New Rockwell lathe and some questions about it.
If your talking about sitting for 5 or 10 years, I'd take a close look at
the greased spindle bearings. Grease can dry out and cake, and you'll need to clean those bearings out if the grease has gone south on you. Good luck with your new lathe, hopefully someone else will be able to help you with your other questions. Paul T. |
New Rockwell lathe and some questions about it.
In article ,
Charles A. Sherwood wrote: Last week I took delivery of a Rockwell 11x24 lathe. This lathe is in exceptional condition and seems like a vast improvement over my craftsman/atlas 12x36. BTW, the craftsman is now FS. Congratulations! This machine saw very little use in its previous life and has set for an extended period of time. (well preserved). Great! This machine has greased spindle bearings and I am wondering if I should give them a healthy shot of grease. The manuals says to grease every 200 hrs. Where does the old grease go? Is it just forced out like when I grease my car or truck? What kind of grease should I use?? I suspect its more that generic wheel bearing grease. Are you *sure* that it wants grease? Does it say so on a plate on the machine (in which case it should say what kind of grease -- probably no longer in production, but it will give you something to find a cross-reference for. Note that many machines have what looks like grease fittings, but which are in reality oil fittings for a pressure oil gun. People have made the mistake of injecting grease into the way lube fittings on a milling machine and discovered that they then had to take the machine apart to clean all vestiges of grease out of the channels, and replace it with Vactra No. 2 or similar. You would use grease on spindle bearings only if the top speed was rather slow, otherwise the viscosity of the grease would slow the machine down at the higher speeds, and heat the bearing areas significantly. If the manual really says grease, then it should also say which grease should be used. There is just one place on my 12x24" Clausing which calls for grease, and that is in the bearing of the first gear picking power off from the spindle. Everywhere else calls for oil. That said, I use the same light grease on the teeth of the gears, including the back gears when in service. Also what grease should I use on the back gears? On the teeth? Or on the bearings? The latter should again probably be an oil -- as specified in the manual. Somewhere I read that the carriage has gears in an oil bath. I don't understand how to make sure its full. There is a tiny oiler on the bottom of the apron but its too low to be a fill plug. There are a couple spring loaded balls on top the apron. When I squirt oil in them, it seems to run out the bottom pretty fast. My Clausing has the oil bath in the apron. There is a sight gauge (a small window) in the side towards the tailstock (presumably to keep it out of the path of hot chips and possibly falling workpieces). There is a large Allen-head setscrew plugging a drain hole in the bottom of the apron, and another in the side above the sight gauge to serve as a fill point. I've not checked, but I suspect that these are in reality pipe plugs with a hex socket in them. I stole a VFD off a different machine to try it out. My first observation is that the mechanical variable speed drive has lots of friction. I needed to adjust the torque curve in the VFD to make it start reliably at high speed. It also coasts to a stop pretty quick. Mechanical variable speed systems do tend to be inefficient. But stopping quickly may save you from damage some day, so don't complain about that. How did you stop it? Asked the VFD to stop it? (In which case it was being powered to as stop, so it would stop even more quickly). If you switched the power between the motor and the VFD, you risked damage to the VFD's output transistors. Requardless it runs pretty smooth and the mechanical VS works well. Probably not much need to change the VFD frequency. Proably not -- at least until the variable mechanism wears out. (That seems to be a weak point on Clausing machines so fitted -- mine has step pulleys.) I put a phase II AXA clone toolpost on it. It seems like the right size and I think a BXA would be too big. Hmm ... I put a BXA on my 12x24" Clausing (not much bigger than an 11"), and feel that I would have been unhappy with the AXA. A minor issue is that the toolpost is bigger that the flat part of the compound so I will need to make a spacer to lift the toolpost up 1/4 inch. Why? The AXA and BXA toolposts (along with their larger brothers) have individual height stops on the tool holders. If they won't get the tools high enough, that suggests that you really *did* need the BXA size, which starts with a thicker chunk of metal below the tool slot in the holders. The real test is whether a tool holder sitting on the compound (with or without the toolpost in place) will have the top edge of the maximum size tool (insert tooling rises higher than the top of the shank for the clamping parts, but the top of the inserts is in line with the top of the shank) just slightly below the centerline. If it is above, the toolpost is too large. You wind up using a lot of that adjustment range for the smallest tools in the holder. (E.g. a 1/4" HSS tool in a BXA which accepts a 5/8" shank as the maximum.) I think there will still be plenty of adjustment to get the toolbits on center. I hope so. Any thing else I should know about? Since I don't know the Rockwell (though I do have one of their 7" shapers) I don't know for sure -- but you have my thoughts above. Good Luck, DoN. -- Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564 (too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html --- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero --- |
New Rockwell lathe and some questions about it.
|
New Rockwell lathe and some questions about it.
Don, I've got one too, and it specifically calls for Texaco Regal
Starfak #2 grease on the lubrication plate. The gear train, by the way, calls for Texaco Marfak #0 grease. An equivalent would be open gear grease, which is designed to stand the high pressure and stay in place. Can you recommend a brand and a greasing procedure? Mechanical variable speed systems do tend to be inefficient. But stopping quickly may save you from damage some day, so don't complain about that. How did you stop it? Asked the VFD to stop it? I have my VFD set to "coast to stop" and it still stops pretty quick. The problem is really not stopping, its starting. I have to set a lot of torque boost to make it start if the mechanical VS is set above 1000 RPM. I'm using a westinghouse Teco unit which allows a custom VF curve. I set min voltage to 10%, mid point voltage to 40% and max to 87%. The 87% is required because I'm running a 208V motor on 240V. My past experience of running a 208 V motor on 240V is they run quite HOT. So anyway this gives me adequate starting torque, but I really cannot run the motor at less that 30Hz or I will probably burn it out. BTW. I bought this machine from DIck T. it Detroit too! Great guy to deal with, but don't spread it around. I want first dibs on the best machines! Thanks for the help chuck |
New Rockwell lathe and some questions about it.
|
New Rockwell lathe and some questions about it.
Don, I've got one too, and it specifically calls for Texaco Regal
Starfak #2 grease on the lubrication plate. The gear train, by the ================================================= ======================== Posted by Steve Hammond on May 10, 01 at 09:02:13: : Texaco regal starfak #2 Grease The Code 1982 Texaco Regal Starfak 2 was discontinued in the late '70's. It was a sodium/calcium mixed base grease with base oil viscosity of about 64 cSt at 40°C. Regal Starfak 2 and the products that replace it are recommended for electric motors or high speed bearing application (no EP). The products that were suggested as MSC sells an electric motor grease (mobil) that looks promising. I think I will give it a try. Is there a reason that I should not use an EP grease in the spindle bearings? thanks chuck |
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