Excellent work Hood.

I think rapid moves with the Haimer in the chuck is real scary to watch. 

Tweakie.

They are not cheap that is for sure but you only live once so what the hell

Hood

Excellent work Hood.

I think rapid moves with the Haimer in the chuck is real scary to watch. 

Tweakie.

I know Tweakie. Nearly gave me a heart-a-stroke! 

Brett

Have redone the vid with the camera this time, bit better quality.

http://youtu.be/7jpnjLVKZN4

Hood

Thanks Hood. Think the Haimer doesn't have sufficient resolution to show the true homing accuracy

Dan

Yes and no Dan
The needle can be seen to be at exactly the same position each time and that tells me that both the Haimer and the Index homing are very accurate
Hood

Well I got a chance the last week to start machining a new block for the valves, all went well and it looked good, see pics below.
I needed one of the valves in the centre as it was leaking quite badly, I had been watching eBay ever since I got the Chiron but have not seen any so decided just to bite the bullet and get a new one from Festo. Thats when the problems started, they could find no reference to the part number at all and they reckoned it must have been a special made for Chiron, they didnt have anything that was a direct replacement either and suggested I contact Chiron to see if they had one. I had already been in touch with Chiron regarding the spindle/drawbar/bellevilles and they had told me they had no spares at all for the machine as it was so old, they couldnt even help me out with a manual or any info about the machine, that was quite a surprise as I thought German Companies were supposed to be super eficient
 Anyway that was a big problem and I had to think of something else. I could have chopped the block in two and removed the centre portion and got some  other valves to do the job but I decided to just scrap the valves and go with others. I had previously purchased some SMC valves and manifolds from eBay but was a few short, I found some more  on USA eBay so ordered them and they arrived on Friday.
 I set to work welding up a plate to replace the original manifold and machined two blocks to hold the two big cassette valve and then screwed the SMC manifold to it. The SMC valves are 1/3 the size of the old Festo ones and have more flow.
 I got things fitted yesterday and tested out and all is working well, today I finished off rewiring everything and tidying up the pipework a bit, still have a small leak from one of the cassette valves but it is minimal compared to all the leaks before and I can get a new cassette valve so no problems there
Previously the compressor had been cutting in every 5 minutes, now it is over an hour unless of course I am doing tool changes.
Very happy with the way things have gone
Hood

Here are the pics of the new valves and also the pipework from the front, I have  also attached  a pic of the original setup.
Hood

Fantastic to see the machine working.
I bought one too. Has all the electronics connected.
I want to keep the Siemens drives and use Mach to control it.
I will still find a suitable break out board.
Your blog has been an excellent lead into my rebuild.
Thanks for all the info.

Well done

If keeping the original Siemens drives you will need a controller capable of analogue output such as the CSMIO/IP-A that I use. I am very happy with the CSMIO, it is definitely the best controller I have used with Mach so far.

Hood