I applaud the adding of sound deadener to the top cover. I did that a few years ago on our 15k machine when i put a new spindle in and its so quiet. I walked into another shop that didnt have it and it made my ears hurt, and it wasnt even cutting.
@@Elektrotechniker well that's because there's nothing wrong with the bearings! These machines use a toothed timing belt to drive the spindle, which is LOUD, especially when running at full speed. That's what I was working to improve with the changes to the spindle enclosure.
While running one of the machine shops at JPL in Pasadina, I purchased a FADAL in the 90's and later another. The machinest loved them and made a lot of parts that ended up on Mars and other places. Well done sir.
Thanks Charlton! I hope I'll be posting a process updated video soon showing the new machine running! I have some video already over on Instagram if you want to see it now!
Thanks very much mate! I appreciate that you're still following along with my journey! More videos coming soon, I already have another 2 pretty much finished!
I've been backtracking all ur video watching ur tutorial n all the stuff about knife n guess what, im starting to make my own knife now. Hope my bushcraft hamon knife will be amazing as all ur knife. Thanks for all the things that you shared with us. It really means a lot to me.
Hi Aaron, I wish to congratulate you for your courage and perseverance in renovating the CNC. I work in machine maintenance and I know how hard the task is! Bravo for your admirable work ! I would like to take this opportunity to tell you that the knife I bought from you two years ago is great. I am extremely satisfied with it, it is sturdy and very pleasant to use and I recommend to all those who are interested to order one right away, you won't regret it. Good luck to you for the development of your business! I wish you all the best. David W. (France)
Hey David! Thanks for the kind words mate! It is definitely difficult work! Really glad you are still liking your knife mate! I am still working every day to keep making them better! Thanks for your support! -Aaron
WOW, VERY impressed! A heavy manufacturing plant I worked for (design engineer) in 1999 had 24 of these Fadal's in our manufacturing shop (running 3-shifts, every day of the year). They were EXCELLENT machines, networked to a Windows 3.11 server (where all of our G-Code programs were). Couldn't update at the time to Win95, because there was no support for it! I had to go out there CONSTANTLY when machinists had a problem with coding something...I was the only one who could write 'fresh G-code' for new components! (even our Process Engineer had big 'gaps' in his knowledge!)...saw the machine, had to watch the video...brought back memories!
Good to see you posting, mate. Discovered your channel just before you posted your last video a year ago, was gutted when you seemed to stop. Great work on the restoration.
Greets from Perth. Got recommended this video from youtube.. as soon as you started talking I thought "wow, he sounds like I used to when I lived in Canada"... and sure enough, looked you up and found out why ;) Well done on the restoration job.
Love your videos. I remember watching your channel back before you had any VMC's, and then watched you restore the very first one. Glad to see you're still going at it. :)
I've been checking your channel every few weeks, so glad to see the notification earlier. Fantastic work, I love nothing more than seeing something all grungy and dirty being restored to better than new condition. It does look fantastic and man being able to watch Rick and Morty, definitely worth it. Aaron, so glad to see you're still going strong, can't wait for more videos! Thanks!
Hey William! Really appreciate you coming on my journey mate, really cool to get to share it with awesome folks like yourself! I love restoring old machines like this! I have a couple more videos mostly editing and should be ready to drop soon!! -Aaron
@@GoughCustom I saw you mention more videos in your other comments and that's fantastic. I've been watching tons of restoration videos, My Mechanic, Mr. Electricity (love rewinding motor coils). Just taking stuff that people would think of as junk and making it fantastic is so cool, saving money by doing is even better. Thanks!
Quite the Treat to find you Ok and well with another fine rebuilt machine in your kit!! Been missing you and your fine videos! It's been a crazy year or so, eh? Us too! Nicely done on the machine...Graphite...Oh My! Was the LCD a bit of a challenge? Think your ROI will be short and surprised only 120 hours. Beautiful Bluing, BTW!! Must have been a question to keep the second one for spare parts but glad you were able to reduce your costs by selling it. Made my day seeing your video and fine work again! Thanks Aaron for all you bring! ~PJ
Hey PJ! And quite the treat to see that you're still watching my videos! Yeah it's definitely been a crazy couple of years... I have another video coming soon where I talk through everything that happened in the last couple of years, it's been quite the journey! The LCD was actually pretty easy! I ended up finding a monitor with a huge range of inputs. RCA, HDMI, VGA and BNC all on one monitor! Added a 12v power supply, plugged in the BNC cable and it worked on the first shot which was great! If you'd like to see more info on the installation I made a thread over on the practical machinist forum: www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cnc-machining/easy-cheap-fadal-screen-replacement-374307/ 120 hours is definitely a bit of a guess, I worked on the machine over a couple of months so I had to estimate a little lol... I would have loved to keep the second machine, but I actually ended up moving back into a smaller shop, and didn't have space to keep it anyway! I still have 2 machines now though, my original VMC10 and the new VMC15 which is great! The VMC15 is supposed to be dedicated to knifemaking, with the VMC10 mostly reserved for prototyping and odd jobs. Pretty amazing to have 2 CNC machines now! I hope you're doing well mate! -Aaron
So you're one of the people I have to blame for this cleanup! 🤣 Yeah they are very good machines for the money, especially these days when they can be gotten cheap as all the parts are easily available!
