motion guru
Diamond
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2003
- Location
- Yacolt, WA
We have a new to us Butler Planer mill with Yancey 50 taper geared spindles. It is presently disassembled taking up a 50 x 100 foot spot on the floor of our shop as we prep the foundation plates for install.
The controls are Fanuc 230V based and spindle motors are as well. We plan to pitch the Fanuc controller and replace with a 480V based 840D Solution Line system. We have redesigned the table drive and the Cartesian axes drivetrains to use the latest Servo technology and will fit these axes with linear encoders for closing the position loop.
Now what to do with the spindles? We don’t plan on doing heavy metal removal all day long with this machine, rather it affords us the ability to put larger machines than our existing planer mill can handle onto it for cleaning up Turcite ways of machines we are rebuilding (mostly grinders) and also machining bearing surfaces for long linear rails and surfaces for linear motor secondaries (magnets) on our linear motor equipped machines. As such, the 50 taper tool holders are overkill. I don't see an easy way to convert the tooling / retention system to a quick change design - has anyone seen this done with a Yancey Head? Also, the gearing selections are slow, and really slow . . . much of the work we would be doing with this machine could use faster spindle speeds than these are capable of.
We presently have two CNC’s that use 40 taper tooling with pneumatic quick change capability and one option would be to figure out a way to put spindles on this machine that could share tooling with either of these machines.
The existing spindles on the Yancey heads have drawbar setups which require that you climb up on the machine, and drawbar access is cramped at best . . . I would prefer matched spindles for the side head and main spindles.
Any ideas on an economic way to get this done? I am fine with used spindles as long as they are in good condition or cheap enough that we can rebuild them for less than half the cost of new.
I am thinking 15-20 HP and max speed of 6000–7500 rpm
Existing spindles look like this . . . (picture from the web)
And if anyone has interest in the Yancey Units - we have these two plus another smaller Yancey that we would be happy to make you a deal on.
The controls are Fanuc 230V based and spindle motors are as well. We plan to pitch the Fanuc controller and replace with a 480V based 840D Solution Line system. We have redesigned the table drive and the Cartesian axes drivetrains to use the latest Servo technology and will fit these axes with linear encoders for closing the position loop.
Now what to do with the spindles? We don’t plan on doing heavy metal removal all day long with this machine, rather it affords us the ability to put larger machines than our existing planer mill can handle onto it for cleaning up Turcite ways of machines we are rebuilding (mostly grinders) and also machining bearing surfaces for long linear rails and surfaces for linear motor secondaries (magnets) on our linear motor equipped machines. As such, the 50 taper tool holders are overkill. I don't see an easy way to convert the tooling / retention system to a quick change design - has anyone seen this done with a Yancey Head? Also, the gearing selections are slow, and really slow . . . much of the work we would be doing with this machine could use faster spindle speeds than these are capable of.
We presently have two CNC’s that use 40 taper tooling with pneumatic quick change capability and one option would be to figure out a way to put spindles on this machine that could share tooling with either of these machines.
The existing spindles on the Yancey heads have drawbar setups which require that you climb up on the machine, and drawbar access is cramped at best . . . I would prefer matched spindles for the side head and main spindles.
Any ideas on an economic way to get this done? I am fine with used spindles as long as they are in good condition or cheap enough that we can rebuild them for less than half the cost of new.
I am thinking 15-20 HP and max speed of 6000–7500 rpm
Existing spindles look like this . . . (picture from the web)
And if anyone has interest in the Yancey Units - we have these two plus another smaller Yancey that we would be happy to make you a deal on.