The Moog Hydra-Point Retrofit Project

In May of 2002, I became the proud owner of a Moog Hydra-Point milling machine (see pics below).  This machine is essentially a Bridgeport milling machine (it actually says "Bridgeport" right on the head) that Moog added hydraulic controls for the X, Y, & Z axes as well as automated all the spindle controls and added a 24 tool changer.  It uses hydraulic actuators to provide the motion, controlled by air logic using solenoid valves to open and close ports to indicate distance to move.  My machine was made somewhere in the seventies and until last year was actively used in a production environment.

My intentions are to retrofit the machine with ball screws and servo motors.  I also will be running the machine from a computer (gotta get rid of the tape reader!) using EMC.  As the project progresses, I will update this page.

	Here you can see the side view of the machine.  The hydraulic power unit is at the front, the tape reader is a the back of the picture.  I have removed the covers from the head (so it would fit in the garage door).
	This is the front view of the head.  Behind the orange part is one of the two hydraulic actuators for the quill (they use one actuator for start depth and one for final depth).  The rest of the stuff is the spindle indexer, drawbar, speed changer, etc.  You can just see part of the tool changer arm to the left.
	Rear view of the head.  You can see one hydraulic actuator on the left side.  The multicoloured tubes are air lines for controlling the depth (they look like wires in the picture).
	Hydraulic power pack.  Basically just a 5 hp motor (575V, 3ph) that runs a gear pump (about 4 gal/min capacity, 1500psi).  There is a radiator on the front.  I have heard these things throw some heat...

Next Steps

Currently, I am clearing space in the shop where the mill will eventually reside.  After that, I'll get the hydraulic unit and tape reader disconnected from the mill and move it off the pallet.  Hopefully soon, I'll have some pics of the successful move (and not of two guys being crushed by the Moog -- orange crush?!?).