Deckel Jig Grinding head

Hi
Interested to know if any of you Deckel pilots have used or know much about the Deckel Jig grinding head- does it work well for occasional-medium use, or for the same money would you rather have a used dedicated jig grinder? I'm specifically interested in it's performance grinding contours (as opposed to merely holes). Likes, dislikes?

I have one that came with a bunch of "stuff" I got but I've never even mounted it so I can't tell you how well it works. However, my belief is that it probably is an occassinal use type setup. I say that because the dedicated boring/jig machine (LKS) seems to be regarded as inferior to the Sip, Hauser, etc machines.

There are a few things you want to be careful with on the Deckel grinding attachment. First, you need to be aware that the high speed turbines must be oiled (with the correct oil) prior to use. Arno posted on this several years ago here on PM. I didn't get the impression the operation is too difficult, but it is important or you'll toast the bearings. In addition, I have some concerns about the VFD. The cabinet is as big as a normal external Deckel cabinet. The only difference is that instead of being filled with a few relays and a LOT of air, the VFD for the grinding head is chuck full of electronics, none of which is a schematic supplied (as I recall... might be wrong on that). I have grave concerns as to whether or not mine is still viable after all these years! Granted, you might be able to replace it with a modern VFD, but YMMV.

Alan

P.S. The DVD has some minor information on the grinding head... It *may* also be covered in the Tech Bulletins, but I'm less sure of that.

Not used one so i can't voice a real opinion. I own an NSK air turbine jig grinding attachment... Quality unit with its own regulated air supply with moisture trap and lubricator. Can run op to 60,000 RPM has a shank that allows use with a boring head or mounting in the lathe.
Good only to finish small amounts...good speed but low on power as i believe all these type of grinding turbines are(including the Deckel units).
I believe there are two styles of power supplies for the Deckel jig grinding units. The older ones have a mechanical motor driven frequency generator and are regarded as pretty repairable.
The later solid state units no so...(source Arno)


Also believe that it is not oil that must be renewed on the spindles. Thought it was grease....and if the turbines set for any time it must be repacked before use..

At any rate i think i would be inclined to go with the air powered units as an accessory. No VFD to fuss with and lubrication is handled through the air....



Cheers Ross

Thanks A nd R for the replies.

This is new territory for me- What kind of cuts are we talking about with grinding heads like these-.001"-.005"? Less?

Can you imagine using that set up to grind/polish (mostly toolmarks) compound curves that were previously milled on the same machine? FYI I'm thinking maybe an adaptor to mount an air spindle would be a better/more cost effective solution vs the Deckel with it's control box...

Colt45 said:

Thanks A nd R for the replies.

This is new territory for me- What kind of cuts are we talking about with grinding heads like these-.001"-.005"? Less?
..

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Think like .0005" or less and ya should let it spark out before the next in move.
Cheers Ross

AlfaGTA said:

Also believe that it is not oil that must be renewed on the spindles. Thought it was grease....and if the turbines set for any time it must be repacked before use..
Cheers Ross

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Good tip, Precise grease pack high speed motorized spindles need to be hand spun every 3 months when out of use.

AlfaGTA said:

Think like .0005" or less and ya should let it spark out before the next in move.
Cheers Ross

Click to expand...

For that Deckel head perhaps
But for a proper Hauser ad another zero
And you listen with a microfone attached to the workpiece if he is grinding or not

Peter from Holland

Here's Deckel's version from the LKS operator's manual.

Still doing some homework on this-- I have seen some Deckel grinding heads for sale that only show the head, no ancillary cabinet/VFD.

Do all the heads require the VFD cabinet, or do some of them run off the machine's drive only or have a self contained high speed motor?

Colt45 said:

Do all the heads require the VFD cabinet, or do some of them run off the machine's drive only or have a self contained high speed motor?

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All S heads for the LK require a variable frequency input for the Medium Frequency motors.

The newer ones used an electronic cabinet and the original ones used an AC motor with a mechanical variator drive to power a generator (?). That drive was actually the one from the KF1 die sinker but instead of driving the spindle it powered the generator.

Arno said:

All S heads for the LK require a variable frequency input for the Medium Frequency motors.

The newer ones used an electronic cabinet and the original ones used an AC motor with a mechanical variator drive to power a generator (?). That drive was actually the one from the KF1 die sinker but instead of driving the spindle it powered the generator.

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Interesting the need of variable frequency back in the days when that was not so easy to achieve. No wonder the Deckel jig grinding heads are so few in numbers...I didn't realize all the "stuff" that had to go with it to function.

