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New Machine Day Aciera F5.

rblalexander

Aluminum
Joined
Oct 28, 2015
Recently a big injection moulder near me went out of business (Death of our automotive industry). Before they liquidated (most of the big machines and toolroom equipment went to branches overseas) I got the chance to buy this and some other misc stuff before the auctions started.

I had to wait 6 weeks while the site was cleared out (no fork access) but yesterday it arrived. Serial number is 48685 but i cant find any other date on the machine. It was originally bought by Lucas and they went out of business here in 1987 (year i was born)

It has at least one bad issue, X axis power feed binds terribly and once i took the apron side gear box apart and fiddled with the input shaft it feels to me like the bevel gears i think take power from the base have some missing teeth.

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I have some questions:

- How does the horizontal support arm get secured? I cant seem to free it up to slide forward. I see one small gib adjustment screw on the RHS but nothing else. Im missing the drop bracket but the thread here by rklopp gave a good solution.

- How do you lock the horizontal or vertical spindles to loosen the drawbars? The horizontal has been in for years and just wont budge.

- Should the small collar on the RHS of the vertical head be fine feed? the quill handle works fine but turning the fine feed control does nothing at all, in photos i have seen a handle on that control but not on this head.

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- Where is the filler plug for the main gearbox, thanks to a thread here i know it has 25!! litres of oil in it (although none shows on the sight glass)

- I see there is a tapered pin to align the rotation of the vertical head, but there isnt one to ensure the actual mounting of the vertical head onto the Y ram, is this normal? Seems like an oversight.

- There is a bijur pump down near the coolant tank, seems to have some control wiring and maybe a solenoid, is this completely automatic or do you have to actuate it from the control panel?

Thanks for your help in advance.
 
I previously owned an Aciera F5--cnc version
axis gibs are dodgy with exceedingly poor screw locking to hold position
recommend removing all gibs on x axis--two IIRC, clean grease debris and use bore scope to inspect interference surfaces--Aciera dovetails are somewhat fragile and prone to galling
gibs should be likewise inspected for warp and securing hardware

I believe I posted manual on the F5 in that section of this forum site
 
If it helps, I have a pdf manual for your machine which I could send you.
It's in German, but you get the general idea of what's going on.

If required please send a private message with your email address.

Ciao Adrian.
 
The overarm on my machine is clamped by two silver-colored hex-socket camlocks on the operator’s side. They look like socket-head cap screws, but are not. They lock in both the clockwise and counterclockwise directions, so you could be tightening when you think you are loosening.
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There are two tapered dowels for vertical head alignment, one on the rectangular backplate, and one on the angular setting.
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The fine quill feed is probably on an eccentric bearing that engages and disengages by rotating the bearing housing. Yours is different than mine, but I see what might be a split cotter actuated by a socket head cap screw that clamps the eccentric. Here’s mine.
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You fill the transmission oil through the big steel cover under the retracted overarm.
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You lock the spindle and engage the horizontal drawbar by pushing this knob in.
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It can be a little tricky to engage, because it has to drop a spindle lock between two gear teeth and engage a hex on the drawbar simultaneously, and these thing are not always in sync. You may have to rotate the gearing by hand and push on the knob repeatedly to get it to engage. There is supposed to be an interlock switch that disables the spindle motor if the lock is engaged. My interlock does not work, due to a broken wire buried deep under all that oil in the transmission.

I don't know about the Bijur pump. My machine has Zerk fittings for manual oiling. I seem to recall that your machine generation, which has a two speed feed motor rather than a shifting gearbox like my machine has, is equipped with a lube pump and plumbing for oil. I have not idea whether it is actuated automatically or manually.


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Last edited:
Thank you so much for the thorough reply, that helped me get all the apron off and z axis carriage as well.

I'm now left trying to get the feeds gearbox out, all that's left is the Y axis feed driveshaft, are there any other gotchas?

Regards Ralph
 
Ralph, if you can, please post some photos!

I have never removed the feed gearbox on my F5. I did remove the one on my F4. The F4 has no Y feed, so no Y driveshaft to worry about. The gearbox came out easily and per the book, as I recall. It is designed as a "works in a drawer." I recall that the Z carriage had to be run all the way to the top and locked, and I had to be careful not to bugger the the last thread of the Z leadscrew and nut as all the weight came to bear on the last thread. Here is the manual instructions for gearbox removal on my F5. The gear control 5 cited in the manual is referring to the range selector above the rapid traverse footpedal. The manual says to put it in neutral.

Picture1.jpgPicture1b.jpgPicture2.jpgPicture3.jpgPicture4.jpg
 
Apologies i didn't get many, or good photos in my last go working on it (don't get more time until friday). A few things to note for the next person; getting the apron and Z axis off is not the fun romp in the park you expect.

1. The X axis lock rod and feed drive just pull out of the RH gearbox on the apron, nothing holds them in except caked chips and oil once you have the end cover off.

