By continuing to use this site, you agree to our use of cookies. Find out more
Forum sponsored by:
Forum sponsored by Forum House Ad Zone

Myford super 7 Positioning servo's on Spindle and main infeed

Complete rebuild and conversion.

All Topics | Latest Posts

Search for:  in Thread Title in  
Andrew Davies 425/09/2018 09:38:50
avatar
49 forum posts
56 photos

img_1522.jpgHello All.

 

I am a drives and controls engineer, I have applied this knowledge to customer with machine tools all my working life. I AM NOT A MACHANICAL ENGINEER, but have a reasonable understanding and a real interest.

 

I have recently purchased a Myford Super 7 to restore and convert the spindle and main feed screw to CNC with positioning servo’s on both axis. I am fitting a 16mm dia, 5mm pitch ball screw to replace the main screw, this is the axis that will have one of the servo’s.

 

As a learning process, I restored a basic lathe and fitted a vector spindle, just to understand the mechanics and understand what I needed from the next lathe to deliver the quality I needed.

YouTube - **LINK**

When the Myford is finished, I will sell the first lathe.

 

The main use of the lathe will be to produce clock gears and pinions, but also parts for my vintage motorbike.

 

The lathe is stripped and the bed is away being ground.

I am going through each assembly and restoring as I go along.

 

I selling the clutch and counter shaft, motor, all pulley’s including spindle pulley, rack, screw and apron and all other bits that I do not need. Some bits have all ready been sold.

 

My first question is the top and bottom slides. There is backlash, I think it will be the nuts as these are made of an alloy. Where would I get 2 bronze nuts to replace the original nuts?

I understand that backlash is not always a problem as it can be overcome with good practice, but I want to reduce it to a minimum

 

I am tempted to replace these primitive screw’s with rolled ball screw’s and include a locking mechanism on each axis as the ball screw will not hold position as it does not have enough friction. This would allow servo’s to be added on these slides. But this may be a job for latter.

 

I have many pictures I have taken along this journey and I will have many more before I reach the finish line. I am not sure about the norm of this forum but I am happy to share them.

I would welcome the answer to the above question.

img_1386.jpg

 

(Due to my lack of knowledge about this forum, I posted this elsewhere. I have decided to create a new thread).

 

Edited By Andrew Davies 4 on 25/09/2018 09:42:08

Andrew Davies 425/09/2018 10:02:03
avatar
49 forum posts
56 photos

Another question.

The S7 is designed to use a tool holder about 8mm square. I want to use a 10mm tool holder.

As I am doing so much work I am happy to mill 2mm from the bottom of the main tool holder that sits on the compound slide.

I am going to get the 3 saddles ground during the rebuild, hence the 2mm may vary to bring the tip height to the exact position.

Can anyone see a problem with doing this?

Thanks

Andrew

Hopper25/09/2018 11:55:44
avatar
7881 forum posts
397 photos

Common practice to mill a bit off the bottom of the tool holder. My ML7 was made to take 3/8" tool bits or smaller so I had to knock 20 thou or so off it when i converted to modern 10mm insert tooling. Did it in situ with an end mill cutter held in the lathe chuck and suitable packing under the toolpost.

If you are getting the carriage and cross slides reground, you may drop the tool holder sufficiently in the process anyway and not have to bother.

SillyOldDuffer25/09/2018 12:02:05
10668 forum posts
2415 photos

Comments withdrawn - I was against grinding the toolpost but then read Hopper's post and realised I was being over cautious...

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 25/09/2018 12:05:11

JasonB25/09/2018 12:05:58
avatar
25215 forum posts
3105 photos
1 articles

Why not just make an extra toolpost or even clamp the tool with packing straight onto the topslide like Myford owners did before they got a 4-way or QC toolpost.

the bigger tooling is stiffer when you get a situation where you need a lot of tool overhang such as working with tailstock support or around the edge of  a large diameter such as a flywheel not just when you want to take a heavy cut.

