Surface Grinder Pneumatic Feed WIP

Patrice Lemée

Patrice Lemée

Joined
Aug 13, 2002
Messages
5,703
Not a WIP in the sense of making this from scratch but if I get this working, maybe some of you will be smart enough to be able to duplicate it. So here we go.

Some of you might remember this from a year back when I got my surface grinder. The gentleman that owned it before me had rigged some kind of pneumatic feed for the X axis.



I decided not to try and make it run right away but wait till I was better acquainted with the grinder itself. Well I am ready now. :D

The gentleman is older and not in good health so there is no way for me to get info about it. I'll just have to “wing” it, hence needing you guys helping me. At least not maim myself. ;)

A few pics so you get a better understanding.

Top view, chuck bracket removed.

P

The toggle switch.



Closer view of the switch itself.



The whole electrical/pneumatic gizmo.



Electrical/pneumatic gizmo part 1.



Electrical/pneumatic gizmo part 2.



How it is connected.



And the junction box. This was connected in-line with the motor. I will put it on it's own switch.



So as you can clearly see by my description, I know less than nothing about this. :o It was deduced when I first posted this that it might be wired for 220V. I would like to wire it for 110V.
My plan is to hook up the air, electricity (110V) with an on off switch, put on the appropriate security gear and let her rip....:o

It occurred to me that I should ask your advice before I move forward. You saved my butt countless times in the past. :thumbup:

Any info or thoughts you have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 
Will stay tuned....I am worse than worthless when it comes to advice for stuff like this :o

Maybe I can learn something from this.
 
Hi Patrice,

I used to sell those types of pneumatic systems years ago so if you will get me any names, part nos. and diagrams on the control valve, I will try to help you out.

Following the air flow from the compressor, the first item is a lubricator, used to mix a small amount of oil into the air to lube. the valve and cylinder. I'm looking at the 5th pic. down. The lubed air is going thru the blue tubing into the solenoid control valve. The valve is a single solenoid, 4 way, 2 position, spring return valve. When power is applied to the solenoid, (black cube on right end of the air valve) a spool inside the valve moves either left or right, allowing air to come out and go thru one of the orange tubes to one end of the cylinder. The piston inside of the cylinder is attached (see pic. 1) to the black part which is in turn attached to the silver part which is in turn attached to the base of the magnetic chuck. The air from the other end of the cylinder goes out and thru the brass flow control valve with the silver knob (see pic. 5). The speed of the mag. chuck is controlled by restricting the air flow from the exhaust end of the cylinder.The air goes thru the flow control valve, back to the main control valve and out the exhaust port. When power is removed from the solenoid, the spring return inside the main control valve pushes the spool in the other direction, causing the air to flow thru the other orange tubing to the other end of the cylinder. The piston in the cylinder moves in the other direction, thru the other flow control valve, back to the main control valve, thru the exhaust port and out to the shop. The power to the solenoid is turned on and off by the little switch which is riding on the wooden cam. I don't know what the switch on the left side of the cam does, nor am I sure how the cam works.

I need any part nos., and dwgs. on the valve and cylinder to identify them. I can look in the mfgs. catalogs on line to make sure I have them correct.

If the solenoid is 220v, it may be single or 3 phase. You should check the part no. with the mfgr.

Tim
 
Patrice, At a rough guess the first thing you will need is a pressure regulator. Air activated cylinders move slowly while pushing against force, but rapidly once the force lessens. It appears to me the wooden "cam" which activates the micro switch limits the length of travel. The length of the recessed area of the cam which appears to follow a round protrusion of some sort most likely controls travel distance. The micro switch activates the solenoid which reverses the direction of air flow and travel. I would suspect it will move fast with nothing attached to it, and most likely the hand cranking assembly will need to be removed for it to move the carriage. Jess
 
Thanks guys, sure glad to have the experts here to help me. :thumbup:
That clears a lot of things up up. I am in the shop right now checking things out and the Solenoid info I can gather is:

Shoku-Herion
1.5-9.9 kgF/cm2
No. YG
Type 5HR-02E
Made in Japan

Back later with more.
 
