Restoring a Fadal Vertical Machining Center

aarongough said:
Ah gotcha! Glad I asked for clarification!

Yeah no scales on this machine. Lots of machining centers don't have them, they just do all their positioning based on encoders/resolvers as you said. The machine won't compensate for thermal growth without scales, but that's not an issue in my application.
Click to expand...

we have 3 older Fadals and none of these 3 have scales
our larger 6535 50-taper has Heidenhain glass scales, but I think the mill guy disconnected them....
 
Very nice Aaron. Just got a chance to read all the way through. Nice find and I hope it gives you years of good service.

Cheers!
 
LucyCustomKnives said:
Very nice Aaron. Just got a chance to read all the way through. Nice find and I hope it gives you years of good service.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Thanks mate! Me too! Just going through the process of getting the rest of my tooling and so on now... Kinda scary how much tooling is needed for the machine, my wallet is hurting right now!
 
PT Doc said:
Aaron, are you making chips yet?
Click to expand...

Only wood ones so far, video on the previous page of this thread.

First real chips will likely happen this week. I'm finishing up some new workbenches this weekend, then plumbing in the compressor on Monday.

I spent some time last night working out what initial fixtures and so I'll need to make. Looks like about 10 operations per knife (blade, handle, sheath) spanning 4 fixtures. This doesn't include beveling the blade, I'm going to continue doing that on the grinder in the short term.

I should probably start another thread covering the design process and making of the fixtures and so on.
 
aarongough said:
I'm curious how come he disconnected them?
Click to expand...

sorry for the delay but I just got my first eye surgery lens implant Tuesday.

so about our scales, the short answer appears to be that we simply disconnected them due to frustration with the constant alarms and errors we kept getting due to the scales getting dirty. We have had problems with our way covers and had to replace them a few times (partially because the operator steps on them to get into the back of the machine...)
Our machines are used alot, we keep the spindles going all the time constantly. We have little downtime, we also machine primarily Inconel so our environment is harsh.

I found in the maintenance/service folder for this 6535 machine the attached letter about the scales. You can see that after about $4,000 into it, we decided to give up.

We use our Mazak FH6000 machining center for high accuracy parts. However this 6535 is still more accurate than our other 3 smaller Fadals.
More important for the type of work we do (which is on customers castings), we have to know the location of the various features of the casting and that is done by the use of Renishaw touch probes on each mill.

5169BDDD-5963-4877-AB24-C9B8CFDC3C4A_zpsez0phuwq.jpg


5C4FA1D2-9B88-48CC-BBB3-D260E7C6D341_zpsgd8lql8j.jpg
 
Last edited:
hsc3_90293 said:
sorry for the delay but I just got my first eye surgery lens implant Tuesday.

so about our scales, the short answer appears to be that we simply disconnected them due to frustration with the constant alarms and errors we kept getting due to the scales getting dirty. We have had problems with our way covers and had to replace them a few times (partially because the operator steps on them to get into the back of the machine...)
Our machines are used alot, we keep the spindles going all the time constantly. We have little downtime, we also machine primarily Inconel so our environment is harsh.

I found in the maintenance/service folder for this 6535 machine the attached letter about the scales. You can see that after about $4,000 into it, we decided to give up.

We use our Mazak FH6000 machining center for high accuracy parts. However this 6535 is still more accurate than our other 3 smaller Fadals.
More important for the type of work we do (which is on customers castings), we have to know the location of the various features of the casting and that is done by the use of Renishaw touch probes on each mill.
Click to expand...

Thanks for chasing that up mate, good to know!

Hope the surgery went well!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top