SUPER VIDEO! Even though I am entirely a non mechanical and non technical guy this video really impressed me and gave good insight into what you need to understand to run this type of machinery
Nice Shane! Fanuc controllers seem crazy to me, I briefly had a CNC lathe with one and it seemed like they'd deliberately made it as hard to use as possible lol
@@GoughCustom Not bad once you get used to it. I’ve done some work with fadal as well. I just really sat down with it for a day or two once I did the lcd upgrade and modified my post processor for fusion.
Thanks Johan! It definitely takes some research and practice to learn what might be broken, how to test the machine, and how to fix it... But it's actually easier than you might think! Just giving it a shot is often half the battle, though I'm not sure I'd recommend starting with a large machine like these ones!
@@johanpettersson8039 Definitely! Just find some small project you want to do, or some small thing you want to fix up and go from there! Starting small is key!
@@GoughCustom I've been thinking of making knives just to see how it is, but here are some issues, I don't know where to get it hardened properly and I'm not that good at making scales, I've tried before and failed miserably, any tips or tricks?
@@johanpettersson8039 I have a lot of 'how to' videos on my channel that should answer most of your questions and give you a head start! Bottom line is that it just takes a lot of practice... Failing is totally ok! An important step on the way to learning and improvement!
HEY!! glad to see you back. The restoration of your new CNC machine was pretty cool. And yes it came out awesome hope to see a tour of the new shop I think you had a video of you moving but not one of the completed new shop. Any new knife designs in the future take care and I hope you and your family are doing well in this crazy time.
Thanks Richard! Hope you enjoyed the video! As for new knife designs: keep an eye out for my next video! ;) I will be posting a shop update soon as well! Hope you and yours are well too mate, all is pretty calm here thankfully!
Awesome work! My dad owns a machine shop and when growing up, he had some of the Fadal VMC 15s. I used to operate one of the VMC4020s when working there in the summers.
Welcome back man! Hopefully you’re doing well. It’s good to see you back and hopefully we’ll get to see how the new shop, and you, are doing in future videos.
Much respect for your work, I`m a CNC Repair Engineer 👍🏻 Re the spindle noisy belt, if it`s a toothed belt, give it a squirt of WD40, you`ll be amazed how it quiets things down, a belt manufacturer told me to do this years ago 👍🏻
Some days are definitely harder than others! After the spindle motor burnt out I'm pretty sure I threw some stuff, said a lot of bad words and then went home! :)
Awesome! Always a treat to see an update from you. That blueing looks great. And holy mackerel, graphite is the worst possible thing for a circuitboard. Maybe second compared to salt water with graphite in it.
Glad you liked the video mate! Yeah it's hard to imagine too much stuff that would be worse for the machine... And crazy that the previous owner didn't simply invest a little bit of money in better duct collection... A HEPA rated dust collector plumbed into the enclosure would have made the graphite much less of an issue, but instead he just kept putting new parts in the machines... I have the service records and just about every part in the machine has been replaced at least once! 🙁
I have a piece of O1 steel. 1/8" x 2" x 18" and I'd like to make two kitchen knives. In order to get a longer blade, I was wondering if I could MIG weld an extension of mild steel onto to tang so I can lengthen the blade? I would think it would work but I would like the opinion of some one in the know. Thanks, and thanks for sharing your knowledge.
My Fadal had been cutting graphite in it's past life too, it took days to clean out but the biggest issue I had was that it was a refurb with inferior paint that the graphite really embedded into. Yours look mint now, nice work!
Ouch yeah that sucks. The second machine had been re-painted poorly, I spent quite a few days stripping the paint off back to the original paint which was in good condition.. No idea why they re-painted it!
Graphite is the ultimate lubricant and preservative, except for electrical equipment. You got a score there indeed. Well done on the noise reduction and on the major overhaul.
Thanks Robert! Yes they seem to be in pretty decent shape mechanically! The one negative that graphite can have is to block lube injectors or to dry up grease in a 'sealed' bearing, which it had done in a couple of places. Nothing some fairly cheap replacements couldn't fix!
@@GoughCustom I am building a small hybrid router/mill and the emphasis is on noise reduction. The 2 kilowatt linear power supply is whisper quiet and I am using closed loop stepper which are very quiet in comparison to standard steppers. Also have built an acoustic enclosure out of 3 inch cool room panels. All because Lady Overlord does not like cnc noise. Cheers
@@postiemania Nice! Yeah I could live without the CNC noise as well.. I'm actually working on plans for a very compact BT30 machining center with a focus on quiet as well!
Hey Tony! Very busy indeed! I have a video already finished where I will walk everyone through what's been happening the last couple of years, it has been a busy and stressful time! Really glad you liked the video!
