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HLV-H variable speed pulley assembly movement

rons

Diamond
Joined
Mar 5, 2009
Location
California, USA
I notice that the pulley shaft moves right 1/4 inch then left 1/4 inch in low speed range. But not all the time. Sometimes I can put a finger on the end of the shaft and it stops moving. It also stops moving when the drive support piece is moving up or down.

I am thinking that a set developed in one or both belts. Belts are 15 years old but I cleaned and inspected them and they look good. Tension does not make any difference. Years ago I installed a plastic bushing on both sides of the shaft to stop it from moving when the belts were brand new. Then I removed those bushings for some reason, I don't even remember why... :scratchchin:

Anybody use hand soap (as in auto hand soap cleaner) to clean their belts? Or re-position the lower belt 90 degrees?

Is it time to call Hardinge ? :cryin:
 
I notice that the pulley shaft moves right 1/4 inch then left 1/4 inch in low speed range. But not all the time. Sometimes I can put a finger on the end of the shaft and it stops moving. It also stops moving when the drive support piece is moving up or down.

I am thinking that a set developed in one or both belts. Belts are 15 years old but I cleaned and inspected them and they look good. Tension does not make any difference. Years ago I installed a plastic bushing on both sides of the shaft to stop it from moving when the belts were brand new. Then I removed those bushings for some reason, I don't even remember why... :scratchchin:

Anybody use hand soap (as in auto hand soap cleaner) to clean their belts? Or re-position the lower belt 90 degrees?

Is it time to call Hardinge ? :cryin:

Meah.. I have two genuine Reeves drives under roof, "cousins", only of the Hardinge and other similar systems, have only started on addressing what they 'usually' need.

My understanding of those 'needs' came from maintaining & refurba-shiting them on light/medium duty sheet-offset printing presses in an eons ago "Day Job".

Basically the sliding mechanisms in the hubs need cleaned up, slop taken out of the adjuster linkage, the bushing you had previously fitted restored, the drive faces 'flattened' where most-used ratios have worn steps into them, and new belts fitted.

Gates or the like probably have your belt. One of mine - for the "Quartet" mill - fortunately still had a FSN/NSN as the US Gummint's GSA had bought scads of warehouse ride-on floor-cleaning machines that used the same belt as the uber-rare Quartet mill used.

Hardinge can offer new parts or information only maybe. Higher prices, certainly, if-even they still stock or have cross-reference to bought-in parts they didn't themselves manufacture much of anyway.

Straightforward "example right in front of you" dead-obvious refurb makes this whole tribe of related-type drives quieter-running and reduces losses in power transmitted.

Your 'instinct' and some rather tedious time invested should be more than good enough to lock-in that gain. If even you want to bother with it at all.

JM2CW
 
Had a customer where the bronze/brass bushing broke in half on the pulley assemble on an HLV-H. Price and availability for a new bushing was N/A but they had a complete pulley assembly for $3700 or so. It was a machine shop so I sketched up a new bushing for them.

They had about 10 of the HLV-H machines with various problems and all of the parts were available, spindle bearings, speed control gears, brake parts, belts etc but nothing was cheap.
 
Basically the sliding mechanisms in the hubs need cleaned up, slop taken out of the adjuster linkage, the bushing you had previously fitted restored, the drive faces 'flattened' where most-used ratios have worn steps into them, and new belts fitted.

Gates or the like probably have your belt. One of mine - for the "Quartet" mill - fortunately still had a FSN/NSN as the US Gummint's GSA had bought scads of warehouse ride-on floor-cleaning machines that used the same belt as the uber-rare Quartet mill used.

Hardinge can offer new parts or information only maybe. Higher prices, certainly, if-even they still stock or have cross-reference to bought-in parts they didn't themselves manufacture much of anyway.

JM2CW

I think I removed the bushings years ago because a post here stated that it was a bad idea to use them. May have been false news.

I pulled the hubs/shaft and they are are taking a nice warm bath in a rust removal tank full of electrons. The attempt to remove the hub end collars with a pin wrench did not work because of more foe called Johnie Rust. We will see about that later today.

