Hi Guys,
I've got an old 1993 Bridgeport VMC 1000/30 which I've discovered a problem with.
I was facing off some P20 steel with a 100mm 8-insert face mill and couldn't for the life of my get a good surface finish, I managed to get it acceptable but noticed a trend;
When I was cutting in the X-Positive direction the surface finish was acceptable but in the X-Negative direction the finish was really poor, and the witness marks were from the right hand side (X-Positive) side of the tool.
So I assumed the spindle is not quite perfectly perpendicular to the bed, got a dti and checked bed flatness which is all good and as suspected, when placed in the spindle and span on the bed there was just shy of 40 microns difference between the X-minus and X-plus, and maybe half that between the Y+ and Y- with the dti around 100mm from the centre of the spindle.
I understand this isn't a massive amount but it's more than I would like. I don't really know where to start with the machine and wondered if anyone had any tips or knew how to re-align the spindle? I am suspecting I'm going to have to get an engineer in to do the job but it would be nice if there's something I can do as I'm fairly competent when it comes to repairing machines, just don't know enough about these machines unfortunately.
Any help would be appreciated! :cheers:
Cheers,
Charlie.
I've got an old 1993 Bridgeport VMC 1000/30 which I've discovered a problem with.
I was facing off some P20 steel with a 100mm 8-insert face mill and couldn't for the life of my get a good surface finish, I managed to get it acceptable but noticed a trend;
When I was cutting in the X-Positive direction the surface finish was acceptable but in the X-Negative direction the finish was really poor, and the witness marks were from the right hand side (X-Positive) side of the tool.
So I assumed the spindle is not quite perfectly perpendicular to the bed, got a dti and checked bed flatness which is all good and as suspected, when placed in the spindle and span on the bed there was just shy of 40 microns difference between the X-minus and X-plus, and maybe half that between the Y+ and Y- with the dti around 100mm from the centre of the spindle.
I understand this isn't a massive amount but it's more than I would like. I don't really know where to start with the machine and wondered if anyone had any tips or knew how to re-align the spindle? I am suspecting I'm going to have to get an engineer in to do the job but it would be nice if there's something I can do as I'm fairly competent when it comes to repairing machines, just don't know enough about these machines unfortunately.
Any help would be appreciated! :cheers:
Cheers,
Charlie.