It’s great to see you back on the tube Aaron. Another fantastic Fadal CNC restoration buddy. Such great attention to detail. Cheers mate 🍻. PS: It’s Aaron from Melbourne this is my other channel 😉
Hey Aza! Thanks very much mate! Yeah it was a big job, I'm just glad they ended up looking good and running well! There were a few days during this where I despaired of ever getting them running! Should be more video coming soon!
I was working as a fitter for a couple of yesrs about 20 years ago, whith these machines and also the Fadal 4020. I havent touched a CNC machine since then. GibbsCAM was the software we used for making programs.
Aaron, was the Glentek drive just really plug and play or did you have to adjust it to work? I am going to replace my AMC drive with the Glentek and wandering what I might be looking at. Thanks!
Very close to plug and play, there's just one selector switch to tell it which motor you have, then connect all the wires and you're good to go! I am a BIG fan of the glentek spindle drives... I bought a "pre-programmed" Yaskawa drive from a Fadal repair place previously and the experience was terrible, the glentek drive is a dream! I have installed two of them without issue and both of them are still running great
Aaron, do you remember the spacing of the spindle motor pulley, how far on the spindle motor should the pulley go? I have the power belt with all the ribs, I have just the 2 pulley system?
@@jefflongley8644 Sorry mate, don't remember what the distance should be :( Best way is to measure it before you take it off but it sounds like that time might have passed 🤣
Wow it was cheap to buy but you really put a huge amount of work into it so its not cheap now. Wonderful job and Im so pleased you didn't discover some significant controller problem that could well have killed the whole thing, well done!
Yeah unfortunately it would have been a lot cheaper (~$5k less) if the spindle drive hadn't failed and taken out the spindle motor! That was not something I had planned for! Overall it's a bit above the price you could buy a 'good condition' used Fadal for, normally a nice running one would be about $12-13k, but even with a 'nice' used machine you normally find some stuff that needs fixing and spend some time cleaning and checking things, so I'm pretty happy overall!
We had that exact same machine that we bought from a guy in Lancaster I think for around 14K and it was in better condition but not as nice as what you cleaned that one up to be. Man that brings back a lot of memories.
Frank, Allen, Dave , And Larry / You put a lot of work in it but I hope you fix the problem with the spindle dropping that not fun when it happens its has happen too me 3 times. Keep the chips clean and away from the glass scales. This machine has a nice feature in the controls that allow you to bump up or down the spindle height when the machine is running . Good luck.
Yup. Own a 1997 model 3016 that was factory refurbished in 2004. Pretty much everything you replaced/cleaned, I've had to do. Drive went out, replaced with the Glentek. Spindle went out, replaced with a new one from FadalCNC. Various little parts went out . . . the last one I just did was the CMOS battery died losing all my settings/programs/offsets. The good part is they are indeed easy to work on. It's like the Honda Civic of the CNC world, cheap (relative to other machines) parts and you can do a lot of the work yourself. I guess you checked backlash on all your gibbs? Taking the enclosure off makes that job super simple. When I first got my 3016, it would chatter badly in the 2nd and 4th quadrant making arcs. Turned out I had .002" more backlash than specified in the manual on the Y axis.
Yeah they are a really good machine for the price! Not sure I'd choose a new one over a HAAS at the same price (which is probably why they went out of business) but buying them used is a good deal! The 3016s are supposed to be beastly little machines! A lot more heavily constructed that the machines shown in the video! These machines don't have gibs actually as they're linear ways on all axes rather than box ways like on your machine... Box ways are definitely sturdier but need more maintenance like you saw!
I had exactly the same noise issue on a robodrill that we retrofitted.. Simply loosen the tension on the grooved beld on the spindle and your noise will disapere
I definitely found the same thing, that loosening the tension really helped! I loosened it off a fair bit but was concerned about going to far as the belt was starting to 'slap' at high speed.
Cheers bud! Here's a thread on Practical Machinist where I cover the monitor replacement: www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cnc-machining/easy-cheap-fadal-screen-replacement-374307/ I actually just did my other machine as well, I filmed the process and will be releasing that video soon!
Thanks for your concern Fabian! Yeah the last 14 months or so have been a bit crazy, very very busy and very stressful! I will be posting a video soon talking about everything that has happened!
Relatively long time ago, I was doing a short gig in a factory and behind me there was this CNC being refurbished (Starrag Heckert) that was cutting relatively small 5 axis parts 24/7. The guy from the manufacturer spent if I remember correctly 4 or 5 days there. Replaced all of the linear rails, bearings on rotating axes, ball screws and the most interesting part was the calibration and the interesting tools he had. Even had a laser interferometer type thing (from renishaw if I remember correctly) to dial things in perfectly. It was interesting to see how much work was it to get the machine back up to spec. What I found odd was that the spindle was on a moving column that was just made out of welded plate steel - not cast iron or some fancy polymer concrete type of thing. Cleaning was the first horrible task :D The sludge was everywhere and he spent a great deal of time with a guy, who's only job in the factory was to replace oils/coolants and vacuum spills and oily dirt in the factory.
As a certified HAAS tech, this was a beautiful restoration! It's very clear you care about your girls! Great video!
