HORIZONTAL LATHE RETROFITS

6m

Date Complete: November 2008

Efamatic machine tools have recently completed a retrofit to a very old 6m DHG manual lathe.

The customer required to increase their productivity and quality and also needed to increase the swing in order to be able to machine a wider range of products. The machine was delivered to Efamatic, completely stripped down mechanically and electrically and all that was used was the bed, headstock, tailstock and 4 jaw chuck which we reconditioned. Unfortunately the bed which was 8 meters long was beyond our machining capacity so the customer machined the bed to which we fitted size 55 roller type linear guides to the Z axis.

A new cross slide also using roller type linear guides was designed, the toolpost was raised 300mm and a curvic coupling was fitted to allow accurate indexing and clamping. 300mm high spacers were manufactured and fitted under the headstock and tailstock to increase the swing to 1000mm. A full centralized slide lubrication system with metering jets was installed to ensure long term working accuracy and special customized covers were designed on Inventer CAD and manufactured.

A complete Fanuc package with 0i-TC control, 22Nm servo motors and 30 kW main motor as well as 63 mm diameter Star ballscrews and precision ballscrew support were fitted to make the machine a full CNC. The Fanuc control was mounted in a pendant on linear guides and runs up and down the entire length of the bed to facilitate easy setting. The previous manual positioning of the tailstock was removed and the tailstock is now pulled along by the Z axis.