Moving a Prototrak mill under a garage door opening

[kentucker237]

I have a 1997 model SWI Trak DPM coming in a few days and want to put it in my garage. The garage door opening is standard 84 inch high. The mill's column is 85 inches high, based on SWI spec sheet. I was told by a guy who once had one of these that he put it in his garage by removing the column cover and then sliding the mill on a piece of sheet steel. Anyone have any experience with this? Any photos or advice? Thanks in advance.

[bishb25]

HI kentucker,

I have a Mid 90's DPM myself. The suggestion sounds reasonable, however, I have never had my column cover off so I don't know how much extra clearance you will gain. Sheet steel will work very well as a sled but plywood might do in a pinch. Steel is pretty expensive.
I'm sure you thought of this already, but the biggest problem you will face after you get the clearance issue resolved is how are you going to drag that machine across the floor. I don't know if your garage is big enough to tow it in with a vehicle. You may want to drag it in with a come-along and some chain. The machine is not so heavy that you couldn't inch it in with a good pry bar.

How are you planning to unload the machine from the truck?

Hope this helps.

How much time time do you have before it arrives? I think Saturday afternoon I could pull the cover off of mine and find out how much room you will get.

[kentucker237]

Hi Bishb,

I would greatly appreciate having a look inside your machine if it isn’t a huge hassle. It will give me a heads up as to what I face.

I think I’ll have it moved by a machinery mover recommended by the above mentioned former DPM owner. I just don’t want to take a chance of damaging a nearly $20k machine.

My garage has a 9 foot high ceiling, so once in, clearance is not an issue. I’m taking up half of my 2 car garage, and the car in the other half is in jeopardy of losing its place to make room for more machinery. One must have priorities straight.

I went to the SWI website and downloaded the user’s manual for the old Trak series machines. If you didn’t get the manual with yours, you should get this. It is about 23 MB, and well worth the download time.

http://www.southwesternindustries.co...941_manual.pdf

Anticipated arrival date is Feb 19-20.

Thanks for your input.

[bishb25]

Yeah, I have the manuals. I also have a great team at my local ProtoTrak distributor, http://starlitegroup.com/ , here in western PA. They are very helpful and willing to answer any of my questions. If you call them tell them Ben from Bish Tool sent you. ( it won't get either of us anything, but occasionally I like to have my name dropped )
There is information, such as service codes for machine callibration, that is not in any of the user manuals that your local distributor/service center can help with.

I know of another great place to have your CRT fixed if it ever goes bad. They specialize in industrial equiptment and dedicate a whole section of their website to prototrak. They only charged us something like $235 to replace the dead CRT and install high temp capacitors and cure what they call "ProtoTrak Disease." SWI wanted like $800 to trade the whole pendant for a rebuilt one. Even if your readout is only slightly burned into your screen it's worth having it replaced. Total failure is only a stones throw away. This company uses higher quality components than SWI and should last much longer. If only I could remember their name off hand. If you need it PM me and I will get it for you.

Machine movers are great. As long as they know of the challenges ahead of time; they'll be prepared and install will be a snap.

Like I said, Saturday is the soonest I can take the cover off. It looks like there are only 4 standard screws holding it on. The only thing that might get in the way is it being Valentine's Day.

I 'll let you know as soon as I have any more info for you. Till then read up on the operation and programming manual so you can get to makin' chips right away.

[bishb25]

Here's the link to that CRT repair company. I liked dealing with them alot. They know their stuff and turn-around is fast. I just disconnected the cables removed the pendant from the support arm and shipped it to them with my billing and return info. Very easy to deal with.

http://www.machinecrt.com/

I said $235 for the repair, but their website says $295. Still a very good deal.

[eshreve]

I pulled the cover off of the trak mill at work today. It measured 83 7/8" from the bottom of the base to the top of the counterweight spocket assembly. If you have some bars to block the counterweight, the assembly looks like it would come off pretty easily and give you about 3" more clearance. I don't know the size of the cap screws holding it on, but they are probably metric. Hope this helps.

[kentucker237]

Guys, thanks for the help. It’s good to have a heads up on this process. One mover suggested that I cut the header out of my garage. It’s structural, so I don’t think that will happen. 83 7/8 to the sprocket plus 1/8 inch for some steel sheet puts me right at 84 inches. It is going to be close! I’ll have pictures.

[CNC Viking]

Originally Posted by kentucker237 I have a 1997 model SWI Trak DPM coming in a few days and want to put it in my garage. The garage door opening is standard 84 inch high. The mill's column is 85 inches high, based on SWI spec sheet. I was told by a guy who once had one of these that he put it in his garage by removing the column cover and then sliding the mill on a piece of sheet steel. Anyone have any experience with this? Any photos or advice? Thanks in advance.