So what you're saying is? all CNC machines are bitches?
I applaud the adding of sound deadener to the top cover. I did that a few years ago on our 15k machine when i put a new spindle in and its so quiet. I walked into another shop that didnt have it and it made my ears hurt, and it wasnt even cutting.
Yeah lots of folks really underestimate how tiring it is to be around loud machinery all the time, anything to improve the situation really helps!
I love you are not taking shortcuts with restoring this. Great work, more videos please!
Thanks mate! Yeah shortcuts are not really my style! I have another 2 videos lined up and pretty much ready to go!
@@GoughCustom You didn‘t properly fix the loud spindle noise by actually changing the affected bearing(s) though. That‘s just what I realized
@@Elektrotechniker well that's because there's nothing wrong with the bearings! These machines use a toothed timing belt to drive the spindle, which is LOUD, especially when running at full speed. That's what I was working to improve with the changes to the spindle enclosure.
While running one of the machine shops at JPL in Pasadina, I purchased a FADAL in the 90's and later another. The machinest loved them and made a lot of parts that ended up on Mars and other places. Well done sir.
Oh! The Holy Graphite - is an Elixir of Immortality for lathes and mills. Except electronics and electrics lol
Haha elixir of immortality for ways, dust of death for electronics!
Great to see someone showing these Fadals the love they deserve. Thanks for the vid!
Very nice. Hats off to your mettle in resurrecting these old machines and giving them new life. Can't wait to see the machine in action.
Thanks Charlton! I hope I'll be posting a process updated video soon showing the new machine running! I have some video already over on Instagram if you want to see it now!
Welcome back! That was a real odyssey in timelapse, loved it. Your dedication to doing things properly is inspirational.
Thanks very much mate! I appreciate that you're still following along with my journey! More videos coming soon, I already have another 2 pretty much finished!
Welcome back !!!!
Thanks mate!
@@GoughCustom I made my first knife because of you
@@henryk405 Awesome man! I hope you enjoyed the process!
Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice! I miss the two 4020 Fadal's I used to own. They were great machines for the money!
Thanks! Yeah I think Fadals are pretty hard to beat for inexpensive machines! Of course the sky is the limit once you want to get fancy lol
Your attention to quality is unparalleled!
Thanks very much! I think it pays off in the long run!
Excellent intuition on the purchase being only seen in photos! You picked up a hella deal!! Good work fixing and getting to know your new brother!
It could have been better if the spindle drive hadn't taken a dump! That's ok though, all worked out well in the end! Thanks mate!
I've been backtracking all ur video watching ur tutorial n all the stuff about knife n guess what, im starting to make my own knife now. Hope my bushcraft hamon knife will be amazing as all ur knife. Thanks for all the things that you shared with us. It really means a lot to me.
Awesome Alif! Best of luck mate!
Hi Aaron,
I wish to congratulate you for your courage and perseverance in renovating the CNC. I work in machine maintenance and I know how hard the task is! Bravo for your admirable work !
I would like to take this opportunity to tell you that the knife I bought from you two years ago is great. I am extremely satisfied with it, it is sturdy and very pleasant to use and I recommend to all those who are interested to order one right away, you won't regret it.
Good luck to you for the development of your business!
I wish you all the best.
David W. (France)
Hey David! Thanks for the kind words mate! It is definitely difficult work!
Really glad you are still liking your knife mate! I am still working every day to keep making them better! Thanks for your support!
-Aaron
WOW, VERY impressed! A heavy manufacturing plant I worked for (design engineer) in 1999 had 24 of these Fadal's in our manufacturing shop (running 3-shifts, every day of the year). They were EXCELLENT machines, networked to a Windows 3.11 server (where all of our G-Code programs were). Couldn't update at the time to Win95, because there was no support for it! I had to go out there CONSTANTLY when machinists had a problem with coding something...I was the only one who could write 'fresh G-code' for new components! (even our Process Engineer had big 'gaps' in his knowledge!)...saw the machine, had to watch the video...brought back memories!
They are definitely hard to kill, lucky for me otherwise this one definitely would have been dead lol!
I don't know why I was surprised to see a milling machine sitting there when all the covers were off. Never seen a naked CNC mill before 🤔
The indecency in today's cultures! Stripping an aging CNC mill without so much as asking if it was in for it, then filming the entire thing! 😲
Yeah I totally get what you mean! We're just not used to seeing these kinds of machines taken apart!
Look for DMG Mori on TH-cam for example if you want to see some newer examples all nude!
It's quite interesting how many design types there are.
Good to see you posting, mate. Discovered your channel just before you posted your last video a year ago, was gutted when you seemed to stop. Great work on the restoration.
Thanks Daniel! More videos should be coming shortly!! Welcome to the channel!
This was a lot of work. At least now you really know the machine. Great to see you back! 😃👍🏻
Thanks mate! Yeah it was definitely a lot of work, and I can confidently say there's not too many parts of the machine I haven't seen!
SUPER to see you on TH-cam again. Yes, please create videos more often. They are interesting and you tell great stories!
