Hitachi Seiki va-40 move

Anyone here know the specifics on moving this mill?
I do have all the books...........

Hitachi simply says to "lower and block the head" and to "clamp the tool unclamping cylinder" . (two bolts)

Not sure if the head has to be "down" to do these bolts or not..?.. (unit not hooked up to power, yea I know, the whole parameter thing, battery thing, have the parameters)

The head is up, can one manually reach-in somewhere and turn the screw?

Is there some sort of counterweight that balances the head??

Don't want to go down the road bouncing the head on the ball screw

Rest of the instructions are simple are far as locking the x/y movement.

You will not be able to lower the head with out power.
If you do not have the original shipping bracket, wood will do in a pinch.
All the Hitachi Seiki machines I have move had no counter weight.

Looks like a little guy- 10k lbs about?

I can't imagine you're moving it very far. I mean, the machine is worth about negative $1000 so the further you move it the more you lose.

Without power I'd take a mechanical screw jack and some tough wood blocks or plywood squares. You don't want to use wood that can crack and split apart here, had that happen to me. Jack up from the table against the spindle or headstock if it's exposed. Put about 1000 lbs of up force against it. If you're on the spindle sink the drive dogs all the way into the wood.

Also, if the head is up measure the height- Make sure you can clear bridges and such on your route. early 80's Jap machines tend to be tall, like 10ft to 12ft range. They often used hydraulic cylinder counterbalances that mounted straight up.

Look for chains on top. if there is a counterbalance in the column you need to secure it. That will probably mean putting power to the machine so you can insert a locking bar. Or pull the servo and lower with a jack. Some counterweights lock at the top with spacers and long bolts.

At 10K I would move it on a rollback tow truck if it's short enough. Rollback beds are atleast 36" for the class of truck that can move a 10K VMC.

You need skates and jacks and rigging stuff too. You can rent most of that stuff.

If this is all new to you hiring a rigger for the first time to see how it works is not a bad idea. No real room for mistakes here.

yep 10 k

I have rigged a whole lot of machines except my radial drill and #4 vertical........ 13k and 18k were just a bit much...lol
Press brake at 11K was the largest I personally have done

So the process of rigging is no problem...........


Yea got the bridge thing figured out we legal.

Ok so the hydraulic cylinder does the balance....gotcha.......makes sense now....thats the bolt clamping thing...

Already have the measured height of the spindle, will have good oak "block/adjustable" thing ready when i get there.

Yea i know it has no value........but as in my other post this is a "toy" to play with ............

Value...that actually depends......sure no value in todays CNC market but, you could say the same thing about a w&s # 3 turret lathe. But I used mine two weeks ago to take NDA delivered material
and turn out 140 parts for the customer by 3:30 that afternoon and made a very nice profit. But i'm not going to chase that work , obviously the CNC turning guys would win.....duh. So in the right
application older equipment can have value. (off the soapbox now)

However the machine looks like new, i mean the paint is still all there, it may have never cut steel??? control panel has all the silk screening, nary a scratch. Almost no dirt around the push buttons.
Table is perfect,,to my surprise, i am getting from original owner and he never used coolant.......so he says....
Not sure how much it was really used???
Heck my buddy just spent 75k on a fast car to solve his crisis, i figure a couple grand or so for everything from there to here is really no big deal.
I 'd lose a whole lot less than him.....LOL
And im not getting this to use in the business anyway........i don't have frilly ideas of competing in the CNC machining market

And if nothing else it would make a cool shop decoration..... Buy some cheap cat 40 holders and cheap used tools and fill up the changer

Didn't mean it as a putdown at all. I started with old shit and I think it's a great way to go. Just pointing out the hopefully obvious that it's bad to spend a lot on old CNC's.

I invested about $10k into a very similar early 80's VMC about 12 years ago. It made that $10k back every month for quite a few years thereafter.

I had zero CNC experience.

Be prepared to learn a lot in a very short amount of time.

Garwood
no offense taken.......

This bunch on PM is always a good reality check...

Well i wont probably do as good as you.......actually to busy with my real work ........HAHAHA

Yea, but I'm surprised I am catching onto the G code thing better than I thought...zero exp as you were.

Once it's here I'll be back if the books are unclear on startup..........got to get a battery first thing

MwTech Inc said:

Garwood
no offense taken.......

This bunch on PM is always a good reality check...

Well i wont probably do as good as you.......actually to busy with my real work ........HAHAHA

Yea, but I'm surprised I am catching onto the G code thing better than I thought...zero exp as you were.

Once it's here I'll be back if the books are unclear on startup..........got to get a battery first thing

Click to expand...

What control does it have?

When I look up HS Va-40's they all show up with a Fanuc 6M.

Fanuc 6M does not have any batteries.

it has the 6m yellow tag

Ok my bad, on the batteries.....
So if there is no battery should the parameters still be in the control??

So i plug it in and turn on and we are good??

MwTech Inc said:

it has the 6m yellow tag

Ok my bad, on the batteries.....
So if there is no battery should the parameters still be in the control??

So i plug it in and turn on and we are good??

Click to expand...

Yep. No batteries. It has bubble memory.

cool

Garwood said:

Yep. No batteries. It has bubble memory.

Click to expand...

No batteries for the CNC, but older Hitachis used a proprietary PLC that may use batteries to back up the memory. Been so long since I worked on an old Hitachi that I don’t recall for certain.

I had a Hitachi Mini-Matic 500 with a 6M(a). It had no batteries.

I just went through this with an old supermax max 1 mill. It was still under power so I could lower it onto a wood frame I made. I made it so the machine couldn't really slide in x and y as well. Then I attached eyebolts to the tslots in table and strapped the shit out of it. Mine had a counterweight and I just strapped it and stuffed the opening with bubble wrap so it couldn't bang around. After two months I finally got the toolchanger going. It can be risky with the old stuff but they can still make money. I'll get something nicer but I went into it thinking it would be better than cranking handles on the bridgeport if I couldn't fix the toolchanger.