My Balding Beaver

[Hood]

Better explain the title first, it is a Beaver NC5 mill that was manufactured by Balding Engineering

I bought the mill from eBay, it cost me £208 and then a further £500 to get it transported from Wales up to Scotland. Originally it had a Heidenhain 145 control and Contraves DC servo drives and motors. There was a Z axis fault but a clean of the drive contacts sorted that out and I was able to test things out, all axis moved freely and rapids were 8m/min. Originally I had intended keeping the DC motors and drives but they whistled at a frequency that really annoyed me so they had to go. I sold the control and drives on eBay and got around £500 for them. I picked up some 1.5KW and 3KW AC Servos and drives from eBay  
 The cabinet that was on the Beaver was at the back and huge, it was far too big for the small workshop so I fitted the drives into one of the old cabinets I had from the Bridgeport and mounted it to the side, above that I fitted an electrical box which houses the computer and breakouts etc. I am using the pico motherboard, a SmoothStepper, a PMDX122 and and Acustep Breakout boards, a few relay circuits I bought and a few I made and finally a PLC. At the moment I am only using the analogue Inputs to the PLC, this will let me have load meters in Mach for all of my motors but future plans include a tool changer so I will need some of the inputs on the PLC for that.
 My workshop is cramped so the pics are not that great but heres some anyway. I am about a week away from getting it completed but afraid finding that weeks worth of time is a problem, maybe as the weather warms I will spend more time in the evening at the workshop.

Hood

[Hood]

The pics in the above post are the mill, the gearbox underside, the drawbar cylinder and the hydraulic cabinet which houses the intensifier for the drawbar. Below are a few pics of the 7KW AC servo I have fitted to the spindle and  the top cabinet .
Hood

[Hood]

And finally the lower cabinet that houses the three axis drives and at the bottom the spindle drive.
Hood

[Overloaded]

That is one good looking Beaver !
Will you be putting a servo on the knee ?
And for your load gauges and tool changer...is that just handshaking between Mach and the PLC or is there an interface like a ModIO or similar ?
Briefly picked up a little about it at the Expo.
Looking good Hood,
RC

[edvaness]

HOOD,

Good lookin Beaver you got there. Did you get a deal on red wire terminals?     cheaper in large quanitys ?
So when you starting on the enclosure? you don't have lots of room to be slinging chips around all over your clean floor. 

Lookin good Hood. keep up the good work.

Ed

[Hood]

That is one good looking Beaver !
Will you be putting a servo on the knee ?
And for your load gauges and tool changer...is that just handshaking between Mach and the PLC or is there an interface like a ModIO or similar ?
Briefly picked up a little about it at the Expo.
Looking good Hood,
RC

Thanks RC, always like getting complimented on my Beaver
At the moment there is an induction motor on the knee to raise and lower via a switch, future plans are to put a servo on it and use the knee for tool offsets and the quill for normal operations. The quill is over 30% bigger in Dia than the Bridgeport so I am thinking it should be sturdy enough
 The PLC has modbus so I will have a brain or macropump look at the inputs and write to the DRO for spindle load (and other axis loads )

Hood

[Hood]

Ed
 yep price was good on the terminals, then again you shouldnt really need to as ask I am Scottish
Not sure when I will do the enclosure, not even sure where the machine will end up, I am really struggling for room so might have to get rid of the CNC Bridgeport and manual Colchester sTUDENT lathe.
 Now your mention of a floor has just brought back memories, I am thinking there may well be one of them, or at least I have distant memories of such a thing when I moved in here a few years ago

Hood

[budman68]

struggling for room so might have to get rid of the CNC Bridgeport

Just send it over here when you get a moment.



Great looking Beaver pics, Hood, looks like a wiring nightmare to someone like me -

Be sure to let us know if you get some video of her showing off her Beaver skills -

Dave

[Hood]

struggling for room so might have to get rid of the CNC Bridgeport

Just send it over here when you get a moment.

Send the packing case and I will get it on its way

Great looking Beaver pics, Hood, looks like a wiring nightmare to someone like me -

Thats the good thing about doing the complete wiring from scratch, its much easier to do that as you can make it up as you go

Be sure to let us know if you get some video of her showing off her Beaver skills -

Dave

Sure will but dont be holding your breath or you may expire before its done

Hood

[budman68]

struggling for room so might have to get rid of the CNC Bridgeport

Just send it over here when you get a moment.

Send the packing case and I will get it on its way

I hear that Tyvek material is pretty strong, do you think Fed Ex would have a problem with a "mill-in-a-bag? 

Dave