and the x-axis extension support bearing that were very rough, so they've all been renewed. The head is now just needing lifted back on, which will be a two man lift back onto the table, followed by lots of handle cranking and some brute force.

I'm opting to drive the spindle motor with a 240V VFD for now. It does mean I lose power above the base frequency (29Hz), but it means I get a working spindle for not very much money until I decide what a longer term option will be.

I've also been working on what IO is required, and how that's all going to be acheived.
I ordered a kflop and kanalog tonight, which will be dealing with all the critical stuff, and I'm looking to use modbus for all the non-critical stuff. I'm not sure if the modbus will be through the Kflop or straight into Mach, or possibly a mix of both.