Thanks very much Robert! Really glad you liked this one, it's hard to tell a story like this in a way that keeps people interested!
Glad you're still around dude!
Thanks Yan! I appreciate your support!!
Really nice work man. Great job. I was looking forward for your new videos. Thanks for sharing and welcome back. Greetings from Slovakia.
Thanks very much!!
It's good to see you after so much time. Much love❤️
Thanks very much Devesh!
Have missed your videos man!! Loved this one, thanks for sharing.
Thanks mate, really glad you liked it! I have another video mostly finished, hopefully many more on the way!
Greets from Perth. Got recommended this video from youtube.. as soon as you started talking I thought "wow, he sounds like I used to when I lived in Canada"... and sure enough, looked you up and found out why ;) Well done on the restoration job.
Thanks very much mate! Yeah I think the Aussie/Canuck combo is a bit of a weird one!
Course it was worth it, you've done a fantastic job. May you have many years of success with it!
Thanks very much Keran!!!
Hay personas increíbles en este mundo y tu eres una de ellas!
There are incredible people in this world and you are one of them!
Thank-you very much sir!
You can probably be a repair man for this type of machine if you wanted. That’s some amazing work.
I have definitely considered it! Unfortunately I don't think the pay would be very good! :D
Excellent job! Nice to see some older CNCs looking brand new. Also major win with the LCD and rick and morty.
Thanks mate!!
Love your videos. I remember watching your channel back before you had any VMC's, and then watched you restore the very first one. Glad to see you're still going at it. :)
Thanks mate! Definitely still at it, probably a lot more restoration videos in my future too lol
Brilliant idea in dampening the sound. Great to see you back on the TH-cam! 👍
Thanks mate! Really glad that it worked out!
@hartmetall Sure, here you go! www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B012B5EMGO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I've been checking your channel every few weeks, so glad to see the notification earlier. Fantastic work, I love nothing more than seeing something all grungy and dirty being restored to better than new condition. It does look fantastic and man being able to watch Rick and Morty, definitely worth it. Aaron, so glad to see you're still going strong, can't wait for more videos!
Thanks!
Hey William!
Really appreciate you coming on my journey mate, really cool to get to share it with awesome folks like yourself! I love restoring old machines like this! I have a couple more videos mostly editing and should be ready to drop soon!!
-Aaron
@@GoughCustom I saw you mention more videos in your other comments and that's fantastic. I've been watching tons of restoration videos, My Mechanic, Mr. Electricity (love rewinding motor coils). Just taking stuff that people would think of as junk and making it fantastic is so cool, saving money by doing is even better. Thanks!
Quite the Treat to find you Ok and well with another fine rebuilt machine in your kit!! Been missing you and your fine videos! It's been a crazy year or so, eh? Us too! Nicely done on the machine...Graphite...Oh My! Was the LCD a bit of a challenge? Think your ROI will be short and surprised only 120 hours. Beautiful Bluing, BTW!! Must have been a question to keep the second one for spare parts but glad you were able to reduce your costs by selling it. Made my day seeing your video and fine work again! Thanks Aaron for all you bring! ~PJ
Hey PJ!
And quite the treat to see that you're still watching my videos! Yeah it's definitely been a crazy couple of years... I have another video coming soon where I talk through everything that happened in the last couple of years, it's been quite the journey!
The LCD was actually pretty easy! I ended up finding a monitor with a huge range of inputs. RCA, HDMI, VGA and BNC all on one monitor! Added a 12v power supply, plugged in the BNC cable and it worked on the first shot which was great! If you'd like to see more info on the installation I made a thread over on the practical machinist forum: www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cnc-machining/easy-cheap-fadal-screen-replacement-374307/
120 hours is definitely a bit of a guess, I worked on the machine over a couple of months so I had to estimate a little lol...
I would have loved to keep the second machine, but I actually ended up moving back into a smaller shop, and didn't have space to keep it anyway! I still have 2 machines now though, my original VMC10 and the new VMC15 which is great! The VMC15 is supposed to be dedicated to knifemaking, with the VMC10 mostly reserved for prototyping and odd jobs. Pretty amazing to have 2 CNC machines now!
I hope you're doing well mate!
-Aaron
You're an inspiration! Fellow VMC 15 owner. Thanks!
Cheers mate! They are great little machines for the money!!
Good to see you back and a great video. A monumental task to do all you did to those machines.
Hope to see it making chips very soon !!
Thanks Jack! I'm sure it will feature in a video soon! There is some footage of it up on Instagram already!
So glad to see you back !!
Thanks very much Bibin!
@@GoughCustom Welcome !
Excellent job, craftsmanship all over the place. It really looked like a new one...👍👍
Thanks very much mate!
wow! huge job. looking forward to you making knives videos, now.
The next one will actually be a knife video lol 🤣
great job! I learnt on that machine, my love for CNC started here!
Really glad to hear that Lee!! Check out the rest of my channel for a lot more cool CNC stuff!
Fantastic video! Have been a fan of the Fadal since the 90's when I cut graphite for EDM on one. Yep, that stuff gets everywhere.
