Jeff Leichliter has been designing, building and
retrofitting CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machines since 1982 after
serving
4 years in the US Air Force and receiving an Honorable Discharge.
Machines
designed, built and/or retrofitted include CNC: milling
machines, boring machines, lathes, lasers, specialty production welders, grinders,
specialty multi-head routers,
routers for plastics and wood, plasma cutters (burn tables), engravers,
and
other special purpose machines including the largest to date, a 65,000lb machine used for synthetic, industrial,
diamond
insert testing, turning a 6,000lb block of granite. It is based on a
rebuilt
and retrofitted, post WWII (late 40's model), Cincinnati Hypro VTL. The
X axis
was mechanically retrofitted using a surplus, Boeing 747, landing gear
ballscrew. A Fagor 8025 lathe control was used in conjunction with
oversized
Baldor AC servo drives and motors. The machine leads the industry in
synthetic
diamond testing. Another specialty machine
loads
hollow balls for mass producing Hydrogen fuel cell pellets. It is a
fully
automated, 3-axis (2 linear, 1 rotary) CNC. It loads hollow balls (sort
of like
heavy ping pong balls), one at a time, on to a 60 position rotary
platen,
drills a small hole in the top and fills them with molten Sodium. The
balls
cool as the rotary platten indexes them, 6 degrees at a time, around to
the
glue station where they are sealed by a 2 axis, CNC, hot glue station.
The
machine then ejects the finished Hydrogen ball into a box, completing
the
process. It is controlled by a PC based control in conjunction with a
PLC
(Programmable Logic Controller). Yet another special purpose machine is
a
4-axis bullet slug grooving saw. It has 5
precision
spindles, 4 axes and 3 independent control programs, written in 3
different languages
that all talk to each other to insure proper timing of the movement of
the gang
of cutting saws, the 10 actuating air valves and their 10 associated
air
cylinders that load the bullet slugs into cutting position as well as
the
precision spindles that pinch the bullet slugs then rotate them as they
are cut
radially. The whole sequence takes 2 seconds per part and requires no
human
interaction. The video of the machine in operation can be seen on the machines page of this site.
Other machines produced are used for mold making, making earth
drilling
bits, splitting earth drilling tubes, making aerospace parts,
automotive parts,
medical parts, designer picture mats, the QuickCarve
products, which are no longer produced, and a myriad
of other parts, products and applications.
Mach3 retrofits
MachMotion retrofits specialty automation tool machine control robotic plastic robot cnc wood Salt Lake City
Utah Industrial mill lathe welder router laser metal burn table automation tool machine control plastic robot wood plastic fiber Salt
Lake City Utah industrial mill lathe welder router laser metal burn table Jeff Leichliter automation
specialist retrofit refurbish composites winding atl tpl tape layout
automatic placement head control spindle servo stepper vector plc
integrate integration interface hookup wiring wire automatic prototype
inverter electrical electric relay relays contactor PC computer
parallel port usb nonproprietary brushless brush 801-947-0906
801-347-3646
Some of the CNC controls and drives
used over the years include:
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CNC controls
Allen Bradley 8400
General Numeric (turned
into GE Fanuc)
Bendix 10
Dynapath Delta 20
Dynapath/Autocon Delta 40
Fagor 8010
Fagor 8020
Fagor 8055
Delem 65e (press brake
control)
Cybelec (press brake
control)
Machmotion
Bandit I
Bandit
Bandit III
Spindle Wizzard
Others
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PC Based CNC controls
cncthis
CNCZeus
Mach3
QuickCarve (authored)
PCNC
Indexer LPT
Turbocnc
Maxcam
Desk NC
CNC Pro
EMC
MillMaster Pro
TurnMaster Pro
MaxEngrave
DCX-CNC
DanCam
CNC-981
Others
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Servo, Stepper &
Spindle drives
Yaskawa
Mitsubishi
Protobyte
Control Techniques
Pacific Scientific
Servo Dynamics
Glentek
Getty’s
Sumit/Dana
Gecko drive
Danaher
Various servo valves
Lenze
Baldor
GPD
Hitachi
Automationdirect’s
GS drives
Others
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