Reminds me of woodworking pin routers (floor models as used in furniture factories) sometimes used seperate floor mounted frequency changers, which were quite elaborate affairs with a 3 phase motor driving a frequency changing generator of some sort just to power the router.

I'm going to add a bit of detail.

The inverter/ generator is only required to drive the actual detachable grinding motors, the head spindle is driven by the FP or LK main motor through the normal drive gear.
You don't need the cabinet at all, as long as you can fit a suitable grinding motor.

If you are looking for a grinding setup, you'd probably be better off buying a jig grinding head and adapting an air driven spindle like one from NSK or an electric grinding spindle with a modern three phase drive. The Deckel grinding motors use a two phase feed so you can't just hook up a VFD to one.
Deckel also sold an air driven grinding turbine for small wheels that ran from 100 to 175k rpm.

If you look at the picture, the lever in the center controls the spindle vertical feed, it cycles up and down to a pre-set stroke, 3" max.
The knob at top center controls feed rate.

The knob at the top front controls the offset of the rotating slide with the dovetail mount. You can adjust it with the spindle rotating and it has 0.0002" graduations.
Total slide travel is small, 0.070" or 0.14" on the diameter. A handle for manual feed fits into the female hex like a mill spindle.


Rough diameter of the grinding wheel is set manually by sliding the grinding motor on the dovetail and clamping it.
For Very light boring I guess you could make a boring bar holder to mount on the dovetail.
I'm sure some will object to that suggestion, but as long as the loading was very light I don't see a problem...

They are a very neat piece of hardware but made to very tight tolerances and fairly fragile. You might want to inspect it carefully before buying, unless it's cheap...

Chris

AlfaGTA said:

Not used one so i can't voice a real opinion. I own an NSK air turbine jig grinding attachment... Quality unit with its own regulated air supply with moisture trap and lubricator. Can run op to 60,000 RPM has a shank that allows use with a boring head or mounting in the lathe.
Good only to finish small amounts...good speed but low on power as i believe all these type of grinding turbines are(including the Deckel units).

Click to expand...

Is the bottom line that the only advantage of the official Deckel jig grinding head over an NSK air turbine attachment mounted to standard Deckel vertical mill head, is the automatic up/down motion of the Deckel jig grinder head ?

And if so, just how useful is that up/down motion ? Does that result in greater accuracy, less loading of the tiny grinding wheel, better finish, faster removal rates...and/or..... ??

Milacron said:

Is the bottom line that the only advantage of the official Deckel jig grinding head over an NSK air turbine attachment mounted to standard Deckel vertical mill head, is the automatic up/down motion of the Deckel jig grinder head ?

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Yes.

And if so, just how useful is that up/down motion ? Does that result in greater accuracy, less loading of the tiny grinding wheel, better finish, faster removal rates...and/or..... ??

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Yes to all of the above except for faster rates.

I have forgotten but the bearings on the 15,000 - 30,000 head had an expected life of about 500 hours; the 30,000 - 60,000 about 200 hours. The latter had a shelf life of 6 months as they would overheat when the resin would precipitate out of the lubrication oil.
We had a hell of a time with warranty claims on exchange motors or sealed bearing sets when they ceased up after a few weeks.

Winning combination is an NSK on the Deckel S head.

I want to re-open this thread... I've got a LKB/LKS Machine along with two grinding heads, 4 grinding spindles, 2 power supplies, and one of these controllers. (plus fine boring head and some parts of the die-milling set (pm me if you know how they work and want to swap against other stuff))

My question is how the setup with those controller-boxes works. I thought that the box only works with the later grinding head which has the electronic-box on the right side (any idea what it actually does??), but there is this little box that can be attached between the grinding spindles and the power supply.

I'm confused by all the connections this controlling panel has, it even has an rs232 connector for NC operation. I suppose thats for the late version of the LKS?

Does anybody here actively use a LKS machine?
I'll add some pictures of the other stuff once i remember to take some in the shop.

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...3408915-deckel-jig-grinding-head-img_2195.jpg
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...3409329-deckel-jig-grinding-head-img_2333.jpg

P.S.: any hints on rotating uploaded pictures?

rreng said:

Does anybody here actively use a LKS machine?

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Not I. But see prior comments about lube, bearings, air grinders instead. See also post #6 in re a different critter altogether, the 'Precise' family, of which I have two.

Those not only want hand-turned when in storage, there is a looong low-speed 'warm up' before ready to work.