Probably if I squirted some oil on the slide and ran the speed up and down everything would have worked, but I like doing things the hard way... :wall:
 
I notice that the pulley shaft moves right 1/4 inch then left 1/4 inch in low speed range. But not all the time. Sometimes I can put a finger on the end of the shaft and it stops moving. It also stops moving when the drive support piece is moving up or down.

Is it time to call Hardinge ? :cryin:

I had a similar issue at the back end of last year. The slower the rotation the more the shaft moved but then sometimes it would not move lateraly at all. I simply rubbed the shaft with copper grease and worked the grease in at various speeds ... all is now OK :D

John :typing: :cheers:
 
I had a similar issue at the back end of last year. The slower the rotation the more the shaft moved but then sometimes it would not move lateraly at all. I simply rubbed the shaft with copper grease and worked the grease in at various speeds ... all is now OK :D

John :typing: :cheers:

How old is your belt set?

The Hardinge user manual does not mention much about belt tension except this:

"THE BELTS SHOULD NOT BE STRETCHED, YET ADJUSTED SO THAT THERE IS NO LOOSENESS" :icon_bs::icon_bs: (one for each belt)
 
Are you all referring to the floating pulley shaft that goes thru the bearings in the pulley hanger casting? That's a regular maintenance item (in the book) to grease the ends of the shaft where it oscillates in the bearings; this arrangement isolates vibration, stress/resonance/imbalance in the belt/pulley bits by freely oscillating. I wipe the shaft off every month and brush on a bit of all-purpose moly grease.

Yep..............
 
How old is your belt set?

The Hardinge user manual does not mention much about belt tension except this:

"THE BELTS SHOULD NOT BE STRETCHED, YET ADJUSTED SO THAT THERE IS NO LOOSENESS" :icon_bs::icon_bs: (one for each belt)

Yes I'm aware of that. I fitted new belts (My machine has FIVE belts!) and initially my lower belt was too tight and ran hot after about 30 minutes at a typical mid range RPM. Having wound off the tension a little all was OK.

As mentioned by car2 the intermediate shaft needs to be smooth through the bearings and copper grease did it for me :D

John :typing:
 
The hvl-h motor plate pivots (in the back) on a long bar that has a rubber bushing on each end. When the rubber hardens they should be replaced. Wonder how many people know about that....

There are also two rubber bushings/washers that are installed at the motor plate adjustment (up/down) screw. I made my own.

As a general rule for belts I use 1 inch deflection in one direction not 1 inch total deflection (right to left).
 
Reeves shaft alignment

My $.02 here...

Main drive components: Motor on support plate, Reeves pulley assembly supported by a casting that pivots on a bracket attached to the cabinet, linear actuator that raises/lowers the support casting that effect speed change, spindle.

The drive support casting (holds the Reeves Pulley, shaft, bearings, etc) pivots on the support block by 2 ea. pivot screws. The support block is fixed to the hanger bracket via a set of parts that allow precise alignment of the support block with the cabinet which in turn controls the alignment of the pulley shaft axis with the spindle axis. If these two axes are not parallel the belt will tend to walk up the face of the reeves pulley and induce an axial force on the support shaft which causes it to displace in the support bearings. The worse the alignment between the reeves shaft and the spindle, the worse the axial displacement of the shaft. Motor shaft axis should also be parallel to the spindle, but this is harder to achieve. There is some compromise adjustment of the support block which lessens the overall axial movement. Try some small adjustments of the support block and see if it doesn't improve things.

I'm in the process of retrofitting HLV-H reeves drive components to my old HLV, so I'm in the process of analyzing what's going on before I get into the troubleshooting phase, so this seems pretty clear to me. Your results might vary.

Reference pg 33 of HLV-H parts manual
 
Motor shaft axis should also be parallel to the spindle, but this is harder to achieve. There is some compromise adjustment of the support block which lessens the overall axial movement. Try some small adjustments of the support block and see if it doesn't improve things.

The motor platform is supported by two support blocks that can be independently raised or lowered. They are bolted to the cabinet in back. A precision digital level would be nice.
 








 
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