Did the title get your attention? This is a Taig CNC mill that a friend of mine is using for research for his PhD work. He is thrashing the spindle bearings so he can apply a prognostic fault detection (prediction) technique that he has developed. I thought you guys might want to see the mill all decked out with accelerometers/temp sensors. They are the small things with the wires sticking out. He is milling the 1/5" AL plate shown in 1/8" steps. He goes through plate after plate, it takes about ~15 hours to destroy a set of bearings after all the lubrication has been removed.

Hope you don't mind, I resized the pic to fit the page..

Thanks for Sharing.....

Very interesting, Jeff, how is he removing the lubrication from the bearings?

Dave

We take a new bearing and pop one of the seals off scoop out as much grease as possible and then use solvent and elbow grease to do the rest. The side of the bearing missing the seal is installed to the inside so no external bits of gunk get in the bearings and throw off the tests.

He got Boeing (one of the research partners on this project) to wire EDM notches into a few bearings to weaken the outer race. He is hoping that he can get them weak enough to run a few hours before cracking so he gets a good signature on that crack forming.

We actually shipped the system to Seattle last year to an internal technology showcase that Boeing does.

Thats hot, I am interested on why he chose a Taig instead of building a variable isolating testing rig. I think that's a nifty concept for an enclosure too.

I whipped up the enclosure for him out of some 0.080" acrylic sheets from Lowe's. They are just tapped together with clear duct tape. He needed something quickly and rather inexpensive. We are going to add some 2x2s in the corners to help keep it upright and together. I think an fairly sturdy could be built with the sheets and more suitable joining pieces.

The Taig was chosen I think to add some easy programmability to the tests. It was also far less expensive then a purpose built test rig.

I invited him to join the forum yesterday.