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Gunner Asch[_6_] Gunner Asch[_6_] is offline
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Default Question about building controls for a mill

On Tue, 17 Aug 2010 06:04:29 -0500, "Pete C."
wrote:


Gunner Asch wrote:

Im at the point where its time to finish out the Larios horizontal mill
taking up space in my shop.

The original control panel, used switches to:

master power On/off
Spindle High/Off/Low
Spindle CW/off/CCW
Table Left/off/Right

Coolant pump on/off

The issues are

Motor is two speed, with 2 seperate 3ph windings for high and low

Table is single speed 3ph motor and reversed winding power for opposite
direction.

The switches are toast. Finito. Bad. Blown, Kaput. No replacement. Endit

The table has a mechanical Rapid that works the opposite of the feed
direction..whatever the feed direction is. So you can make a cut, rapid
back to the start and hit her again.

I scrounged up some bat handle 3 phase switches..but I cant see any way
to make them do the above, without having a ****load of them hanging off
the side of the machine.

So I got an 18x 22" electrical box, mounted it to the side of the
machine and mounted fuses, a control transformer, and gutted a Hardinge
control cabinet for the contactors. Ill mount the control switches on
the top of the cabinet, where there is easy access. Spindle has a clutch
lever to engage/disengage as does the table feed.

The issue Im having is...will I ever need to run the table in the
opposite direction visa vis the spindle rotation? I do have the
vertical attachment..but ever mounting it is unlikely . Shrug

Or can I simply ignore having the ability to feed in a direction
opposite the normal direction when feeding into a horizontal mill
cutter? Climb milling in other words? Is climb milling all that
important on such a mill?

Im having something of a mental block on this...I can see it..but dont
know that Id ever climb mill. The machine IS very tight and can do climb
easily without any issues. But will I ever need to do it?

If I put in a contactor for reversing the table...its gonna get really
crowded in that box. Its doable, shrug..but is it something I should do?

I suppose not needing a reversable spindle would be the second
issue...hummm...that would save me even more space.

Having to install a reversing relay..and then taking two more contactors
to power either the high or the low windings....getting involved
here....

Im not all that experienced on the actual nuts and bolt operations of
horizontal millers beyond the basics.

Any suggestions...anyone?


Those switches you scrounged are the modular industrial variety where
you stack various contact blocks together to build the switch you need?
If so, you just need to scrounge the contact blocks to build them up
equivalent to the originals.



All the motors, except for the 110vt coolant pump..are 3ph.

The switches are brand new Allan Bradleys that I bought several years
ago on ebay.

The original switches were very special, with oversized contacts and so
forth, and they switched the 3ph directly, rather than using contactors.
Ive never seen anything similar anywhere..and I do fix machinery for a
living.

But thanks anyways.

Gunner

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