rklopp
Diamond
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2001
- Location
- Redwood City, CA USA
My Aciera F5 was originally equipped with an interlock switch that was supposed to prevent turning on the spindle motor when the lock was engaged. That feature was broken when I got the machine. I figured that the cable that leads to the interlock had fatigued off because it had to move with the Y axis. The cable comes up to the bottom of the Y axis from the gearbox underneath and swims in oil.
The spindle lock is handy when loosening either the horizontal or vertical drawbar. It is not a necessity, because shifting into low gear and wrenching against the motor's inertia accomplishes the same thing. On the rare occasion when I would switch tools and leave the lock engaged, the drive belt would slip if I started the spindle. A couple of weekends ago, however, I started the motor against the lock while in low gear, and the belt did not slip. Instead, the lock skipped teeth and made awful noises. Fortunately, there was no permanent damage. I decided I needed to fix the interlock.
Access was a challenge to say the least. The first photo shows the view from the rear with the headstock slid forward. Unlike a Deckel or Schaublin 13, power is transmitted into the headstock via a long double-keyed shaft instead of a long pinion. The whole works is immersed in the transmission and, on my machine, looks practically brand new. There is a "carrier" piece that has a hollow shaft with captive keys that slides along the stationary drive shaft. The hollow shaft has a gear that sends power upward into the headstock. This carrier piece also has the bronze Y-axis feed nut parallel to and below the drive shaft.
The electrical connection for the interlock plugs into this red insulating plastic block fastened to the side of the carrier. The carrier normally belongs in under the headstock where a machined arced surface mates with the ground arced surface on top of the carrier. Four ground screws go through the bottom of the headstock into the carrier. The screw bodies are ground to act like dowels.
The F5 is famous for having an unnecessarily huge volume of gear oil, like 6 gallons. I siphoned it out so I could control the flow, hence the hose seen here.
The spindle lock is handy when loosening either the horizontal or vertical drawbar. It is not a necessity, because shifting into low gear and wrenching against the motor's inertia accomplishes the same thing. On the rare occasion when I would switch tools and leave the lock engaged, the drive belt would slip if I started the spindle. A couple of weekends ago, however, I started the motor against the lock while in low gear, and the belt did not slip. Instead, the lock skipped teeth and made awful noises. Fortunately, there was no permanent damage. I decided I needed to fix the interlock.
Access was a challenge to say the least. The first photo shows the view from the rear with the headstock slid forward. Unlike a Deckel or Schaublin 13, power is transmitted into the headstock via a long double-keyed shaft instead of a long pinion. The whole works is immersed in the transmission and, on my machine, looks practically brand new. There is a "carrier" piece that has a hollow shaft with captive keys that slides along the stationary drive shaft. The hollow shaft has a gear that sends power upward into the headstock. This carrier piece also has the bronze Y-axis feed nut parallel to and below the drive shaft.
The electrical connection for the interlock plugs into this red insulating plastic block fastened to the side of the carrier. The carrier normally belongs in under the headstock where a machined arced surface mates with the ground arced surface on top of the carrier. Four ground screws go through the bottom of the headstock into the carrier. The screw bodies are ground to act like dowels.
The F5 is famous for having an unnecessarily huge volume of gear oil, like 6 gallons. I siphoned it out so I could control the flow, hence the hose seen here.
