Beauty in The Beast: Webb 5BVK Barn Find/Conversion

[sdelivery]

Mine uses an Allen Bradley 8400 m
Control and has died since the purchase, It lost the PAL, programmable application logic and this is worse than loosing the parameters but equally dead....

 

[Charlieman22]

By "bound on the frame I made", do you mean the casters wouldn't swivel 360°? Please elucidate.

Close look at the photo below with green arrow, you can see the red urethane bulging in contact with the white edge when in the trailing position.
This was NOT going to roll...(had to Jack up the machine and trim back the white edge)

I suggest that you manually operate the X-Y and Knee to be sure any water (from pressure washing) on the ways is dried up ASAP.

Thank you. Did so last night before I called it a day. Servos, X/Y/Z axis, and quill - but am concerned about the motor.
Not sure how I could address it's bearings?

I know the machine your talking about....you do Realize you have a FANUC Control right?

Welcome aboard and thanks for weighing in.
Would love to hear your thoughts over all.

Briefly:
Yes on Fanuc. Nice servos as well.
Reader's digest of my situation/background:
New comer to milling. Everything I know about it is on the past 7 pages as I have worked to clean up this machine.
Know even less about CNC - though Jim has been kind enough to help me wade through the basics.
Was shopping for a Bridgeport - when this was offered for free.
4X the weight...hahah - have some experience now with that as well. They were not fooling around with these castings.

You need a parameter manual and to start entering some parameters.
Unless you have a bad chip on the mother board.
Forget the HANDLES and work on that control or sell the control to me!

My understanding from the guys that gave it to me is: "it was "working fine until it "lost it's parameters".
My limited understanding of that is - the servos work and so does the motor - but the computer doesn't and CANT due to the "lost perimeters"
They can be restored?

My plan is/was to pull off the large boxes and rework the machine to be manual first, then get it operational as CNC using the existing servos and modern controls.
This would deliver me a much more compact machine for my garage - and a pretty spectacular machine of heft.

Do you want to expand on your thoughts on fixing the perimeter issue?
I'm green - but not incapable of following direction.
Alternatively - I am driving a truck across country in one month - so perhaps I should be selling the electronics in Ohio!


Few pics below:

General numeric servos. Can I use a bench power supply to test? Two sets of wires in to each one visible here - where/how would I apply power to test if this is possible?

Specs:

Table all nicely cleaned up


Leveled/ ways cleaned - and a little fancy polish of the old girl's Meehanite casting mark while I was at it.


20 years of chips and oil cleaned out of knee


Deserves a second picture


Reservoir also cleaned out and sprayed down


Caster locking up on my frame - you can see the rubber bulging from the pressure of the white frame. Great brakes!



Rolled in to place. Still some declutter to do in the garage - but nice to have it in.

 

[Papa Charlie]

The bearings can easily be replace. Bearing are almost universal. Once you pull them you can find a number on them. If that is unreadable, you can take measurements or take them to a bearing house and they can match them up.

You will find this being done in one of the series that Steve Summers has on his mill restoration.

Since you have pressure washed the unit. I would let it dry out, mostly the motor and electronics for a little while before I put any power to anything. Moisture finds its way into almost everything. Electricity and water are not a good mix.

But she is looking much better that she did. Don't get in too big of a hurry to remove or reconfigure her until you have done some research. You may be happily surprised what you have.

 

[sdelivery]

First and Foremost return to you purchased the machine and ask for ANY documentation thought might have, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem like.
I would a fan to circulate air through the electronics, nothing special a cheap box fan.
If it only has lost parameters it is one thing if it has a faulty motherboard that is a different thing. Both are repairable issues.
Do not disconnect any wiring.
Let's get the control to come up first before disassembly.
One issue with converting a CNC to manual is the screws.
A manual machine uses acme thread and the cnc uses ball screws.
A ball screws moved and held in position by a strong motor.
An end mill is capable of causing the table to move and hurt the operator damage the machine and the part.
You have an INCREDIBLE prize on your hands move slowly and take your time.

 

[Charlieman22]

Let's get the control to come up first before disassembly.
One issue with converting a CNC to manual is the screws.

My thinking was to order a VFD out of the gate - so I can power up the unit.
See what I can make spin.
Have my eye on this:
https://www.amazon.com/Variable-Fre...eywords=10+hp+vfd&qid=1621649328&sr=8-11&th=1

But now I'm thinking: this machine was in a hanger behind a residential house.
Surely they had only 2 phase there - and had to convert to 3 phase.
I'm sure they might do that globally for the building's power - but there is a VFD on the back of my machine.
Suggests it was converting power locally.

So now I am trying to figure out: what was the VFD on my machine doing - if they had a central converter to 3 phase in the building?
And if they had 2 phase - why wouldn't the existing VFD work for my purposes?

Anyone wanna weigh in with some insights and educate me??
Current model bolted to back of machine is this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2642467967...-53200-19255-0&campid=5338722076&toolid=10001

You have an INCREDIBLE prize on your hands move slowly and take your time.

Total stroke of good fortune!

But she is looking much better that she did. Don't get in too big of a hurry to remove or reconfigure her until you have done some research. You may be happily surprised what you have.

Tough to temper my desire to have a working machine... but I hear you. Still flipping stones as you can see from above.

Since you have pressure washed the unit. I would let it dry out, mostly the motor and electronics for a little while before I put any power to anything. Moisture finds its way into almost everything. Electricity and water are not a good mix.

Good point. Have all the doors open and using the dry cali air - no threat of it being connected in the immediate - as much as I would like to be able to!

VFD pic from when I picked it up: what was this thing doing if not converting from 2 to 3 phase??

 

[sdelivery]

That probably is the "spindle drive"
Let's see some pictures of the electric cabinet.

 

[sdelivery]

Are there people you bought the machine from still there?
If so ask them if they have three phase power and was your machine wired to three phase when they had it.

 

[sdelivery]

Don't forget the pictures....

 

[sdelivery]

Oh It is possible they were using that to create three phase power but without seeing.....

 

[JimDawson]

That table is beautiful, not too often you find an old machine with a table that looks that good. Looks really good sitting in your shop, looks like it belongs there.

As far as the VFD, it looks like it is sized properly to run with the spindle motor on a 240V single phase supply.

The GN Fanuc control. Not sure why you would want to keep a Jurassic control when there are a lot of modern user friendly retrofit controls available. I removed everything from my lathe that said Fanuc on it and replaced it because I didn't like the way it worked and the hassle just to load a program into it, and it was working fine.

I have ball screws on my machine and I have never had a problem using it manually. If I'm cranking the X axis, I do rest my other hand on the Y handwheel and vise-versa.