General
MTB has acquired a pair of these machines, one of which was sold, the other is still available. This particular machine was sold to the aerospace industry, and was specially configured by MTB with a unique tailstock / face gear table assembly. This indexing table assembly permits the swiveling of the tailstock or the face gear table into the cutting position. This allows for shaping external gears that require the tailstock or face gears with very quick changeover times. Indexing the assembly to 90 degrees allows for shaping of internal gears without any interference from either the tailstock or the face gear table.
The original CNC was a Heckler & Koch 781 with very limited programming storage and M/G code programming format. The original drives with Siemens DC with Heidenhain encoders and scales for position control.
Rebuild
This machine was totally rebuilt. All bearings were replaced, all guideways refinished, all hydraulic and lubrication systems were replaced, the guarding was modified to accept the new tailstock / face gear attachment, all new tooling was designed and manufactured, spindle, guide and nose bushing inspected, all worm lashes were reset, all alignments were verified and adjusted.
Recontrol
As part of the recontrol project Machine Tool Builders designed and manufactured a completely new electrical cabinet and we rebuilt much of the hydraulic and lubrication systems. We replaced many machine mounted components and cables due to the dry rot. We installed all new motor power and feedback cables. Connection from the machine to the cabinet was made through plug in connectors for fast disassembly and easy re-assembly in the field. We engineered and manufactured the mechanical adaptations required to convert the machine from the old DC servo’s into a fully digital system.
The new control system was centered on a Siemens 840D CNC and a PCU 50 front end with Windows XP Pro and the drives were all changed to new Siemens 611D servos. All new Heidenhain absolute encoders and scales were installed so that no homing was required. This combination of controls was extremely cost efficient, offered short lead times and was very easy to implement, which translated into savings for the customer.
Software
We installed our newest version of MTB GearCAM software which allows for very easy Windows based programming for the gear, cutter and process information. The software is structured around a database concept, where you can store multiple gears, cutters and processes. Then at the click of a mouse, you can select any combination of gears, cutters and processes to be executed. Storage and retrieval of the completed programs is made easy due to the Windows environment and the PCU 50’s onboard hard drive.