Hi Kentucker,

I did a similar move last summer when I brought my 1996 Feeler FV-800 home to my garage. I heard from the movers that it is quite common to slip a machine under a garage door opening on sheetmetal. They just oil it a little so the machine can slide easily and they only need approx. 25 mm extra hight to do it.

I had the "luxury" of a 2250 mm opening so we could lift her right in with long forks and placed her on 3 "skates" as they call them here. It is small dollies with polyurethane clad wheels that are really gentle to the floor. One of them was a swiveling kind and we could easily rotate the machine inside the garage by hand pressure.

Of course, the machine is higher than the opening, but I removed the Z-axis servo cover, motor and the counter weight's chainwheel blocks. I also had to loosen the cable chain and its square tube manifold and tilt the whole package sideways. No cables needed to be disconnected though.

When I got her inside the garage I had to move it long enough to clear the garage door in its max. lifted position. It folds up under the ceiling and creates a new lower "ceiling". One more thing that is important (maybe not for you with the 9 foot ceiling). I have 2500 mm ceiling and the cable chain reaches 2750 mm in its upper position so I had to make a 280 mm high box to let the cable chain up through the ceiling. If you need that too, check very carefully that you do not have any structural beams, or something else above the cable chain area, preventing you from cutting the opening for the box. I measured everything in advance and made marks on the floor for an exact position for the machine. The movers placed it correctly within the millimeter.

And don't forget to leave enough room behind the machine so that you can open the doors fully to the Electrical cabinet if it is there.

Do you have enogh thickness in the concrete floor? I have 120-180 mm which work just fine for a 5 metric ton machine.

What kind of driveway do you have? The movers vere more concerned about my driveway than the garage floor. Why? Well the truck is 9 tons and the machine is 5 tons. That is a lot of weight on the front axle. So they placed 10mm steel sheets on my driveway. I even placed a layer of 12 mm plywood (borrowed from a builder), before they arrived, to protect my drive way from being scratched.

12 mm Plywood protecting driveway bricks


10 mm Steel sheets on top of plywood sheets to carry the load


Truck with machine on forks


Dollies made it easy to roll on garage floor


Z-axis servo etc removed to lower machine


First I had 15 mm steel strips under the machine feet but it was a waste of time. I could not
level the machine as it was to "spongy". I placed the machine directly on the floor. No problem
at all, and rock solid.


The finished machine. I will start a new thread later about the rebuild
and all its aspects



Good Luck with the move, installation & operation. And take many photos so you can post them here later!

/Peter

[clembrant]

I moved a DPM into my garage with 84" clearance height. I did take off the top cover. Also move head down as far as you can. I don't know if you know this but there are holes in the side base of the machine that are made to put round bars through so you can move the machine. This allows you to use a fork truck and get as close to the floor as you can. It's been awhile since I had mine moved( I did use a rigger),
so not sure if we had to tilt it, but I do remember it was pretty close, but I got it in. good luck

[kentucker237]

CNC Viking: That Feeler VMC is one LARGE mill to squeeze into a garage. How many of us are feeling envious right about now?

My driveway is concrete so that shouldn’t be a problem.
These Trak DPM’s weigh about 4100 lbs. The local rigger has assured me that this will be fairly simple.

Not too sure about thickness of the garage floor. I have some leveling pads (Airloc Wedgmounts) that spread the load. My only concern will be the wheels on their dollies.

I had my own experience with my lathe and the electrical box door. Fortunately the lathe only weighs 1000 lbs., so it just meant a simple repositioning with the engine hoist.

Clembrant: Glad to hear about your experience getting your DPM into your garage. Cuts my anxiety level way down. Thanks for the tip on the lifting holes in the side. I passed that on to the rigger so they can plan ahead.

Yours looks about the same as mine: AGE 3 control and power drawbar. Nice machine. Could you lower the head enough for the power drawbar to clear the garage door or did it have to come off? My friend told me that there is a hand crank to turn the Z axis ball screw.

[bishb25]

I may be wrong, but I think the Z axis hand crank is only on the AGE-2 And MX-2 model DPM's. The full 3 axis machines don't. Mine (MX3) doesn't.

But don't worry, with the power turned off you can turn the ball screw by hand since you'll have the covers off. That is, as long as your counterbalance is working.

[Geof]

When you have concrete floors and driveways moving a machine is dead simple, but sometimes you have to get creative:

Moving a MiniMill

TL-2 For The Home Shop: An Adventure In Machine Moving