There may be a sacrificial locating pin in the turret that is bent from some previous crash.
Dick Z
Hello everyone, I have lurked here off and on for a while but this is my first post.
I have a Baxter technologies / standard modern future builder/vo-tec 2000 CNC lathe. The company changed hands a few times and I have seen the machine refered to under multiple headings.
Its a basic slant bed CNC with Fanuc 3tc controls.
I have it funcitonal and I am getting ready to set up the tool offsets. I did a test cut today and the tooling in the turret is not passing through lathe center. I tried 2 different tools and both gave similar results. THey pass below center on the part and leave a nub.
The turret indexes and stops on some sort of hard stop inside. It seems to be functioning as the lathe is not giving any errors that the turret has not finished its rotation ( its making the cam switches).
I have been told that the turret may have crashed and sheared off some dowels / shifted the turret. It appears to be a solid casting that passes through into the turret housing. It is not bolt to the shaft, it is the shaft. At least thats what it looks like to m
Has anyone had to reset the turret location on one of these? Where in the turret should I be looking for locating pins? I would just like to keep the dissasembly to a minimum.
Is there another possibility that may cause this problem? The tool holders are 1" which are the largest that will fit in the turret. Anything smaller would leave an even larger nub. Is there simply some adjustment that needs to be made ?
Does anyone have or know where I might be able to get some mechanical documentatoin for this machine? I have the ladder logic, and a basic maintenance manual. It does not cover the turret however.
On a side note has anyone ever connected a PC to one of these machines to transfer a program file? I tried to day using a parralel cable and it promptly shuts down the controller as soon as it is connected. Its a brand new cable and a USB to parallel connector.
Thanks
Dan
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There may be a sacrificial locating pin in the turret that is bent from some previous crash.
Dick Z
DZASTR
If a turret has been crashed you need to check two things.
1. Put an indicator and check that the face of the turret is perpendicular to the chuck when you move the x axis up and down.
2. Check a boring bar tool holder and check if the disk has turned when x is at zero.
Thats what I am looking for. I was hoping someone would know just where it is before I rip the whole thing apart. It doesn't seem to be out at the turret face, it looks like a solid casting through the turret housing.
I have already checked the turret face, its still square..
I was working on the boring bar holder before I left on friday. A rough check seemed to indicate that it was out by 3/32".
If you have two pins they will be in the front of the turret.
You might have a series of bolts in the front of the turret and if you loosen them you can turn the disk from side to side.
Or you have a curvix coupling then you should have two set screws that when you remove them gives you access to the screws that hold one of the curvix.
Those are the only possibilities.
For the future reference of anyone investigating the turret on one of these machines:
The turret and shaft are ONE piece. There are no fasteners holding it together and no dowels used to allign it. The pic below is of the shaft portion, the octagonal turret is directly to the left of the bearing in the picture:
Inside the turret there is the shaft, 2 pistons with ramps on the bottom, 2 gear racks attached to the pistons and a pinion gear connecting the 2 pistons. Thats it except for fasteners and the adapter plate on the end to attach the indicating cams and switches for position.
The turret operates be pressurizing one piston which drives down against the raised corner of one of the square blocks on the shaft. The ramp on the bottom passes the corner of the block and wedges between the block and the housing. Adjusting the stroke of the piston will only affect the rigidity of the turret, not its position. It must fully stroke to lock. If it short strokes it won't lock. It can't overstroke as it won't pass the block. As this piston pushes down the other piston is driven up by the gear racks and pinion gear. To reach the next position the second piston is fired. Simple, kind of interesting, pain in the butt.
This picture shows the housing with the turret removed. On the left is the right hand piston with ramp and rack shown. The left hand piston is retracted up in its bore behind the visible piston.
The ONLY adjustment for the turret and tooling are the cam dowels on the face of the turret:
They have a total throw of about .025". Unfortunately my turret was originally manufactured incorrectly. You can see the ghost holes from the tooling blocks that were actually used on this machine above the tapped mounting holes on the turret face ( I don't have those). They are approximately .060" too low on the face . Since there is no adjustment in the turret, the tooling will always pass at least .035" below center of the chuck at max adjustment.
My solution was to make new cams with a .065" throw. old on the right, new on the left.
Since this was beyond the original design throw, the counterbored holes in the tooling blocks also need to be slotted. Its a bit of a pain, but it allowed me to dial in the boring bar holder today. I still have to cam the rest of the dowels and slot out the tool holders, but its a start.
Hay Dan its Robin not shure how this works but how did you do on your tool changer. I have one of these been using for 6 years no problems till I bought a spare motherboard and installed it to try out and then my tool changer quit working put the original back in and it now does not change tool now. You say you have a ladder diagram I need one maybe you can help me