Even so, 'Precise' are perhaps the most durable/LEAST fussy among the small tribe of electrically-driven heads, both as to bearings and operation off a dumb-as-rocks Variac.

Deckel's may or may not be any better as a grinder. Above my pay grade, and we' be splitting gnat's RCH's anyway. They could class among the MOST fussy, maintenance and controller-wise.

All comes down to there being a better-than-even chance that the bearings in your unknown how-long-dormant Deckel grinding heads would need attention before use of any kind.

The current owners of Precise - Fischer Spindle - MAY be among a rare few, stateside, who even offer that service - they do all sorts of comparable spindles.

Just not for free...



Bill

Sure thing those grinding spindles need to be serviced prior to any use. I didn't figure out how to do that (propably taking them apart is involved, but as i didn't need to use them yet, i didn't bother), but i'm sure it can be done. Shouldn't take much more than a good cleaning and re-lubrication. Most interesting part will be finding the correct lube for those bearings.

I've had one of those precise grinding spindles before, but the problem of those is that they are super long (50% more length than the deckel grinding spindles are) and the one that attaches to the grinding head are hard to find. I could, however, for sure scavenge one of the mounts of the deckel grinding spindles or the centricator mount and just make it a mount for a precise spindle. But with the hauser table in place i'm running short in machine height when mounting a precise spindle.
So i'll "just" inspect and "restore" the deckel grinding spindles, and give it a shot.

I bought the machine for jig boring work in the first place, so the grinding bit isn't super important to me. BUT i've got some applications (re-grinding conrod bearing journals and crank roller bearing housings at the moment) that are much easier to do on this machine than to visit my friend with the mikromat BKoZ every couple of weeks.

Anyway, electrical setup help is what i'm asking for, maybe somebody can help me figure out the "what does what" on the controlling panel. I did figure out the VFD and test-run one of the grinding spindles (for a short time, keeping the lubrication problem in mind...)

rreng said:

Sure thing those grinding spindles need to be serviced prior to any use. I didn't figure out how to do that (propably taking them apart is involved, but as i didn't need to use them yet, i didn't bother), but i'm sure it can be done. Shouldn't take much more than a good cleaning and re-lubrication. Most interesting part will be finding the correct lube for those bearings.

Click to expand...

Lube is probably a stock Kluber item. Few others even enter that uber-high RPM market.
Especially when the grease is installed with a wee hypodemic nerdle at the rate of only a few ounces every hundred years. Per client company.

Good stuff, but priced accordingly, of course.

'Taking apart' may not be hard.

But they may as well STAY that way, as putting together still-usable is either a 'clean room' operation, or should be.

After all... this is 'Deckel', not 'Dremel', and even then .. precision jig-grinding wudda been at the top of an already uber-precise food chain.



Bill

You didn't think i'd take a dremel apart, didn't you?
Though i didn't sign up for this board before, i might be less of a greenhorn than you anticipated.

Seems you're curious though, i'll take some pictures of the dis/re-assembly and post them here, once i find a source for the correct lube.

rreng said:

Sure thing those grinding spindles need to be serviced prior to any use. I didn't figure out how to do that (propably taking them apart is involved, but as i didn't need to use them yet, i didn't bother), but i'm sure it can be done. Shouldn't take much more than a good cleaning and re-lubrication. Most interesting part will be finding the correct lube for those bearings.

I've had one of those precise grinding spindles before, but the problem of those is that they are super long (50% more length than the deckel grinding spindles are) and the one that attaches to the grinding head are hard to find. I could, however, for sure scavenge one of the mounts of the deckel grinding spindles or the centricator mount and just make it a mount for a precise spindle. But with the hauser table in place i'm running short in machine height when mounting a precise spindle.
So i'll "just" inspect and "restore" the deckel grinding spindles, and give it a shot.

I bought the machine for jig boring work in the first place, so the grinding bit isn't super important to me. BUT i've got some applications (re-grinding conrod bearing journals and crank roller bearing housings at the moment) that are much easier to do on this machine than to visit my friend with the mikromat BKoZ every couple of weeks.

Anyway, electrical setup help is what i'm asking for, maybe somebody can help me figure out the "what does what" on the controlling panel. I did figure out the VFD and test-run one of the grinding spindles (for a short time, keeping the lubrication problem in mind...)

Click to expand...

rreng,

Are you using the riser with the Jig Grinding Head?
The reason I ask, I thought somewhere I read it was required to slow the head down, but could be just for the issues you are facing with not enough daylight in the Z axis?

BTW welcome to the Forum......

Kevin