Kearney and Trecker Millwaukeematic IIIb resurrected.

[skunkworks]

We finished this up a year or so ago... But thought it might be of some interest.

This is a picture from the manual...
http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/oldkandt.JPG

2 of these machines where delivered to a local manufacturer in 1968. They used them until the early 80's at which point they where thrown out. Dad came along to the salvage yard and saw them. They had the manuals still in the control and took them home to study. He liked machining and had enough machine tools to do his projects.. (lathe, mill, shaper, grinder....) After reading the manuals he decided that for the price of steel - that might be a good deal.

We added onto the shop and poured the bases.. (the table and spindle are 2 separate assemblies.)

My Junior summer in highschool in the late 80's was spent splicing thousands of control wires that where cut with a saws-all... Learned a lot :). We actually ran with the original 60's control well into the 2000's until it finally died. (and we decided that we where not fixing it any more.) Originally it had hydraulic servos. 2.5 axis and the table rotated (5deg inc) 2 servos - 1 for Y and one for XZ and B.

In came linuxcnc. We found some 80's vintage brushed servos with enough torque to replace the hydraulic ones.. http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/DSC_0242.JPG We have full 3 axis now Yay.

we went from http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/hyservo.JPG to http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/yaxis/yassembly.JPG and from this http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/xaxis/start.JPG to http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/servo/x-zservo_mount.jpg

We had converted the spindle from hydraulic to 5hp/VFD in the mid 90's. So that worked great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOHL_KlUdqw&feature=plcp

We went with mesa hardware. 2 5i20 cards plus 7i48 and 7i33. This gave us 96 i/o and 10 analog axis control. (10 +/-10v outputs and 10 ttl/diff encoder counters.) so true closed loop control. we went from this http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/rearcontrller.JPG to http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/panel/electricalbox.jpg

Everything is working again. (plus we have everything that comes with a up to date control. - little things like tool tables and cutter comp ;) ) We added a spindle encoder so we can also do rigid tapping and feed per rev (works nice for boring) Recently I added spindle temp comp. So as the spindle gets hot - the Z axis compensates. I cannot say enough about linuxcnc - everything was done within it. (between its hal and ladder logic)

Travel 38"X36"X24
2 pallets with changers
60 tool chain.
2 inch ball screws through out.
roller bearing ways.

The machine was built like a tank.

Check out the random videos.
http://www.youtube.com/user/samcoinc/videos

sam

[DICKEYBIRD]

Thanks for posting that Sam! That's quite a machine and was made back when it took some real engineering prowess to build it.

I'd love to see all the parts that machine has built in it's long life.:)

[macona]

We finished this up a year or so ago... But thought it might be of some interest.

This is a picture from the manual...
http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/oldkandt.JPG

2 of these machines where delivered to a local manufacturer in 1968. They used them until the early 80's at which point they where thrown out. Dad came along to the salvage yard and saw them. They had the manuals still in the control and took them home to study. He liked machining and had enough machine tools to do his projects.. (lathe, mill, shaper, grinder....) After reading the manuals he decided that for the price of steel - that might be a good deal.

We added onto the shop and poured the bases.. (the table and spindle are 2 separate assemblies.)

My Junior summer in highschool in the late 80's was spent splicing thousands of control wires that where cut with a saws-all... Learned a lot :). We actually ran with the original 60's control well into the 2000's until it finally died. (and we decided that we where not fixing it any more.) Originally it had hydraulic servos. 2.5 axis and the table rotated (5deg inc) 2 servos - 1 for Y and one for XZ and B.

In came linuxcnc. We found some 80's vintage brushed servos with enough torque to replace the hydraulic ones.. http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/DSC_0242.JPG We have full 3 axis now Yay.

we went from http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/hyservo.JPG to http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/yaxis/yassembly.JPG and from this http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/xaxis/start.JPG to http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/servo/x-zservo_mount.jpg

We had converted the spindle from hydraulic to 5hp/VFD in the mid 90's. So that worked great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOHL_KlUdqw&feature=plcp

We went with mesa hardware. 2 5i20 cards plus 7i48 and 7i33. This gave us 96 i/o and 10 analog axis control. (10 +/-10v outputs and 10 ttl/diff encoder counters.) so true closed loop control. we went from this http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/rearcontrller.JPG to http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/panel/electricalbox.jpg

Everything is working again. (plus we have everything that comes with a up to date control. - little things like tool tables and cutter comp ;) ) We added a spindle encoder so we can also do rigid tapping and feed per rev (works nice for boring) Recently I added spindle temp comp. So as the spindle gets hot - the Z axis compensates. I cannot say enough about linuxcnc - everything was done within it. (between its hal and ladder logic)

Travel 38"X36"X24
2 pallets with changers
60 tool chain.
2 inch ball screws through out.
roller bearing ways.

The machine was built like a tank.

Check out the random videos.
http://www.youtube.com/user/samcoinc/videos

sam

You know, you could have kept the old proportional hydraulic valves and driven them with the same set up.

[skunkworks]

Yes - but...

The original setup only had 2 servos. 1 for Y and 1 shared between X, Z and B. When we converted it - we separated it all out. We have a DC servo for each. The original hydraulics took a 25hp motor and 6 pumps. We are down to 2 pumps and 2 2hp motors. That will probably be as good as it gets. (we will always need hydraulics for pallet clamping, tool chain and tool change arm, counter balance, collet unclamp, 16 speed gear box, and odds and ends.)

It is 100 times the machine it was with the original control. (but it was a pretty low bar...) here is the 'cheat sheet' for it. (that is all that was needed..)

http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/cheatsheet.JPG

sam


You know, you could have kept the old proportional hydraulic valves and driven them with the same set up.

[macona]

If you click on the little picture icon and enter the url of the photo the images will appear inline:

http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/cheatsheet.JPG

[skunkworks]

I don't normally embed the pictures into the post because they are usually pretty high res. (I am lazy and don't usually size pictures down)

sam

[skunkworks]

We actually have a 70's vintage lathe (Cincinnati malicron) that has hydraulic servos. We are planning on interfacing it with linuxcnc keeping the original hydraulic servos.. (they are huge!)

Z axis radial piston motor...
http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/cincinnatimi/piston.JPG

sam

[macona]

Meh. Size mattered before when everyone had 1024x768 monitors with dial up. I hate clicking on links.

[skunkworks]

For the Y axis - we needed to figure out how to get the servo attached.. The shaft came out the back of the k&t and a gear was mounted to it. Then the hydraulic servo had a gear that drove that. We needed to hook into the gear and decided to make a coupling that fit over the original gear... (it runs in oil)

So - we have extra gears (we have 2 identical machines - 1 is for parts) So we sharpened one of the gears and pushed it through a piece of aluminium to make a coupling. (hydraulic press)

http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/yaxis/adapt-a-broach.JPG

Then we made sort of a tumble bar.
http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/yaxis/adaptfinal.JPG

(it is hooked to the servo)

http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/yaxis/adaptfinal2.JPG

Should be able to handle the 40ft-lbs of torque...

sam

[skunkworks]

for some more clarification.. This is with the z axis assembled. The cylinder is for the y axis brake. The brake gets applied whenever the servo isn't in control. (estop, power off and so on) the Y axis moves so easy that without the brake the it would fall fairly fast. (I would not want to see that happen...) The casting and servo where from a VMC that was being scrapped. worked great for our retrofit.

http://electronicsam.com/images/KandT/conversion/yaxis/yassembly.JPG