MadModder

Well after a very long hiatus I am back looking at this massive, and currently none working CNC lathe.

Last time I was here I'd managed to get replacement O rings fitted to the  valve block that controls the Turret Spindle movement for changing tools. The entire Tool Disk has to move forwards unlocking from one Curvic coupler and engaging a second one that lets the turret servo motor rotate the tool disk to the correct position. Sadly the valve wasn't the issue and here we are months later still head scratching.

There is a co-axial hydraulic double acting cylinder formed by the disk axis spindle and the housing casting. Piston is of course part of this spindle with hydraulic seals in suitable places. At the moment this spindle will not rotate nor will it move back and forth. My suspicion is that the seals have maybe rolled and jammed but the only way to tell for sure is to dismantle the turret.

Only feasible on the bench as too cramped inside the enclosure so the turret needs to come off. This presents several problems:

A/ The Z axis servo drive electronics failed with the tool disk right up at the chuck end leaving no room to de-tool it for removal (it's a high proportion of the weight of the turret. (Grasping the 50mm lead screw with gloved hand I couldn't turn it to manually move the Z axis to a more accessible position)


B/ I have no 'sky hook' above the turret for lifting, and oh boy is it heavy so as much as possible needs to be stripped before lifting.

So today's objective was to mine into the chuck end of the beast, expose the toothed belt drive and hopefully use the extra diameter of the drive pulleys to apply enough torque the rotate the lead screw.

Having moved a fair pile of boxes and bits and pieces eventually I got to be able to open the access door and get to the Z axis servo motor and it's belt pulleys. Once I got my hands of the pulley actually on the lead screw rotating it was no problem at all

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The servo motor that turns the lead screw is huge !

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This allowed me to manually rotate the lead screw moving a turret assembly into a position where at least I could remove the tooling

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The next stage is to investigate removing the equally large servo motor that is attached to the turret to rotate it and drive the powered tooling, but that's for another day.

This is a fun bit of gear, I need to come up with a fix for coupling the shaft from the generator to the shaft of the turbine. Googling I have read that it can be flexible (like the silicone tube it came with but has worn over time) or a solid coupling.
It REALLY winds up! It's a steam hungry beast for sure.....fun? You betcha' it's fun 😊😊

Well what a surprise, Google AI says exactly what I said....! (Not an AI fan or advocate...AI crap in =crap out...)

Good to hear it works for you anyway...

ok, so in Forward direction one relay is energized, in Reverse the other relay is energized....

To add a direction indication, the simplest is to add a lamp (or led with a resistor ) across the coil of each relay..terminals 85 and 86.

if you go the led route, you will need to add a series resistor of about 1k Ohm..(1000 Ohms, Brown Black Red for the colour code..) With the cathode lead connecting to the 85 pin on the relay. The resistor can go in either led lead.. but the Cathode needs to go to pin 85.

Hi folks,
A week of rain and shine, and repairs to everything! we forcibly remove the top from the Westwood battery, top it up with steam iron water and give it a charge, and it returns to life! Keith has cracked a rib so is a bit under the weather, so we revert to light duties, and do some shed repairs, and I fix a compressor with a massive earth fault in more ways than one! VIDEO GOES LIVE AT4PM BST!!
Phil, In damp autumnal East Yorkshire