Machsupport Forum
General CNC Chat => Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) => Topic started by: RICH on July 01, 2008, 10:04:26 PM
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This is a 38 year old Atlas Clausing Vertical Mill which I rebuilt and converted to CNC 4 years ago.
Six speed ranges / 24"x 6" table / 15" x 5.25" cross travel / MT 2 taper in spindle.
The guard is removed to show stepper mounting. A handle extension was made for the quick feed
( in-out to engage fine feed) and a 85 in oz stepper was mounted directly to the fine feed, thus total manual
operation is still available. Motor side of the x and y axis have double contact bearings in the bearing blocks
with a single contact bearing in the other bearing block. Nuts at handle ends provide for preloading adjustment of the bearings.
200 in oz Superior Electric steppers on the X and y axis. Three axis digital display along with an indicator for quill movement. Not much room for the ball nut as shown by the picture. Ball screws 16mm -5mm lead with adjustable ball nut by Techno Inc. A 1 HP DC motor with variable speed controller still waites for me to installation.
Overall dim of 36"x 40" x 70" provide for a nice homeshop mill.
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Nice Rich, Good job.
Brett
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I TOTALLY agree....Excellent Work.
Thanks RICH,
RC
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Very cool, Rich, thanks for sharing the pics - 8)
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Pic of the mill head modified such that the quill movement is done with a ball screw. Need to make a cover and reduce the 0.001" backlash.
RICH
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The mill served me well until I got into 3D miling and it just would not do the job.
So improvements to the mill were required.
I reworked the the X and Y bearing holders and installed new and better bearings, upgraded the stepper motors, and per
the last reply modified the head to use a ball screw to drive the Z axis.
What a difference to have no backlash and all the axis can now can do 80 ipm reliably.
I attached the old adapter plate for the high speed spindle and tested her out....machine worked like a charm.
RICH
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Rich, how fast can that high speed spindle go?
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The one pictured is 18000 rpm / 1/4 hp. The Dumore is 12000 rpm under load and also 1/4 hp. Have others that are air driven that go to 60,000 rpm.
The spindle holder gets up to around 105 F so maybe the spindle is around 110 to 115F after an hour of use.
May need to make a water cooling jacket or add air blowing on it since it will get somewhat warmer when cutting SS.
RICH
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Rich
Beautiful machine. You should be proud.
Eric
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Very useful and very flexible, and saves writing programs for odd jobs if you can still use the old handles. Well done :)
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The handles can still be used and manual operation of the quill is possible by a simple disconnect of the Z ball screw nut.
The only problem with the X &Y manual use is that you loose the feel since steppers are attached.
A problem with handles are they can become a safety problem since they turn when using the machine in cnc mode.
I need to modify their attachment to the screw so they can be free floating if desired.
RICH