Edited By JasonB on 25/09/2018 12:09:02

KWIL25/09/2018 12:28:39
3681 forum posts
70 photos

If you are regrinding the carriage you must remember to also grind the surface where the apron fits, otherwise the leadscrew alignment will be too low. Similarly if the bed is reground.

JasonB25/09/2018 13:06:51
avatar
25215 forum posts
3105 photos
1 articles

Or just mount the new ballscrew nut to take into account any loss of height.smiley

blowlamp25/09/2018 13:13:59
avatar
1885 forum posts
111 photos

Buy a kit from cncyourmyford.com

Martin.

Andrew Davies 425/09/2018 14:20:13
avatar
49 forum posts
56 photos

Many thanks for all your comments.

The apron will no longer be there. I am making a bracket to mount the ball nut to the underside of the bottom saddle. Due to this, I am going to mount the ball screw and both end bearings and then measure up bracket.

20 thou is only 0.5mm, I have a difference in tool holders of about 2mm. Have I missed something?

Andrew

Andrew Davies 427/09/2018 09:38:20
avatar
49 forum posts
56 photos

I compliment CNCmymyford for the work they have done, but I think I can have more fun doing it myself, complete for a much lower price, and have a better solution.

This is not arrogance; it is just that this is what I have done for 30 years.

Please note the operative word is think, as I have not seen the full specification of cncmymyford.

Issues I have:-

It still uses an asynchronous motor, albeit with a cheap encoder. Not sure you can position the spindle with full torque

No dedicated HMI

No real time CNC as it is running on a laptop

Not a big fan of stepper motors.

…………..

Muzzer27/09/2018 12:33:58
avatar
2904 forum posts
448 photos
Posted by blowlamp on 25/09/2018 13:13:59:

Buy a kit from cncyourmyford.com

Martin.

Wow. £3300 plus painting and a lot of fitting. Pigs and lipstick come to mind. For that cost plus the cost of a Myford you could probably pick up a proper CNC machine and spend your time bringing it back to life, with some likelihood of ending up with a decent machine.

Murray

Andrew Davies 427/09/2018 14:00:56
avatar
49 forum posts
56 photos

Hi

Is that Muaray from Kenilworth??

Andrew

Muzzer27/09/2018 14:14:03
avatar
2904 forum posts
448 photos

No, that'll be Murray from Lancashire (currently) - Lytham St Annes (posh name for Blackpool).

Murray

Nick Hulme01/10/2018 23:31:20
750 forum posts
37 photos

If you replaced cross slide and top slide standard screws with ball-screws you could use a harmonic drive gearbox to link a handle to the screw, that would eliminate the need for a lock or brake.

Andrew Davies 402/10/2018 07:05:00
avatar
49 forum posts
56 photos

Hi

This is true, and may be the way to go.

Many thanks

Andrew

Andrew Davies 402/10/2018 07:12:23
avatar
49 forum posts
56 photos

Top coatBed primedJust starting to paint main bed with enamel

John Haine02/10/2018 07:38:16
5563 forum posts
322 photos

By top and bottom slides I suppose you mean the cross and top (or compound) slide? For CNC you have no need of a topslide any more. You can then make a properly rigid tool post that fits the cross slide. This makes it possible to used indexed tool holders and properly apply tool offsets.

toolpost2.jpg

The cross slide screw is best replaced with a ballscrew, it is very hard to get rid of backlash with a normal nut, and backlash on the X slide is a real pain - for example when cutting tapers. Depending which S7 you have you may need to find a small diameter ballscrew for the X slide to fit the available hole - my conversion was of a power X feed 9pxf) machine that uses a larger feedscrew so I was able to use a 12mm screw supported only at the outboard end. It isn't essential to have a ballscrew on the main Z feed ("leadscrew" and I haven't fitted one (it's on the to-do-one-day list). If you do use standard nut, the Myford non-pxf nuts are made of mazak alloy as standard and you'd need to make or have made a bronze one - even then you'd be lucky to get a low enough level of backlash. My ballscrew gives about 0.02 mm IIRC. The Myford pxf nuts are hardened steel, but even with those the as-new backlash is ~0.2 mm.

