Tuesday, August 26, 2014

One Shot Oiling


The concept is great, automated oiling. Getting it all to work though is very time consuming. I used 5/32" (4mm) clear tubing off of ebay. The clear tubing is great because you can verify the oil is moving. I also used quick attach pnuematic fittings that were meter in, this is important because they only meter the flow in one direction, in the other direction they are unrestricted. I wish they were check valves instead of being unrestricted. Mostly I used 4mm tubing to 10-32 thread fittings. I am not 100% pleased with the system. Despite buying two check valves the oil will still drain from the z axis overnight.

I also had to track down some long elbow connectors and M6 connectors to get oil in the ballnuts. I had some grinding and drilling/tapping to do on the saddle and base. I would recommend a one shot oiler but I'm not sure I would reuse the same components. I use the system now by manually shutting the two main distribution valves and only opening them at the beginning of a work session when I activate the oiler and move the table around to distribute the oil.

It certainly works, it just doesn't work as well as I had planned.

Oiling grooves on saddle

Oiling manifold and cutouts for ballnut oiling connectors on saddle


Front view of oiling, green things are proximity switches




back view of oiling manifold



One shot oiler pump off ebay

Main distribution manifold - One goes to z axis other goes to x/y