So you're one of the people I have to blame for this cleanup! 🤣 Yeah they are very good machines for the money, especially these days when they can be gotten cheap as all the parts are easily available!
SUPER VIDEO! Even though I am entirely a non mechanical and non technical guy this video really impressed me and gave good insight into what you need to understand to run this type of machinery
Thanks mate, I really appreciate the feedback! Glad to hear the video interesting!
@@GoughCustom 😀👍
Lotta work there. I did a similar rebuild on an excel tm with fanuc. Took a few months but machine has been great for years now.
Nice Shane! Fanuc controllers seem crazy to me, I briefly had a CNC lathe with one and it seemed like they'd deliberately made it as hard to use as possible lol
@@GoughCustom Not bad once you get used to it. I’ve done some work with fadal as well. I just really sat down with it for a day or two once I did the lcd upgrade and modified my post processor for fusion.
glad to see the new toy! your shop is getting more and more impressive
Thanks very much mate! More to come!
I'm amazed that people can know exactly what to replace and how machines work. Amazing
Thanks Johan! It definitely takes some research and practice to learn what might be broken, how to test the machine, and how to fix it... But it's actually easier than you might think! Just giving it a shot is often half the battle, though I'm not sure I'd recommend starting with a large machine like these ones!
@@GoughCustom well, I have use of my grandfather's tools he bought when he was younger, maybe I should use them and learn about them
@@johanpettersson8039 Definitely! Just find some small project you want to do, or some small thing you want to fix up and go from there! Starting small is key!
@@GoughCustom I've been thinking of making knives just to see how it is, but here are some issues, I don't know where to get it hardened properly and I'm not that good at making scales, I've tried before and failed miserably, any tips or tricks?
@@johanpettersson8039 I have a lot of 'how to' videos on my channel that should answer most of your questions and give you a head start! Bottom line is that it just takes a lot of practice... Failing is totally ok! An important step on the way to learning and improvement!
HEY!! glad to see you back. The restoration of your new CNC machine was pretty cool. And yes it came out awesome hope to see a tour of the new shop I think you had a video of you moving but not one of the completed new shop. Any new knife designs in the future take care and I hope you and your family are doing well in this crazy time.
Thanks Richard! Hope you enjoyed the video! As for new knife designs: keep an eye out for my next video! ;) I will be posting a shop update soon as well! Hope you and yours are well too mate, all is pretty calm here thankfully!
Awesome work! My dad owns a machine shop and when growing up, he had some of the Fadal VMC 15s. I used to operate one of the VMC4020s when working there in the summers.
Nice to see you back!
Thanks Andre!
Glad you’re posting vids again.
Thanks Pete! More to come soon!
Welcome back man! Hopefully you’re doing well. It’s good to see you back and hopefully we’ll get to see how the new shop, and you, are doing in future videos.
Thanks mate! Yeah I have a couple more videos lined up and ready to go already!
Hi, I'm from Brazil and I also made some retrofittings at the company I work for. You did a great job, congratulations!
Thanks very much!
Much respect for your work, I`m a CNC Repair Engineer 👍🏻 Re the spindle noisy belt, if it`s a toothed belt, give it a squirt of WD40, you`ll be amazed how it quiets things down, a belt manufacturer told me to do this years ago 👍🏻
Thanks very much, I will have to give that a try!
Hell yeah - great job restoring thoes old awesome machines.. good job! and welcome back!
Thanks very much mate!
You're incredible. I could never will myself to do that much work.
Some days are definitely harder than others! After the spindle motor burnt out I'm pretty sure I threw some stuff, said a lot of bad words and then went home! :)
Awesome! Always a treat to see an update from you. That blueing looks great. And holy mackerel, graphite is the worst possible thing for a circuitboard. Maybe second compared to salt water with graphite in it.
Glad you liked the video mate! Yeah it's hard to imagine too much stuff that would be worse for the machine... And crazy that the previous owner didn't simply invest a little bit of money in better duct collection... A HEPA rated dust collector plumbed into the enclosure would have made the graphite much less of an issue, but instead he just kept putting new parts in the machines... I have the service records and just about every part in the machine has been replaced at least once! 🙁
You are a remarkable person. Chapeau!
You're too kind mate, thank-you!
Been watching your knifemaking videos since I was 14 hahahaha glad your back bro! Much love!
Thanks very much Abdel! Right back at you mate!
It was legendary, looking forward to see you put it to work
Thanks Tom! It has been running well for the last 6 months making knives!
Dude. Always exciting to see a vid from you. So glad that worked out so well in the end. Strength to strength mate!
Thanks very much Mike!
Great job! That is a lot of cleaning! Graphite gets everywhere but the machine will never have been worked hard.
Thanks mate! It was definitely a lot of work!
Interesting video and I'm looking forward to buying one of your knives in the (hopefully) near future!
Glad you liked the video mate! Looking forward to making you a knife, thanks for your support!
OMG! I waited for you. Welcome back!
Thanks very much mate!
We have one of those I ran at the shop I'm currently at. Great machines to work with and plenty versatile. Congrats on the new machines.
