• 765-587-3112

    Gray Planer Mill CNC Retrofit

    PROJECT DESCRIPTION

    This particular Gray Planer Mill had an old Allen Bradley 9 series CNC control, Eaton PLC, GE Hy-Ak drives, and GE spindle drives. This machine had 2 heads that were controlled via individual ballscrews sets. When the retrofit started only one head was functional. The customer requested that the new CNC control be able to do a Mirror and Copy function so they could run two parts at one time.

    Components in the Gray Gantry Planer  Retrofit:
    • New electrical cabinet
    • Magnetics/Starters
    • Power distribution
    • Power supplies
    • Large isolation transformers for spindle and axis drives
    • (2) Digital DC drives spindle drives
    • (4) Digital absolute AC servos and motors
    • Interface relays
    • CNC control
    • IO system
    • Operator interface and controls
    • Handpulse generator pendant

    All of the control engineering and the electrical panel build for the Gray Planer Mill retrofit was done off site.  When the retrofit package build was complete a time convenient for the installation was set. Installing the new enclosure, CNC System, operator’s panel, cabling, and the wiring of the system took 6 days to complete.  After the initial wiring and installation was complete we begin powering up the machine and checking its functionality.  We work with customer personnel during this phase of the project so could become familiar with the new control and become comfortable operating the machine from the new CNC system.

    On this project we set out to provide our customer with a solution that would address all the short comings of their existing control system. This particular Gray Planer Mill retrofit consisted of a turn-key CNC Retrofit Solution. However, we have also done several planer mill retrofits using a PLC instead of a CNC. This decision was made based on the requirements of the customer’s application.

    If you are interested in learning more, please give us a call, we are here to help.