First, close both flow control valves. Second, put air to the system at about 20 psi. Third, put power to the main control valve solenoid. Next, open one of the flow control valves 1 turn - the cylinder should start moving one way or the other. When it reaches full travel, the micro switch riding on the cam should actuate turning the solenoid pilot on or off. The cylinder should try to move in the other direction. Open the other flow control valve one turn so the cylinder can move. The flow control valves control how fast the cylinder moves. The air pressure controls how much force the cylinder can exert. If the cylinder cannot exert enough force to overcome it's internal friction or move the load, increase the air pressure. If it isn't moving fast enough, open the flow control valves more. Cowper (1-888-506-1111) is the fluid power distributor who sells the products you have - they should be able to tell you what voltage the solenoid coil is. Good luck.

Tim
 
Wow! Thanks a lot Tim, can't ask for better help than that. :thumbup:
I'll post results as soon as I make some progress.
 
Well found this when I detached the solenoid from the grinder.



Guess that settles the voltage question. Sad part is I don't have 220V available there. :(
 
If you look up the part numbers for that solenoid, it's possible you can buy different coils

24vac 120vac 12dc
that sort of thing.

If not, you can just change that whole valve.
 
Thanks guys, I'll see about getting another coil. What part of the gizmo that is and how to replace it I'll need your help with. :o

A few more pics as promised

First the whole wiring setup. There was one connection box on the side of the grinder and the one for the 2 switches on the motor itself. Easy as pie right? Lol Sure glad I will be wiring it just to one switch and on 110V. Hopefully that will simplify things a bit.



The connection box



The motor box with the 2 switches



Solenoid back side



That looks simple.....NOT!:(



The “bleeder” valves



The connecting bracket with a view of the rod in the back where you position the stops on each side to limit travel.



I tried to connect air to the system and as predicted it had trouble starting the carriage moving. It needs a little push. Not sure if it is not enough air pressure like you suggested or maybe also it need a bit of cleaning/lubrication of the rail. Not exactly sure what kind of lube I should use on the if any at all?

Thanks for your help and support and for following along.
 
you should use way oil Patrice. A long time ago in a different life I worked in a place that did a lot of stuf like this with air. everything was Bimba and there was just small directional valves that switched the cylinders. very simple to setup and adjust. a couple of the older machines had the electric over air systems like you are working with. Pain in the butt to adjust and keep in sync.
 
Time for an update on this one. Well not much of an update yet but I am ready to finally try and get this one working. Sorry for not following when I first posted this but shop time dropped drastically due to health issues and life in general. But I am now getting more shop time and thought that I needed to revisit this. I sure hate to see this mod, that the gentlemen obviously put a lot of time and effort in, waste away.

On a side note, been watching a YouTube channel (AvE) for the past few weeks where the guy does tear-down reviews of tools and it gave me the confidence to try and troubleshoot this. Not that I am that smart but it's nice to see how things work and that you can do a lot by taking your time and understanding even just basic engineering principles. Of course this gentlemen has much more than a basic understanding but still I am hopeful that my 3 or 4 neurones can still figure basic stuff out. ;) A lot of interesting stuff on his channel explained in a simple way with some humor thrown in, highly recommend it. Anyway, back to the pneumatic feed...

First a couple more pictures of something I did not notice before.
You can see here the bent steel bar on the front.



Here in the close position where a collet slides over holes.



And in the open position where the holes are open and the air escapes before entering the valve.



Obviously a quick way to temporarily stop the feed. Very well thought out.

And here are more pics of the solenoid.








I am going to email Cowper with these pictures to see if they can provide a replacement that runs on 110V.

I'll post when I hear from them. Thanks again for your help guys, much appreciated.
 
Hi Patrice, I came across this thread and found some info on your solenoid valve. It appears the company manufacturing it changed name at some point and is now part of the Parker-Hannifin group. As others mentionned above, it is possible to change the coil but it also might be as cost effective to replace the whole thing. The valve is a 5/2 type, spring return; if you look at the third image in page Z-206 here -> http://www.omega.com/auto/pdf/SimpValvesguide.pdf they have the same exact setup as you have on your grinder. Now for the electrical part, it appears that the small switch mounted beside the motor switch was used to turn the valve On and Off, the micro switch mounted on the cam appears to prevent over travel in one direction only. This means that the operator probably had to cycle the small switch in the box to move the carriage in either direction. I hope this can help a little.
 
Thanks Gab, great info and a good idea to replace the whole thing if I can find the right one. Still haven't heard back from Cowper.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top