Thanks very much mate! It has been running well so far!
About bloody time mate glad u making vids again
Haha thanks Dominik!
I have a piece of O1 steel. 1/8" x 2" x 18" and I'd like to make two kitchen knives. In order to get a longer blade, I was wondering if I could MIG weld an extension of mild steel onto to tang so I can lengthen the blade? I would think it would work but I would like the opinion of some one in the know. Thanks, and thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Hey Joe! I honestly am not really sure how that would work, it might be prone to cracking at the joint after welding...
Cool too see! You inspired me to start making knives so its always a treat to see you work.
Thanks very much Jake! Really glad to hear that I helped get you into knifemaking mate! Should be more videos coming soon!
@@GoughCustom Yeah your welcome! Thanks again, and I'm excited to see more of your content!
My Fadal had been cutting graphite in it's past life too, it took days to clean out but the biggest issue I had was that it was a refurb with inferior paint that the graphite really embedded into. Yours look mint now, nice work!
Ouch yeah that sucks. The second machine had been re-painted poorly, I spent quite a few days stripping the paint off back to the original paint which was in good condition.. No idea why they re-painted it!
long time no see, i've missed your videos here
Thanks mate! I have another video almost finished already and a few more on the way!
Graphite is the ultimate lubricant and preservative, except for electrical equipment. You got a score there indeed. Well done on the noise reduction and on the major overhaul.
Thanks Robert! Yes they seem to be in pretty decent shape mechanically! The one negative that graphite can have is to block lube injectors or to dry up grease in a 'sealed' bearing, which it had done in a couple of places. Nothing some fairly cheap replacements couldn't fix!
@@GoughCustom I am building a small hybrid router/mill and the emphasis is on noise reduction. The 2 kilowatt linear power supply is whisper quiet and I am using closed loop stepper which are very quiet in comparison to standard steppers. Also have built an acoustic enclosure out of 3 inch cool room panels. All because Lady Overlord does not like cnc noise. Cheers
@@postiemania Nice! Yeah I could live without the CNC noise as well.. I'm actually working on plans for a very compact BT30 machining center with a focus on quiet as well!
Been awhile. Sure you’ve been very busy.
Thanks for sharing! Great video and commentary.
Hey Tony! Very busy indeed! I have a video already finished where I will walk everyone through what's been happening the last couple of years, it has been a busy and stressful time! Really glad you liked the video!
Hey there Gough! Nice to see u back....
Thanks very much mate!
It’s great to see you back on the tube Aaron. Another fantastic Fadal CNC restoration buddy. Such great attention to detail. Cheers mate 🍻. PS: It’s Aaron from Melbourne this is my other channel 😉
Hey Aza! Thanks very much mate! Yeah it was a big job, I'm just glad they ended up looking good and running well! There were a few days during this where I despaired of ever getting them running! Should be more video coming soon!
Just WOW !!! Such an impressive job you did !
Thanks very much! The machine has been running well which is great!
I was working as a fitter for a couple of yesrs about 20 years ago, whith these machines and also the Fadal 4020. I havent touched a CNC machine since then. GibbsCAM was the software we used for making programs.
Nice! The 4020s are solid machines!
You are a very skilled guy! Keep it up!
Thanks Dimi!
Great video. The work you put in is certainly worth the effort.
Aaron, was the Glentek drive just really plug and play or did you have to adjust it to work? I am going to replace my AMC drive with the Glentek and wandering what I might be looking at. Thanks!
Very close to plug and play, there's just one selector switch to tell it which motor you have, then connect all the wires and you're good to go! I am a BIG fan of the glentek spindle drives... I bought a "pre-programmed" Yaskawa drive from a Fadal repair place previously and the experience was terrible, the glentek drive is a dream! I have installed two of them without issue and both of them are still running great
Aaron, do you remember the spacing of the spindle motor pulley, how far on the spindle motor should the pulley go? I have the power belt with all the ribs, I have just the 2 pulley system?
@@jefflongley8644 Sorry mate, don't remember what the distance should be :( Best way is to measure it before you take it off but it sounds like that time might have passed 🤣
Aaron as funny as that is your spot on it’s already off! I will figure it out though. Thanks for the fast reply!
@@jefflongley8644 all part of the journey sometimes unfortunately! I hope you get it worked out!
Wow it was cheap to buy but you really put a huge amount of work into it so its not cheap now. Wonderful job and Im so pleased you didn't discover some significant controller problem that could well have killed the whole thing, well done!
Yeah unfortunately it would have been a lot cheaper (~$5k less) if the spindle drive hadn't failed and taken out the spindle motor! That was not something I had planned for! Overall it's a bit above the price you could buy a 'good condition' used Fadal for, normally a nice running one would be about $12-13k, but even with a 'nice' used machine you normally find some stuff that needs fixing and spend some time cleaning and checking things, so I'm pretty happy overall!
I absolutely love overhauling.more video please.i overhouled some presses
Wow, Fadals. Great machines!
For the price definitely!
Awesome job!
