| Its amazing how little preventative maintenance is ever | | | | reverse the axis on the leading edge. |
| performed within the majority of manufacturing | | | | 5. Check the clamp force of the spindles every 3 |
| companies today. I am often asked by Maintenance | | | | months- this is a 15 second check. This PM check is so |
| personnel on how other companies take care of there | | | | important- you could save a spindle, increase tool life |
| CNC equipment. What's my answer? This is typical if | | | | and part quality. |
| its not broke don't fix it. | | | | 6. Check your pallet change alignment and operation if |
| What I have outlined below is how you can set up a | | | | equipped. The last thing you want to do is throw a |
| preventive maintenance program based on little | | | | fixture in a machine. Also clean chips from under the |
| knowledge of CNC and maintenance and minimal | | | | pallets and B-axis |
| amount of downtime by covering the most basic and | | | | 7. Perform a basic inspection of cables, hoses and |
| important parts of a PM program. The items below will | | | | electrical fans on the outside and inside of electrical |
| save you the most money down and prevent a future | | | | cabinets. Do not forget to check the drive fans or |
| breakdown. | | | | computer fans as well. |
| Minimum Basic CNC preventive maintenance program | | | | 8. Clean & replace any filters as necessary. |
| 1. Check your machine oil levels--turret, B-axis, ATC | | | | 9. Check your CNC tool change alignment. Maybe not |
| & magazine gear boxes, spindle gear box, | | | | the easiest for a novice but at least look at it for |
| hydraulics. If you have a leak-fix it. You are | | | | something obvious. Fix any CNC machines that are |
| contaminating your coolant, reducing your tool life and | | | | dropping tools on occasion. There is a reason! Do not |
| putting more contaminants into the oil system every | | | | let it go. Damages to waycovers, ATC cam followers |
| time you fill the tank. | | | | and gear boxes, tool fingers, and spindle damage will |
| 2. Clean chips out of every corner of the machine. | | | | occur. |
| 3. Pull back the waycovers and clean out the troughs | | | | 10. Check your backup batteries and make backups of |
| in the ballscrew area and allow coolant to drain | | | | parameters through your DNC system. With today's |
| properly and avoid flooding into your bearing housings. | | | | economic times many machines are powered down |
| 4. Check for lube on your box way machines. There | | | | for extensive periods of time. Hope you have backups |
| should be a line from the wiper every time you | | | | or original data sheets. |