Spindel Warm-Up Macro

[ger21]

Our 15HP spindle is cooled by the dust collector, and is never warm when we start using it. It's 10 years old now, and still running strong.
Fwiw, I've never warmed up a spindle in 20 years of using big Italian routers, with no ill effects.

[Guenter_Schmied]

Hi ger, of course you can use spindles without warm up, but you know bearings have a freeplay when they are cold, and with temperature
the bearing tighten and get max, rigidity. appropiated for heavy cutting.
If you use a 15 hp spindle with small tools at the begininng of work, there will happend nothing.
But if you use a larger diam, tool and you make heavy cutting at high speed, you will shorten the life of your bearings.
Grease needs also a pre-heating to be efficient at high RPMS.
I would recommend anybody to use 3000 RPM for 2 minutes, 5000 RPM for another 2 minutes, and 7000-8000 rpm for another 2 minutes, before
getting in High Speed range >15000 rpms. (This configuration is valid for spindles up to 5 7 hp, larger spindles in 12 to 15 HP or Kw, will demand
more warm up, because metal bearings are much larger)
Specially if you work with colombo or elte (both italian brands). There is also another user commenting about near 20 minutes of warming up on
an older Axyz router, this brand used to work with Perske (german spindles), and they are different in construction. There is also a great difference
in Older machines vs. newer, because bearings (metals and ceramics) have evolved a lot in last years. So older machines presumibly will always
have longer warm ups. The best recommendation is to follow the instructions of your manufacturer. I had experience in the aeronautic field with
all kind of high speed spindles from 10K up to 60000 rpm. And if you make heavy cuttings, you need Warm up. There is much influence of the installation
of your factory and machining room , if you have climate control, or not. I had also great experience with SKF engineers they are top class, and very
open to discuss about spindle bearings, you can email them at any time and ask for advice, snce they repair high presition spindles they have great experience
on the field.
Regards
Guenther

[Guenter_Schmied]

i usually just start my hsd £10k spindle at 8000 rpm and let it run while im finding code etc- about 2 minutes. just long enough to take the chill off the bearings.
i dont think its needed with most of the things we do- as we are all mainly using very small cutters. i have current draw display on my machine- and it rarely goes above 4 amp- where its max is 34 amp to develop its full hp rating ! 7.5kw spindle
to get to its full 9hp you need to be running massive tooling like 5" diameter spindle moulding blocks

Hi Batwell you are right with small tools there can be any damage to a spindle. But 8000 RPM for 2 minutes from a cold spindle is not a warm up
procedure for grease , I would recommend to maka gradually a step-up from 3000 to 4000 rpms
for 2 minutes, then another 2 minutes at 5000-6000 and then reach 8000 rpm.
a 10K pound spindle from hsd is a very nice motor !

[Blaise]

I am new to UCCNC and know very little about macro but I read the UCCNC manual and I believe you can call a macro from de MDI?

Could a macro send status back to that field where you can read “Cycle start”, “Cycle stop” etc?
Then you could simply call the macro from the MDI and have it feed you back the remaining time every 10 sec or so through that text field.

This would save you altering the interface and it would be easily shareable!

Does this makes sense?

- Blaise

P.S. I also have a 9hp 7.5kw 24000rpm Colombo spindle that needs warming up.

[dezsoe]

Of course, you can call exec.AddStatusmessage("message"); to display messages in the status window.

[Blaise]

Dezsoe,

We’re in business then!
Does the message always have to be on a new line?

[dezsoe]

Yes, it adds a new line to the top of the status.

[Blaise]

But could it write on the same line. To get a count-down?

[Blaise]

I see!

I’ll have to study all that. Anyway, I want to program an automatic tool change for my diy CNC so this little project will wharm me up with working with macros!

[dezsoe]

No. But if you don't want to change the screen, you can add fields in the M99998.txt macro. I use the same technique to add a lot of controls. The only thing I have to add to the screenset file is to load the bitmaps for buttons. That's only a copy-paste when a new screenset is out.