Looking forward to seeing your next videos, Aaron!
🇬🇧🙏🏻🇨🇦
Thanks very much mate! They should be coming soon!
I am a machinist in the Air Force and we have a working Fadal that looks exactly like that one
Nice mate! They are still great machines for a lot of work, and hard to beat them for the price!
Welcome back good job well done super very nice
Thanks very much mate!
nice work Aaron, welcome back buddy
Thanks very much mate!
Long time no see... welcome back👍🏻
Thanks mate! More coming soon!
We had that exact same machine that we bought from a guy in Lancaster I think for around 14K and it was in better condition but not as nice as what you cleaned that one up to be. Man that brings back a lot of memories.
Nice! They are great little machines if you get them cheap! Wouldn't want to pay 'new machine' prices for one though!
Frank, Allen, Dave , And Larry / You put a lot of work in it but I hope you fix the problem
with the spindle dropping that not fun when it happens its has happen too me 3 times.
Keep the chips clean and away from the glass scales. This machine has a nice feature
in the controls that allow you to bump up or down the spindle height when the machine is running . Good luck.
I'm patiently waiting for the chefs knife, no rush, we got time. Cheers
Hope you saw the new video showing the making of the chef's knife mate!! Thanks for your patience!!
Inspirational work! It's not only money saved but carbon footprint saving! We need more people like you!
Thanks very much mate! I agree that re-use is better!!
Amazing all the the Work you did. Great cnc machines. A dream to have one.
Thanks Andres! I agree that it's a dream come true to get to play with these machines! So cool to have a pair of robots in my workshop!
Yup. Own a 1997 model 3016 that was factory refurbished in 2004. Pretty much everything you replaced/cleaned, I've had to do. Drive went out, replaced with the Glentek. Spindle went out, replaced with a new one from FadalCNC. Various little parts went out . . . the last one I just did was the CMOS battery died losing all my settings/programs/offsets. The good part is they are indeed easy to work on. It's like the Honda Civic of the CNC world, cheap (relative to other machines) parts and you can do a lot of the work yourself. I guess you checked backlash on all your gibbs? Taking the enclosure off makes that job super simple. When I first got my 3016, it would chatter badly in the 2nd and 4th quadrant making arcs. Turned out I had .002" more backlash than specified in the manual on the Y axis.
Yeah they are a really good machine for the price! Not sure I'd choose a new one over a HAAS at the same price (which is probably why they went out of business) but buying them used is a good deal! The 3016s are supposed to be beastly little machines! A lot more heavily constructed that the machines shown in the video! These machines don't have gibs actually as they're linear ways on all axes rather than box ways like on your machine... Box ways are definitely sturdier but need more maintenance like you saw!
I had exactly the same noise issue on a robodrill that we retrofitted.. Simply loosen the tension on the grooved beld on the spindle and your noise will disapere
I definitely found the same thing, that loosening the tension really helped! I loosened it off a fair bit but was concerned about going to far as the belt was starting to 'slap' at high speed.
I didnt see it in the comments, but would love to know how you went about replacing the new monitor! That makes all the difference! Awesome video!
Cheers bud! Here's a thread on Practical Machinist where I cover the monitor replacement: www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cnc-machining/easy-cheap-fadal-screen-replacement-374307/
I actually just did my other machine as well, I filmed the process and will be releasing that video soon!
Great to see you posting again! Awesome vid.
Thanks very much mate! Glad you liked it!
Awesome as always Aaron 👌🏻
Thanks very much mate!
Hey welcome back 😁
Nice to hear something from you.
I was a little bit concerned that something bad happened.
But looks like you had a lot of work. 😁
Thanks for your concern Fabian! Yeah the last 14 months or so have been a bit crazy, very very busy and very stressful! I will be posting a video soon talking about everything that has happened!
Yes he's back!!!!
Haha thanks Rohan!
Relatively long time ago, I was doing a short gig in a factory and behind me there was this CNC being refurbished (Starrag Heckert) that was cutting relatively small 5 axis parts 24/7. The guy from the manufacturer spent if I remember correctly 4 or 5 days there. Replaced all of the linear rails, bearings on rotating axes, ball screws and the most interesting part was the calibration and the interesting tools he had. Even had a laser interferometer type thing (from renishaw if I remember correctly) to dial things in perfectly. It was interesting to see how much work was it to get the machine back up to spec. What I found odd was that the spindle was on a moving column that was just made out of welded plate steel - not cast iron or some fancy polymer concrete type of thing. Cleaning was the first horrible task :D The sludge was everywhere and he spent a great deal of time with a guy, who's only job in the factory was to replace oils/coolants and vacuum spills and oily dirt in the factory.
Very cool! It's always so interesting to see these machines apart!
Did you test out the screws for backlash? Graphite is really hard on the motion system.
Yep! No problems there... I had to replace the thrust bearing on Z, but after that all axes have 0.0002" of backlash or less.
Great job. You did an amazing job.
Thanks very much Jerry!
Great effort bro
Thanks very much Khan!
Do you have video separate on how you cleaned the Dried Oil on the parts? :-)