Time to upgrade [FIX] my One-Shot oilier

[Boswell]

Well the onshot oil pump that came with the PM45M-CNC quit pumping oil this week. I was never really happy with it other than it seemed to work nothing seems to have failed due to poor lubrication. My two biggest concerns were that you had to manually turn it on and off. If you turned it on and then forgot to turn it off 30 seconds later then it would just merrily pump all the oil in the reservoir onto the ground. I have tested this process several times . Another issue is that the Z-Axis ways are not included in the system. Instead I have two cups that I fill up before each job. It has a very simple manifold and no check valves so I have not idea how much oil is getting to the z-axis ball nuts (if they are ball nuts, I am not sure).




So, my project is to replace and upgrade. The current pump is 220VAC and I can find several on ebay at affordable prices that have a configurable duty cycle to avoid the "Oil-on-the-Floor" syndrome. Anyone with a recommendation or advice on how to pick the best pump?
Next I want to add a manifold with needle valves and Ball Check Valves so at least the oil going to the Z-Axis will not drain down between cycles. All this seems straightforward but would love to see some pictures of what other people have done. Another area for improvement is that there is only one oil line going to the X&Y axis and Ball-Nuts. There must be a splitter or manifold up under the table. How hard is it to remove the table and potentially bring all the lines out separately? Last question (for now) Is there any reason I can't route a couple of oil lines to replace the two oil cups on the Z-Axis ways?

Thanks in advance for any ideas or guidance on this.

 

[TomS]

Here's a few pictures of my PM-932 one shot lube system. Hope this is helpful information.

Z axis fittings and supply lines.


I didn't want to wait on delivery on Bijur restrictors for the ballnuts so I made my own. They slip into the hose and the ballnut lube connection. A bench test confirmed that enough oil was getting to the ballnuts. Can't remember the orifice size.


I made a distribution manifold to feed all of the lube points. Down the road I changed out the push-to-connect fittings for compression fittings. No more leaks and hoses blowing off.


Originally I had one circuit feeding all of the lube points. That didn't work so well with the Z axis being higher. Almost all of the oil was going to the table and saddle. So I broke the system into two circuits. One circuit feeds the Z axis dovetails and ballnut (the three lines in the upper right). The other circuit feeds the table and saddle lube points. Instead of buying check valves I used a couple of 1/8" NPT ball valves I had on hand to keep the oil from flowing back. The process is open one of the valves and pump the handle, close the valve, open the other valve and pump the handle again.


Here's how I plumbed the table and saddle.

 

[Boswell]

Tom, thanks for the awesome pictures and nice looking solution. Tell me about the Resistors. Is this needed because you don't have other flow control like needle valves or do they serve another purpose?

 

[Silverbullet]

I think the bijur company have kits for mills made to push the oil and amounts to the different spots. They use limiters and valves and blocks.

 

[Boswell]

I think the bijur company have kits for mills

Thanks, I'll take a look

 

[TomS]

Tom, thanks for the awesome pictures and nice looking solution. Tell me about the Resistors. Is this needed because you don't have other flow control like needle valves or do they serve another purpose?

Ballnuts have much less flow restriction than dovetail ways so I was pumping a lot of oil thru the ballnuts onto the floor before the dovetails were adequately lubed. I could have used needle valves or bought restrictors from Bijur but I decided to make my own. The OD is sized to slip into 1/4" OD Tygon tubing. Did I answer your question?

 

[TomS]

I think the bijur company have kits for mills made to push the oil and amounts to the different spots. They use limiters and valves and blocks.

You are correct. They describe kits for knee mills, vertical machining centers, CNC lathes and a few other machine tools. I would think that a kit for a Asian milling machine converted to CNC would be would be a custom application.

 

[Boswell]

Did I answer your question?

Yes, Tom thanks.

 

[cs900]

Tom,
that looks nicely done!
I'm also redoing my oiler and will be switching to compression fittings. Nothing but problems with the push to connect fittings.

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread. I'm curious to see what you come up with.

 

[Boswell]

I ordered a Chinese pump with a programmable duty cycle so hopefully that will be the minimum fix to replace the current non-functional pump. I have also been looking at needle valves and restrictions but have not decided yet on the plumbing. Well, other than I don't think I will use the push-on connectors based on the feedback above.

I have also looked over You-Tube and forum searches for a how-to on removing the table so I can run separate oil lines but not found anything from start to finish. It seems like it should be simple but I don't want to pull something apart that I can't get back together