Retrofitting a 1986 Maho MH400E

Wow. Lots of questions!
I have the original quote from November 1982. Some of the castings have 1979 on them as I recall.
$A 89,000 for the machine
$A 600 for the overarm
$A 15,000 for the rotary table
$A 4,000 for the tooling
$A 6,000 for the printer/reader
So about $A 114,600 all up. Looks like the sale went through in July 83.
From Eric James Industries here in Sydney.

The replacement of the Philips 6600 controller with the Heidenhain TNC 155 was done by them in 1987 for about $A 19,000 plus tax.

I've just placed the full manual here for all to read along with the series of videos there that let you know a lot about my machine:

[url] drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NVXGKyaN...cWKjsMfe?usp=sharing [/url]

I've marked it up with the things particular to my machine. The lubricants are on page 7.06-1
I spoke to the Gulf and Western rep here and he went away to double check the data for Kluber and was satisfied their Super Blue grease was equivalent or better. It wasn't worth buying all the other greases since I have a 4 liter can of it. This is overkill for all the rest. So I fully stripped the spindle and repacked it. It is the type in the diagrams I sent. So it is typical of a precision grinder spindle. You do need to go through the run in procedure as the spindle runs hot at every speed.
The run time clock on my machine is hard wired through the spindle motor auxiliary contacts, so it runs when the spindle does.It had 4,000 hours on it so the book says repack it.
My machine is much heavier than yours so it's max speed is 2500 rev/min. But it had been limited to 1250 in the parameter list as the star delta timer needed about 3.5 seconds. they hadn't programed things properly so it was possible for the machine to start milling in star mode. I've reprogrammed the Izumi PLC that does the gear change so it stops that happening.
I haven't pulled the horizontal spindle apart. It looks to have the same quill assembly, but there is no manual hand wheel on the Y slide for it. The rack teeth are there on the quill is there but you have to take a plate off the side and undo the clamp by hand. I cant get the quill to move and haven't really tried.
I had some trouble making the photos small enough to attach today. I might try again later. On mine the trick to get the hydraulic ram off the retractor is that the thread has Loctite on it. I think they note it in the manual that you have to heat it. But that is to melt the Loctite, not to overcome some preload.  i used my solder reflow hot air on it, while applying torque and it suddenly came free. you diagram is the same in essense, but the way it assembles is quite different
I think Maho has a rule that they never make 2 identical machines.
My tool holders are ISO NT40 so I have to cut a groove in the parallel part for the clamping claws. How to do it is in the manual above. So there is no pull stud.
The section on the spindle i translated from German thanks to Google. But then I translated it again into understandable English.
My machine is an orphan having the Heidenhain controller. But I think my axes orientation is the more usual. It seems simpler to me to just program the horizontal axis as G18. That is the way Heidenhain do it in their G code examples. Why would the standard have G17, G18, and G19  otherwise?
With Heidenhain they seek for index mark open loop on the encoders. That speed is preset in the parameters for a particular machine. I think that velocity is controlled by the tachos. After finding the index marks there are relays that pull in for each axis and the Heidenhain  go closed loop with the encoders.
I watched your video. My miscible oil seems much higher concentration than you run. I'm using 10:1 water to oil and it looks like creamy milk. hard to tell from the video but you seem to run the cutters faster than the equation I use. I have similar problems with boring. Usually i put a pilot drill hole in first as the over center flute on a slot drill doesn't always seem to work. Heidenhain does that routinely with canned cycles for pockets etc.

More later.
Cheers,
David

Hi again Mark,

I realized the technical manual was a bit large so I ran it through a later version of my document compositor and replaced it on the Google drive. It's about half the size at 151MB or so.
You asked about my Maho speed capability. There is a video called 13_Gearchange.mp4 at the same link that explains it in full. The video is relevant to both yours and my machine and probably other Mahos. I think your machine goes 2 gears higher and misses the lower 2. It is relevant to LinuxCNC programing on Mahos also, I think
I'm envious of a lot of the high quality kit you have. Even your metal vise looks superb. Your tool setter is wonderful. But the way you do the Z with the round bar is a bit nasty. There is a video of my Z setter in the link which I think works more elegantly. It's a real cheap one but it works really well. I could possibly replace the dial gauge in it with a micron scale one, but it seems repeatable if I put it exactly on the dial line with respect to the micrometer scale on my Heidenhain VDU.
I'm thinking that many of the things we are talking about aren't directly relevant to many LinuxCNC users, mainly Maho stuff, and this to and from is very slow. So if you want you can Skype me on david.jensen11, I can share screen and go through myriad topics and photos. Switzerland is 10 hours behind Sydney at the moment. 3 months either side of new year we are UT+11, Otherwise UT+10

Cheers,
David

Thanks for that David, I have been pretty busy this week.

