Wellness Program
Level 1 - (Gives you a great check on all mechanical items.)
These are the tests that are preformed.
1. Dynamometer: Checks tool clamping pressure. Do you know how much force is holding your tool holders? Insufficient force leads to poor finishes, reduces tool life and federate potential a significant amount, not to mention lots of damage to your spindles if a tool holder were to come out during a cut. Belleville washers (In most cases) on your Draw bar are responsible for holding the tool holder in the spindle and after many tool change cycles these washers start to loose there holding capabilities. During a crash, a few could break and reduce your holding pressure and cause an unsafe condition. (Basic Statistics) If you have a 6 minute, cycle time and you have 6 tools in your program. It runs 2 shifts for a total of 20 hours a day. That is a tool change every minute. That is 1,200 tool changes a day! Totaling 24,000 cycles a month based on a 5-day week (X4) for the month then (X12) for the year and now you are at 288,000 cycles. That may be exaggerated for some shops and low for others. How many cycles have yours been through? Are you sure that you are holding with enough force? It does not take very long to check and can save your spindles. This check done often (6 month for heavy use, 1 year for light use or after a serious metal to metal crash) will keep you informed of any changes on holding force and put you in charge of when to replace washers instead of at the worst possible moment and regrinding or replacing the spindle.
2. Spindle Bearing Analyses: Checks the wear on your spindle bearings by listening (with accelerometers) to the noise your bearings are producing. With a little bearing information (I.D and O.D and Ball Diameter), we can tell if the Inner or Outer bearing races are damaged or if your Ball Bearings are damaged. This test taken every 6 months or 1 year intervals (depending on severity of use) and (especially after a crash) will give you the upper hand on when to replace the bearings.
3. Spindle Balance Analyses: This uses the same equipment that the bearing analysis does but with an extra accelerometer and a photo, tachometer to ascertain where (Rotationally) the out of balance condition is coming from. Balancing is checked at the bottom and the top of the spindle (in 2 positions each) and although not all spindles are field balanceable there are tricks to improve the balance and therefore improve part finishes, tool life and extend bearing life.
4. Spindle Straightness Check: With a calibrated spindle check gage we can measure the radial run out of your spindle taper at 254mm (10in) from gage length. This gives us the overall condition of the taper of your spindle. If your tools are not running perfectly true than you will break tools much more often and have significantly reduced tool life. Spindle straightness affects everything, spindle bearing life, part finishes, tool life and so much more. If fretting is visible on your tool holders (at the large end) then you need your spindle taper reground.
5. Infrared Temperature Analyses: We start with measuring atmospheric temperature at your machine and then measure other related items, such as coolant, coolant pumps and accessory bearings, establishing a history on these items will help diagnose possible problems. This test is tailored to suit machines specific needs.
6. Ballbar Test in XY, XZ and YZ Axes: This is the best tool around to check the motion of your machine tool. Geometric and Dynamic errors can be found along with information about the relationship between your axes. With the results of the multi axis tests, we can ascertain what the machines mechanical needs are and address them. With the information from this tool, we decide what happens next…
Level 2 - Includes all the above and (Full Laser Calibration)
7. Laser Calibration: Once the determination has been made that all Mechanical issues such as Roll, Pitch, Yaw, Squareness and Straightness have meet with customer satisfaction then we can do Linear and Rotary calibration on all axes. If Linear calibration is done to the machine before dealing with the above mentioned mechanical errors than Linear calibration will not be effective because you will get different results at different Z depths making calibration useless and a poor value for your company and mine. I strongly encourage my customers to get the VALUE that Calibration can offer if done completely.