1a The Rh thrust bearing for the feedscrew is in a little carier bush, took me a while to work out its actually threaded onto the leadscrew and then held captive with setscrews ( hard to see the pin spanner holes until i cleaned it.

IMG_20181113_142708.jpg

2. All the covers for the vertical driveshaft and Z axis screw thread into the base, need a strap wrench. the LH coolant dump tube was really welded in I ended up having to use a pipe wrench and leather pads.

3. Once everything is disconnected, I fed Z all the way up while keeping tension on the carriage upwards with a chain fall, pulling the entire Z carriage off the top of the z ways.

IMG_20181113_174210.jpg

Sorry for the blurry photo.

The big hindrance now it the horizontal overarm just will not come off, im going to have to make a pusher that bolts to the top mount on the Y ram for the vertical head and forces the arm off, its just corroded in, then i can get to the Y axis drive and remove it. Thanks so much for the manual excerpts they will help hugely.

Here is the apron table Vee and ways, pretty filthy but most of the scraping is still present, there was some galling on the bottom X axis way that i have to take care of, luckily only one small galled stripe about 3/4 long.

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This really is a surprisingly small way setup for such an expensive and large machine, I wonder how these hold up under heavy use?
 
This really is a surprisingly small way setup for such an expensive and large machine, I wonder how these hold up under heavy use?

The aspect of the F4 & F5 X ways that I wonder about is the relatively small vertical separation between the upper and lower running surfaces that control table droop. The separation looks OK for the 5-T-slot table, but looks wimpy when I hang the 7-T-slot table on there. There does seem to be a lot of bearing area, however. The ways on my machines are in quite good condition, with no significant scores or galling that I can see - certainly nothing remotely close to the galling on the left inside vertical way of my FP2NC. The Aciera F4 & F5 ways must hold up pretty well, because the late 1970s F4 fixed table sweeps in a few tenths high in the front, which, to me, is like new. I suppose it is possible it was re-scraped at some point, but none of the other ways suggest that. The F5 and FP2NC droop a bit toward the front, although I might be able to correct somewhat with more gib tweaking. It may be that the X way contact pressure on the Deckels with heavy universal tables and enclosures is on par with the F5 with the 7-T-slot table cantilevered off the front of the apron.
 
Side note: Vertical ways, Deckel

Only an issue in my exposure on the CNC machines.....Never seen any problem on the manual versions....
My bet is that it has to do with the higher rapid rates and drilling cycles.....

Wonder if the early Aciera CNC's had similar vertical way problems?
Cheers Ross
 
Rich:
Funny you say that.
There was an F5 CNC on E-Bay some years back that caught my eye...But just too many questions to pull the trigger....Glad i passed looking back.
Now too much invested in the green German machines to look in another direction.
Cheers Ross
 
Thanks so much for the manual snapshots, thanks to then I got the feed gearbox out tonight. Issue turned out to be the bronze worm wheel inside is anihillated, absolutely no teeth! Should make getting a replacement made super fun.

Are there any swiss suppliers likely to have any parts on the shelf? Who bought out acieras parts stock or did it all got to Perkasa?
 
All good, actually got a great deal from a gear joint two streets from me. I make the blanks and he will hob them. Should have them back by friday.

In case anyone needs to know the worm is 2-start LH mod 2. Worm wheel has 24 teeth and the centre to centre distance is 38mm.
 
I now have the gearbox finished and the machine is reassembled. Not yet powered up though ( need to rearrange everything ) I'm just working on getting the table trammed and I'm having great difficulty eliminating droop in the table.

I have got it down to .002" (.05mm) in 12 inches but any further gib adjustment (especially of the bottom X gib ) just binds everything. Would the normal policy from here just be to shim the bottom table pad? I'm just worried I'll lose rigidity as with the bottom shimmed the top will be moved off the surface of the apron by a tiny amount also, hard to take that up.

Thanks for your time.

I also found why the feed box had no oil, there is a vented fill plug and a solid drain plug, they had been swapped.
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Ralph,

I think you can only fix droop with the upper X gib. That's what pulls the top of the apron toward the rear of the machine. If that gib goes tight before the droop is gone, that means the lower vertical face of the apron (or the mating saddle way) has worn relative to the upper vertical face behind the bolted-on rail a the top rear of the apron, which is the face that runs on the upper X gib. You need to remove the rail from the apron and grind a little off the face of the bolted joint. I think Deckel construction and repair is similar in this regard.

The bottom gib mostly pulls the apron downward against the top of the saddle slideway, and pulls the bottom of the apron to the rear, which increases droop, but not much. The manual says to loosen the bottom gib when adjusting the top gib, so loosing the bottom gib, tighten the top gib as much as motion will allow, and then re-tighten the bottom gib. Aside from looseness of the saddle on the column dovetail, that will provide the minimum droop for your given state of wear.

On my F4, I found that tightening the saddle gib on the column dovetail corrected a minor droop issue, and the machine is now nearly like new in that regard, i.e., the table is a fraction of a thousandth high in the front when trammed.

Best regards,

RKlopp
 








 
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