Retrofitting a 1986 Maho MH400E

Here are three pictures: 1) the spindle face with a broken endmill inside 2) broken screws inside tapped holes that were holding the spindle to the mounting plate 3) inside the holes of the mounting plate that connected it to the spindle you can see threadmarks imprinted in the aluminum by the steel screws.

The spindle hit the plastic, the mounting screws broke in half and the still-running spindle bounced off into a large pile of rubbish in the chip tray while I smashed the machine off button. It's good that I didn't empty the chip tray in the past few months because otherwise it would have hit hard against the sheet metal. It's also good that the move was fast enough for some of the energy to go into the mounting plate before it annihilated the spindle. If the move was slow enough, I imagine the bearings would be crushed. The way it happened, they still move without a noticeable increase in friction, but they make a louder noise, which indicates that the ring in which the balls are set might have cracked a little (at least that's what an old mechanic who used to work for a local machine tool building company told me, and I trust his opinions).

Glemigobles wrote: To accomplish that aim, I must remap the IOs from the 7i84 pins to the 7i77 pins (they have been wired all along, but I wasn't planning to do any of this this soon).n.

This might be as easy as changing the INI file [HOSTMOT2] section from 7i84 to 7i77.

Lucky that those mount screws sheared, before something worse happened, like cracking the Y-Axis dovetail.

I really didn't understand how to compile the comp. Sergey gave me a list of instructions and I followed them. The recipe is here:
github.com/jin-eld/mh400e-linuxcnc/wiki/...-Component---Testing

That complies the cop, and also the simulator, which is very useful for the initial testing.

Frustratingly, the manual for the spindle doesn't list the type of bearings that are inside. It's a type of one-size-fits-all manual which contains general info on the available variants of the product.

I have no idea how expensive replacement bearings would be before I disassemble the spindle. It's difficult to make a good decision regarding mending/replacing this. Since it's cutting plastic, I'm going to try running it before doing anything else. I can see how much of a difference the damage makes. I don't have a press in my workshop so it might be impossible to disassemble/assemble the spindle anyway.

I'm thinking that if I don't go under during this retrofit and I manage to cut some parts without killing myself or destroying everything I've worked so hard to achieve, it might be time to get a loan and buy an inline spindle mounted on an SK40 tool holder. But that's just a fantasy that helps me keep on keeping on today.

If you have commercial pressure to get back to making parts, forget the gearbox.comp, use a 12mm allen key to manually set the gearbox to the speed you need and drill out the sheared mount screws. Then you only need two pins connected, for spindle direction and spindle on.

It's better to have the main spindle running in case the HF turns out to be unservicable. I can still make the parts for the most pissed-off customers, only slower. Then while I'm doing that I can announce that I'm having technical difficulties and will not accept new orders until they are resolved.

In personal communication, it's risky to promise someone something based on "once this is running" mode of thinking because then it doesn't run and you sound like a liar.