Re: Re: Lubricator?

>    From: Jon Elson <elson@...>
> Subject: Re: Lubricator?
>
> washcomp wrote:
> >Do I need a lubricator on a CNC Bridgeport?  If so, what am I
> >lubicating?  What is the difference between one-shot and pump driven
> >automatic?
> > 
>
> Well, the factory-built machines generally have a motor-driven pump.  I
> have a manual pump on my CNC retrofit.  As long as you remember to pump it
> every time you start up the machine, and once in a while when it is
> running, that should
> be fine.  The automatic one could die on you and you might not know it
> until damage was done.
>
> What you are lubricating is the sliding ways, which are iron on iron or
> iron on
> steel, depending on machine vintage.  Some machines also lube the
> ballscrews with way lube.  That may be fine for Acme screws, but I'm not
> sure it is ideal for
> ballscrews.

If you use bridgeportio or tkio with the EMC you can control the lube pump
from software and, if you have a lube pressure switch, you can also check to
see that it has been tripped. These are both implemented along with some
spindle stuff on an aux parport. I have not read the tkemc gui recently but
I seem to remember something in there that pops up a lube button if such a
thing is defined in the ini file.

A couple of rather easy loops in tkio would add cycling to a lube pump if you
did not already have it and did not need the pump to run full time. You
could also add an interval check to the lube switch that would estop the
machine and give you an alarm -- something like, "fill the $#%%& lube tank
**(^^^%&. Just like the big boys! You could set the above message to
whatever blew your hair back, if you have any.<g>

Ray