Why are you fitting a servo to the spindle? Normal practice is to have a spindle sensor, either 1 per rev for Mach 3 or a multi-slot sensor for better systems such as LinuxCNC, but to use a standard drive system. As long as the controller knows where the spindle is it can control the tool position to suit at least for screw cutting. If you are thinking of using this for dividing, I think you're better off having a separate digital division head. Most readily available CNC controllers expect a standard drive spindle, not a servo positioned one.

These days it is recommended to have a separate motion controller between the controlling PC and the servos/steppers (by the way please note that you DON'T use an apostrophe when an "s" is indicating a plural). This interfaces to the PC using USB or Ethernet, and actually generates the real-time control signals - I can't recall exactly but I assume that's what cncyourmyford does. With this approach you can use a laptop because all the real-time stuff happens in the controller.

Hope this helps - I first converted my S7 nearly 10 years ago and have made a number of improvements since and it works very well.

Andrew Davies 402/10/2018 12:31:56
avatar
49 forum posts
56 photos

Hi

By fitting a servo on the spindle I have infinite position capability, For cutting different clock gears or threads this is perfect, all gears will be removed and the servo is on the end of the ball screw.. Spindle and additional axis will interpolate.

I will be using a position control integrated into one of the dives with PLC (IEC1131) capability, this will talk to the second drive over SERCOS, the HMI will both read and enter variables. I want the CNC to be real time, hence not from a lap top.

The solution I will be using is MLD by Bosch Rexroth.

I want to fit a high speed spindle for the gear cutting at a later date; this allows a great deal of flexibility.

 

P.S. I am and engineer, hence grammar is not perfect.

Many thanks

Andrew

Edited By Andrew Davies 4 on 02/10/2018 12:38:19

Edited By Andrew Davies 4 on 02/10/2018 12:43:07

Andrew Davies 403/10/2018 12:45:39
avatar
49 forum posts
56 photos

Just finished the final bit of painting. Start propper engineering in the morningPainting finishes

blowlamp03/10/2018 13:14:35
avatar
1885 forum posts
111 photos
Posted by Andrew Davies 4 on 03/10/2018 12:45:39:

Just finished the final bit of painting. Start propper engineering in the morningPainting finishes

 

 

Sorry to say that looks like a crappy regrind you got there.

Did they skim the feet first and also do the vertical shears & undersides?

Martin.

Edited By blowlamp on 03/10/2018 13:21:19

Edited By blowlamp on 03/10/2018 13:22:03

All Topics | Latest Posts

Please login to post a reply.

Magazine Locator

Want the latest issue of Model Engineer or Model Engineers' Workshop? Use our magazine locator links to find your nearest stockist!

Find Model Engineer & Model Engineers' Workshop

Sign up to our Newsletter

Sign up to our newsletter and get a free digital issue.

You can unsubscribe at anytime. View our privacy policy at www.mortons.co.uk/privacy

Latest Forum Posts
Support Our Partners
cowells
Sarik
MERIDIENNE EXHIBITIONS LTD
Subscription Offer

Latest "For Sale" Ads
Latest "Wanted" Ads
Get In Touch!

Do you want to contact the Model Engineer and Model Engineers' Workshop team?

You can contact us by phone, mail or email about the magazines including becoming a contributor, submitting reader's letters or making queries about articles. You can also get in touch about this website, advertising or other general issues.

Click THIS LINK for full contact details.

For subscription issues please see THIS LINK.

Digital Back Issues

Social Media online

'Like' us on Facebook
Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter
 Twitter Logo

Pin us on Pinterest

 

Donate

donate