Hi Mark,
Nice to see that the bearings look okay.
In the 70's we had a 4 foot diameter spherical roller thrust bearing for a 150 tonne rotary regenerative pre-heater. It arrived with false Brinelling. SKF took it back, reground the races and fitted new rollers. It might be possible to do that with these bespoke spindles if there were damaged.
I re-read the docs for my spindle and realized I didn't include the attached page. It's not all that applicable to your machine except for the end float I think. I heated my bearing to 50 C at they explain but I made a silly mistake. I used my paint stripper gun on low and almost immediately the grease started to smoke. It seems that the grease heats up much faster than the steel. So I repacked it and put it in my Siemens domestic oven. It has a nice thermostat that goes low enough to proof dough. It seems the key thing is to make sure that the races are all hard against the end float shoulders. And yes I put it into may Emmert pattern makers vise and hit it repeatedly with a rubber mallet. I've fitted it with wooden face plates.
It seems they set them up with a few micrometers float and are fussy it isn't larger. It certainly ran hot on first start even at the lowest speed. So I went through the whole stop, cool, start procedure at every speed. And it still got a bit hot at full speed until it bedded in later.
So I think the idea is the spindle runs hotter than the surrounding parts as the heat has to get to the fins behind the cover plate. That means the end float is eliminated and the bearings are pre-loaded. In you case you have  shims. I think I would make a similar tiny float when the races are seated and remember to rotate the shaft to settle the balls and cage. When these taper rollers or angular contact balls operate they nutate like small gyroscopes. The races must drive that nutation or at high speed the balls will scuff themselves and the races. I think possibly the tapered rollers in mine have too much gyroscopic moment to run at your higher speed, so the use balls for that?
If you go back you will see I had some issues with the cooling fan being loose. It very important that it blows down the fin slots. I made a bigger copy of you ring lamp. They work great, but be careful it doesn't block the cooling air coming down those slots
The labyrinth seal on my quill was full of muck from the swarf. So I agree that flood cooling is probably better.
Cheers,
David

Hi Mark,

As always I forgot to mention some things:
At 2:20 on the video you unscrew the hydraulic ram. That is the thread in my instruction sheets that you need to heat because it is Loctited. I'm not sure I like your parallel grip pliers for that job. I used a large adjustable spanner for that, which not much better, and I couldn't move mine cold, for fear of damaging the part. That is when i came to use the paint stripper gun on low. I just held a steady torque and it suddenly came free after a minute or so of heating. Most Acrylic lockers will soften at around 120 - 130 C. Have you found broken Belleville springs?
At 2:35 you show a diagram p7.35-2/3915. First lets mention that there is a thread on the ram that the whole gripper assembly threads onto. So the bolt you remove is part of the system that stops that whole assembly from turning on that thread. In the diagram it seems to show a socket head screw, the head of which I think is used to splay a split collet to jamb the assembly from turning. But when I step through you video you remove a grub screw. So I'm thinking that you actually have the same locking system as my machine 7.35-1 that I put up  with the ball and grub locking?
As you leaf through the drawings at 1:20 you see my type of NT40 tool where I have to machine a groove on the tool holder. The dimensions are exactly the same as mine. I've actually made the setting jig suggested. I don't actually like it much as there is an M16 thread underneath that groove and it leaves alarmingly little meat under the groove, along with the thread stress concentration.
I've had a few second thoughts on my end float comments. I know they make matched pairs of angular contact bearing for common uses like car wheel bearings where they are matched preloaded. It looks like it could be possible that your clamping ring closes the preload on just the inner rings like that. Whatever, it's clear that those bolts should not be loose. They should have some set torque applied. Might be wise to see if Maho can help with end float/ pre-load. At least do the temperature runs after repacking. I would expect it to run hot after re-packing, but come good during the process. Running cold may actually be a bad sign.

Cheers,
David

Hi Mark,
While I looking around for stuff on the previous entries I came across these 2 images, I can't recall where I got them from. They relate to stuff we discussed a way back. I mentioned that the resistors on the gear change were never invoked on my machine. I translated the images using Google, which I know you don't need, but I see at the bottom they mention the resistors are not needed for later Mahos. Mine is certainly fine without them. I'm thinking that the earlier Philips controller would have been much slower and maybe could monitor the cams fast enough. The diagrams are also the first I've seen that explain the actual reason for cams 4 and 5. So it may be that with the massive improvements in clock speeds since then the LinuxCNC conversions may not need them either? Mine still uses cam 5 as I recall to decide which way the ladder code hunts a cam lobe first. Presumably for the case where you've had a crash and it's not on a cam lobe.

Another thing I'm surprised at is that in the LinuxCNC conversions you keep a lot of the relay logic. Wouldn't it be better to shift the I/O for that into the computer and make it "fly by wire". As it stands there is a lot of relay logic outside LinuxCNC that it doesn't know about. You would still need relays for shifts in voltage like 5K1, but it wouldn't be for logic. On my machine it would involve a more than it can do I think. But in both our cases it seems we have a dinosaur brain sitting in parallel with a modern one.

Cheers,
David