It's not always what you think!
Jun 29, 2018 6:02:34 GMT
simplyloco, manofkent, and 1 more like this
Post by 44767 on Jun 29, 2018 6:02:34 GMT
Sometimes things are not as bad as one fears. Sometimes things are not what one expects.
I have had my Makino machining centre for sixteen years now and generally it has been trouble free. However I have been doing quite a bit of relatively high spindle speed machining, while producing the dies for the wheel waxes etc. for my class 3 tank project and more and more frequently miscellaneous noises were coming from the spindle/ motor area. It is often hard to find where a noise is coming from but I had narrowed it down to the AC spindle drive servo motor thinking the bearing cage was rattling. I rang a chap in our club who rewinds armatures etc. to see if he was able to service the motor as I thought it needed new bearings. He could so I started looking into getting the motor off the machine.
I started by looking at the drawings in the parts manual and saw that the motor was fixed to a sliding plate to adjust the multi-v belt. I set to to clean up the area (the machine had been used before I bought it to machine graphite electrodes so it was still rather dirty under the guarding). I took off a cover plate which gave access to the belt and noticed that there was a bit of oil pooled in this area (just weeping hydraulic oil I think from the tool changer pull stud). Anyway, what struck me was how misaligned the two pulleys were- or so I thought! It was actually because the belt was offset by one pitch of the V's on one of the pulleys (and there are only three V's). So I cleaned the area, loosened the bolts holding the motor only to find them finger tight! The noise, it seems was a loose, misaligned v-belt!
I guess, if I were a petrol-head I would have recognised the sound akin to a squeeky fan belt.
Goodness knows how that has been running like that for at least sixteen years! Now all cleaned up, belt back in the correct grooves and the cooling fan cleaned along with the cooling tunnels in the motor, motor tightened properly, it all runs smoothly and quietly again- at no cost!
I have had my Makino machining centre for sixteen years now and generally it has been trouble free. However I have been doing quite a bit of relatively high spindle speed machining, while producing the dies for the wheel waxes etc. for my class 3 tank project and more and more frequently miscellaneous noises were coming from the spindle/ motor area. It is often hard to find where a noise is coming from but I had narrowed it down to the AC spindle drive servo motor thinking the bearing cage was rattling. I rang a chap in our club who rewinds armatures etc. to see if he was able to service the motor as I thought it needed new bearings. He could so I started looking into getting the motor off the machine.
I started by looking at the drawings in the parts manual and saw that the motor was fixed to a sliding plate to adjust the multi-v belt. I set to to clean up the area (the machine had been used before I bought it to machine graphite electrodes so it was still rather dirty under the guarding). I took off a cover plate which gave access to the belt and noticed that there was a bit of oil pooled in this area (just weeping hydraulic oil I think from the tool changer pull stud). Anyway, what struck me was how misaligned the two pulleys were- or so I thought! It was actually because the belt was offset by one pitch of the V's on one of the pulleys (and there are only three V's). So I cleaned the area, loosened the bolts holding the motor only to find them finger tight! The noise, it seems was a loose, misaligned v-belt!
I guess, if I were a petrol-head I would have recognised the sound akin to a squeeky fan belt.
Goodness knows how that has been running like that for at least sixteen years! Now all cleaned up, belt back in the correct grooves and the cooling fan cleaned along with the cooling tunnels in the motor, motor tightened properly, it all runs smoothly and quietly again- at no cost!