Cl Cin Find

Ogberi,
I know it's a little late now, but do you have access to a 5500# pallet jack? That's what I used to get my mill in the garage. To get over the transition between the driveway and floor, I used a couple of 1/8" x 6" pieces of flat stock with the ends ground down. I estimate mine to weigh 4800# without accessories.
 
Hi All,

Well, it's in large pieces, but the mill is in the garage. I ended removing the head from the ram, and the knee/saddle/table assembly from the base to give me three easier to handle pieces. Because I have a quantity of the heavy ratcheting straps, I used lifting rings and left the straps on the parts. Makes things a lot easier when getting ready to put it back together.

This week I'll clear out the space the mill will live in, and work on getting the base into it's desired location. Given my work and home schedule, that'll probably take the entire week to accomplish. :/ At least on Sunday this weekend, my brother is coming up to help me get the mill re-assembled. Which will be nice because things always come apart easily, getting them back together is much more fuss. At least I'll have the opportunity to thoroughly clean the machine, though I know it'll need adjusted and trammed once it's in place and leveled.

Some questions - (and yep, I'm gonna google and youtube search on these later this evening, so I may answer them on my own)

The mill has two 3 phase motors on it. One for the spindle (2hp), and one for the X axis power feed (??? hp) The X axis motor uses a 3 phase step down transformer from 240 to 120V, fed by the incoming mains. I'd rather not use an RPC for the machine, and static converters don't really thrill me because of the loss of power once the motor is running. So it looks like a pair of VFD's, one 2hp unit for the head, another (probably 1/3-1/2hp) for the X axis. I haven't been able to read the motor plate on the X axis, can another Cincinnati own help out there?

I have the parts and service manual for my mill, but it doesn't cover any of the basic operations, such as how to use the power downfeed on the quill. I'm pretty sure I can figure it out once the machine is powered, but even sitting unpowered, I can't get the quill fine-feed to engage. It looks like the previous owner was into the feed housing, so I may table that until the mill is re-assembled and I have time to mess with it. Might require digging into the power feed housing and seeing if it was mis-assembled or missing parts.

How exactly does the 40 taper unlock on these machines? I'd prefer to know before I go Gorilla-Torquing anything trying to pop it loose. The manual doesn't even touch on that.

I'm sure I'll have more questions as I get further along in making this machine run again. :)
 
How exactly does the 40 taper unlock on these machines? I'd prefer to know before I go Gorilla-Torquing anything trying to pop it loose. The manual doesn't even touch on that.

That almost looks like an Erickson spindle. Can you get some close up pictures?
 
Ogberi,
I have (2) 3 phase motors on mine. One for the vertical spindle motor and one for the main motor that powers the horizontal spindle and the XYZ table movement. The vertical spindle speed is controlled by a potentiometer. The other motor VFD is set close to it's normal running speed. Although (2) VFDs ain't cheap, it's well worth it.
 
Unfortunately, the spindle closeups will have to wait a little bit. :( The head is on cribbing on the floor, and not photogenic at the moment. But, the more I look at the collets, the more it looks like an ER collet vs the proprietary ones. Snaps into the nut, right shape, and definitely an adapter in the spindle.

Yesterday evening I carefully scooted the base into it's spot. This mill takes up a fair amount of room. I left about 4" between the fully retracted ram and the wall, in case I want to put up pegboard and still need to run the ram all the way back.

A question on VFDs, is it okay to power them down or to idle, then flip the breaker on them? I'd rather not mess with the factory 3ph wiring, and just wire the motors directly to the VFDs, bypassing the on-board mill controls, and mount the control panels remotely from the units.
 
A question on VFDs, is it okay to power them down or to idle, then flip the breaker on them? I'd rather not mess with the factory 3ph wiring, and just wire the motors directly to the VFDs, bypassing the on-board mill controls, and mount the control panels remotely from the units.

Yes, I would say that is the proper way to shut down a VFD. Wiring the VFD directly to the motor is the correct way to do it. I normally leave my VFDs (and computers) powered up just to keep them warm and dry. You could do a little rewiring and use the existing buttons to control the VFD(s), or just build a new control panel that better fits your needs.

I am used to reaching up to the left side of the head to turn the spindle on and off, so I just mounted my VFD in place of the original factory switch. Someday I'll finish my control panel and put the VFD controls in it.........someday:rolleyes:

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I was thinking of mounting the vfd units on the wall, and the controls on the left side of the head, via a clamp on the back dovetails of the ram and a bar coming towards the front. So long as I can get at the ram adjusting stud and head tilt stud, I'm fine with it. But should I reverse the spindle with the spindle mounted factory switch, or the vfd, or does it not matter? Either way the motor would reverse. Is it verboten to use a drum switch between the vfd and motor? The docs I've read so far don't specify.
 
The VFD will do a fine job of controlling ON/OFF, FOR/REV. You want to wire the VFD direct to the motor with no switch in between, VFDs don't like to be disconnected from the motor.

With some rewiring, you could use the original drum switch to control the VFD control terminals. Switching the motor output terminals may or may not reverse the motor rotation depending on the VFD.
 
Probably a good thing you disassembled to move it into the garage. It looks way top heavy. When I moved my van Norman - using an engine hoist- and only a couple of inches off the ground, the slightest shove caused it to do a header. Doesn't take much to disturb the center of balance on these old machines.
 
Still busy as heck, but the machine is in place and reassembled.
I have yet to level and tram it, but am not surprised at how much room it takes up. Next up is planning and running electric. I was going to put up some industrial shelving on the wall where the mill now resides, but those plans have changed. I may cut down the shelves to reduce the span (already cut them down to reduce the depth), because I could really use the vertical storage. But, I still have to fit a floor standing drill press, and some other odds and ends in here.

Further inspection of the mill revealed it uses ER50 collets, which seem to be fairly hard to come by in imperial sizes, and pricey as heck. I need to track down some NS40 tooling, as well. Big-boy tooling carries big-boy pricing, as I am finding out.

Yep. There's an NS40 to ER50 adapter in it now. Takes up to 1 1/8" shank tooling. Seriously beefy.

Won't get much done this weekend, have to muck out the chicken coop, some domestic chores, then off to a friend's house till tomorrow evening. I do hope to get some accomplished this coming weekday evenings. At the least, I want to get my shop arrangement planned out. It was fine before I bought that big honkin' mill, but now it doesn't work so well. Worth it, though.

I have decided to go with 2 VFDs on the mill. While Automation Direct gets a lot of mentions, that's about $500 worth of drives to buy. Is it a waste of time to mess with the Ebay Chinese Drives?

Can't wait for first chips!
 
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