PM940 Spindle

[Larry$]

I have a PM1440HD and having heard the stories about garbage in the housings, I opened mine soon after getting it. It was very clean. We have a BT30 (10 hp) spindle on a Komo router. Spins @16,000 for thousands of hours. Italian.

 

[Janderso]

PM940 is a mill not a lathe. I have no experience with PMs lathes.

Well, don't I feel silly.

 

[Janderso]

I have a PM1440HD and having heard the stories about garbage in the housings, I opened mine soon after getting it. It was very clean. We have a BT30 (10 hp) spindle on a Komo router. Spins @16,000 for thousands of hours. Italian.

Very good news!!!

 

[phazertwo]

Recently tore down my spindle on the PM940 to do a belt drive retrofit. Running at 3200 rpm was unbearably loud plus I was wanting to check bearing preload and condition after a maybe 20 hrs of runtime. I was appalled by how much foreign material was in the lube. From small machining chips, rtv chunks, paint and other what appears to be sand from the casting process. The spindle I tore down was not much better. Plenty of debris in the upper and lower taper roller bearing. Most from the inside of the spindle where the casting slag was not removed. The spindle nut was loose which may have attributed to my surface finish defects. The grease had coagulated as well. Bearings to my surprise appear to be ok after cleaning. I removed as much scale as I could from interior of the spindle and then sealed the surface. I repacked bearings with Kluber grease and reset the spindle nut torque. Will have to check temps as it is slightly tighter than before. Hoping to have all my hub adapters and plates done by next week to get it run in. In hindsight though I highly suggest people review the spindle/gearbox sooner than later in case of damage.

On other item is I really would like to get a BT30 spindle. The current spindle is a 75mm diameter setup. I have gotten a quote from KAMI in Germany for the 75mm BT30 spindle in the FKM350. All appearance seem to be that this FKM350 mill is the same gearbox setup as the PM940. Anyone tried this spindle? I was quoted $230 shipped which I think is very reasonable but don't know the quality to know for sure. Also anyone else interested in one of these spindles? I believe they are the same ones that MTW has brought in before?

Thanks
Ryan

Well I am very interested... You can see pics of what I found inside mine here: https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/another-pm940-cnc-vs-thread.68291/page-2

My first two concerns are, can it spin faster than 3k RPMs, and does it use a draw bar with a pull stud? If it uses a pull stud than it should be pretty simple to convert it to a real PDB (non of that impact wrench stuff), which is a must at this point. The price makes me wary that these features are not there...

but dang, for $232 it would be nice to have BT30...

PZ

 

[fritts]

Was 232 but I just submitted my payment and with shipping and it came to $280. I'll do an unboxing when I get it.

 

[9t8z28]

I have a 932 which I’m sure you know is the 940‘s baby brother and I was wondering, how do you adjust the spindle bearings? Where is the adjustment and what is your procedure for preloading the bearing?

 

[fritts]

I don't believe there is anything in the manual. With a dual taper setup you tend to snug the spindle nut up and rotate the spindle several of revolutions to seat the cups and cones tighten spindle nut again a couple of in lbs of torque (hand tight). Then lock the spindle nut. Afterwards check running temps of the spindle. Slight preload on a temper set actually provides best life but measuring that is difficult.

 

[9t8z28]

I don't believe there is anything in the manual. With a dual taper setup you tend to snug the spindle nut up and rotate the spindle several of revolutions to seat the cups and cones tighten spindle nut again a couple of in lbs of torque (hand tight). Then lock the spindle nut. Afterwards check running temps of the spindle. Slight preload on a temper set actually provides best life but measuring that is difficult.

I am guessing the oil needs to be drained and the motor and top cover need to come off?

What is a temper set?

 

[fritts]

Yes, gotta dump the oil and pop the top cover.

Meant taper set, taper roller bearing set

 

[fritts]

Well I'm a bit disappointed. Was hoping for a full spindle but only got then inner spindle. Looks as if they pulled apart a spindle to provide as it appears to have had bearings on the journals. Spindle other than the BT30 portion is similar to the current PM940 R8.