Ok now. The design is approved so we go onto the drawing board. The linear table is the first priority.

First we design it to be made from cast iron, machine and fit linear guides to it. Calculated cost exceeds customer's budget. Switch over to plan B. Search for an old planar base and table. Found one in a junk yard in Lahore.

Scrap the vertical columns, gantry, drive motor, gears, rack and other fittings. Ship the base and table to Gujranwala at Mr. Iftikhar's workshop. He is a manufacturer of shears and press brakes (www.bncmachines.com) and helped me find this machine in Lahore.

Next step, find the ball screws.

Eagerly waiting for more posts on this project!  

Love it!

That step under the Y bed...I believe it is a step to get better access to the table...
I need one of those in front of my tool chests to peer into the top drawers without standing on my toes.

Eagerly waiting for more posts on this project! 

Love it!

That step under the Y bed...I believe it is a step to get better access to the table...
I need one of those in front of my tool chests to peer into the top drawers without standing on my toes.

The step under the Y-bed is the extension of it's foundation. Y table weighs 8 tons, so they designed a foundation which goes 500 mm under ground and is filled with steel reinforced concrete. I'll post about it when I get there in the build thread. They are also going to put a platform around the machine at this level for the operator. Maybe on my next visit it will be ready and I'll get photos of it. It is 10 hours drive from here.

With the planer table procured and despatched we head on towards the drawing board again (which is actually an Autocad based PC with internet). Now this one is hard. How to get the size of a ball screw which won't buckle under the load. Remember, the job's weight can be upto 2.5 tons. The moving table itself weighs nearly 5 tons and is sliding on v-shaped guideways which are 3.5 meters long. Where do we start?

THK website gave us some figures to start with when we were desgning the table with linear guides. It suggested a ball screw of 50 mm dia with 6mm balls and 10mm pitch for the loads and speeds we selected. The weight of table was comparable to this one but again those were linear guides and this is V-guideways with cast iron sliding against cast iron. Ok, let's compare our structure with other machines close to this size and weight. Customer happens to have a horizontal boring mill with a 3 tons table sliding on box slides (see photo). The screw there is 50 mm too.

A 70 mm dia ball screw having 2.5 m travel is available in the local market in Lahore. That would do the job. Buy it and ship it to Gujranwala too. Screw and nut weighs almost 100 kg. Comparable to that a 40 mm screw would be enough for the X-axis as we could push the drill head on radial arm by hand when it's gears are disengaged. Buy it too and include it in the package.

5.5 kW AC servo motor and drive selected for Y-axis, 3 kW for the X-axis and 1 kW for Z. Shipped these to the customer.

Mr. Iftikhar in Gujranwala will now take care of the Y-table. He'll give the slides an overhaul and install the 70 mm ball scews on it. After that he'll make mountings for the 5.5 kW servo motor on it which we'll install when all this setup reaches the customer's location. Sounds simple? No, it wasn't. This we'll find in the next post.

Build Thread

I am back in Karachi after spending a week in Lahore and Gujranwala, an hour and a half flight from here. Informed the customer that the work is underway and we'll be able to deliver the planer stucture within a month's time.

Called Mr. Iftikhar two weeks later to get update on the progress of overhaul. His cell phone is off. Contacted his manager and he informed me that he is out of country on some business visits. Asked about the progress of our job and he says that he has no work instuctions on that. I get his number overseas and contact him there. He says that he'll be back soon and start working on our job. We are still within our job's time limit of 4 months, so no need to panic.

We start working on the control panel box and the servo motors' mounting fixtures for this job. Another customer's Turret Punch retrofit is underway in Karachi. He is fabricating control box for his machine. We request him to make 2 of those. The box arrives at our workshop in 2 weeks' time.

In Sadiqabad, where our client is, the summer time temperatures go up to 50 ^oC (122 ^oF) so a panel A/C is must for the drives and electronics. Inquired about industrial panel A/C's and again budget goes out the window. Decided upon installing compact window A/C unit in our panel. It is big enough to accomodate it.

Were the balls screws and motors/drives new?
 If you dont mind me asking what kind of difference in price between this and a new machine? Not wanting numbers, % will do
Hood

Hi Hood,
just to let you know if you haven't gone to CNCzone, Zafarsalam and Zafar! are entering in a parallel thread and conversing there.  Some extra information is being exchanged.  I don't offhand have the link right now but I was reading their posts this morning.

John M.

edit:  Here it is...
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/general_metal_working_machines/171471-cnc_conversion_radial_drill_-_novisa_tro_65_80_2000_a.html

I meant Khalid.. rather than Zafar! in the above post.

Were the balls screws and motors/drives new?
 If you dont mind me asking what kind of difference in price between this and a new machine? Not wanting numbers, % will do
Hood

Hood,
Motors and drives were new. Bought ball screws from a guy who imports used machine parts. But both of them appeared new and were in their original packing. Those were THK brand. Khalid can better tell the difference in price for this setup and the new machine. My guess is it would be around 20% of the cost of new.

Zafar

Build Thread

We are into third month of our project. Controller box is almost complete. Break out board assembled and tested, Arduino programmed, Smooth Stepper Ethernet installed on the Dell compact PC, LCD screen mounted with function buttons.

Check out the progress on the planer bed. Mr. Iftikhar is back from his business visits. A new project on retrofit of Turret Punch starts in Lahore. I go with my team there. A visit to Gujranwala is also underway. It is one hour's drive from Lahore. Another surprise is waiting for me in Gujranwala. The planer bed is still lying there untouched. It is summer time and also rainy season. Almost half of Pakistan is affected by worst floods in history. Add to it the ongoing power crisis in the country. The delay was inevitable. Time is running out for the project. Slight panic starts to creep in.